Also by Robert Greene

Mastery
The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)
The 33 Strategies of War (a Joost Elffers Production)
The Art of Seduction (a Joost Elffers Production)
The 48 Laws of Power (a Joost Elffers Production)
 VIKING
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Copyright © 2018 by Robert Greene
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Version_1
To my mother
 Contents

Also by Robert Greene

Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction
1 Master Your Emotional Self
The Law of Irrationality
The Inner Athena
Step One: Recognize the Biases
Step Two: Beware the Inflaming Factors
Step Three: Strategies Toward Bringing Out the Rational Self
2 Transform Self-love into Empathy
The Law of Narcissism
The Narcissistic Spectrum
Examples of Narcissistic Types
3 See Through People’s Masks
The Law of Role-playing
The Second Language
Observational Skills
Decoding Keys
The Art of Impression Management
4 Determine the Strength of People’s Character
The Law of Compulsive Behavior
The Pattern
Character Signs
Toxic Types
The Superior Character
5 Become an Elusive Object of Desire
The Law of Covetousness
The Object of Desire
 Strategies for Stimulating Desire
The Supreme Desire
6 Elevate Your Perspective
The Law of Shortsightedness
Moments of Madness
Four Signs of Shortsightedness and Strategies to Overcome Them
The Farsighted Human
7 Soften People’s Resistance by Confirming Their Self-opinion
The Law of Defensiveness
The Influence Game
Five Strategies for Becoming a Master Persuader
The Flexible Mind—Self-strategies
8 Change Your Circumstances by Changing Your Attitude
The Law of Self-sabotage
The Ultimate Freedom
The Constricted (Negative) Attitude
The Expansive (Positive) Attitude
9 Confront Your Dark Side
The Law of Repression
The Dark Side
Deciphering the Shadow: Contradictory Behavior
The Integrated Human
10 Beware the Fragile Ego
The Law of Envy
Fatal Friends
Signs of Envy
Envier Types
Envy Triggers
Beyond Envy
11 Know Your Limits
The Law of Grandiosity
The Success Delusion
The Grandiose Leader
Practical Grandiosity
12 Reconnect to the Masculine or Feminine Within You
The Law of Gender Rigidity
 The Authentic Gender
Gender Projection—Types
The Original Man/Woman
13 Advance with a Sense of Purpose
The Law of Aimlessness
The Voice
Strategies for Developing a High Sense of Purpose
The Lure of False Purposes
14 Resist the Downward Pull of the Group
The Law of Conformity
An Experiment in Human Nature
The Court and Its Courtiers
The Reality Group
15 Make Them Want to Follow You
The Law of Fickleness
The Entitlement Curse
Strategies for Establishing Authority
The Inner Authority
16 See the Hostility Behind the Friendly Façade
The Law of Aggression
The Sophisticated Aggressor
The Source of Human Aggression
Passive Aggression—Its Strategies and How to Counter Them
Controlled Aggression
17 Seize the Historical Moment
The Law of Generational Myopia
The Rising Tide
The Generational Phenomenon
Generational Patterns
Strategies for Exploiting the Spirit of the Times
The Human Beyond Time and Death
18 Meditate on Our Common Mortality
The Law of Death Denial
The Bullet in the Side
A Philosophy of Life Through Death
Acknowledgments
Selected Bibliography
Index
About the Author
 Introduction
If you come across any special trait of meanness or
stupidity . . . you must be careful not to let it annoy or
distress you, but to look upon it merely as an addition to
your knowledge—a new fact to be considered in studying
the character of humanity. Your attitude towards it will be
that of the mineralogist who stumbles upon a very
characteristic specimen of a mineral.
—Arthur Schopenhauer

T hroughout the course of our lives, we inevitably have

to deal with a variety of individuals who stir up
trouble and make our lives difficult and unpleasant.
Some of these individuals are leaders or bosses, some are
colleagues, and some are friends. They can be aggressive
or passive-aggressive, but they are generally masters at
playing on our emotions. They often appear charming
and refreshingly confident, brimming with ideas and
enthusiasm, and we fall under their spell. Only when it is
too late do we discover that their confidence is irrational
and their ideas ill-conceived. Among colleagues, they can
be those who sabotage our work or careers out of secret
envy, excited to bring us down. Or they could be
colleagues or hires who reveal, to our dismay, that they
are completely out for themselves, using us as stepping-
stones.
What inevitably happens in these situations is that we
are caught off guard, not expecting such behavior. Often
these types will hit us with elaborate cover stories to
justify their actions, or blame handy scapegoats. They
know how to confuse us and draw us into a drama they
control. We might protest or become angry, but in the
end we feel rather helpless—the damage is done. Then
another such type enters our life, and the same story
repeats itself.
 We often notice a similar sensation of confusion and
helplessness when it comes to ourselves and our own
behavior. For instance, we suddenly say something that
offends our boss or colleague or friend—we are not quite
sure where it came from, but we are frustrated to find
that some anger and tension from within has leaked out
in a way that we regret. Or perhaps we enthusiastically
throw our weight into some project or scheme, only to
realize it was quite foolish and a terrible waste of time.
Or perhaps we fall in love with a person who is precisely
the wrong type for us and we know it, but we cannot help
ourselves. What has come over us, we wonder?
In these situations, we catch ourselves falling into
self-destructive patterns of behavior that we cannot seem
to control. It is as if we harbor a stranger within us, a
little demon who operates independently of our
willpower and pushes us into doing the wrong things.
And this stranger within us is rather weird, or at least
weirder than how we imagine ourselves.
What we can say about these two things—people’s
ugly actions and our own occasionally surprising
behavior—is that we usually have no clue as to what
causes them. We might latch onto some simple
explanations: “That person is evil, a sociopath” or
“Something came over me; I wasn’t myself.” But such pat
descriptions do not lead to any understanding or prevent
the same patterns from recurring. The truth is that we
humans live on the surface, reacting emotionally to what
people say and do. We form opinions of others and
ourselves that are rather simplified. We settle for the
easiest and most convenient story to tell ourselves.
What if, however, we could dive below the surface and
see deep within, getting closer to the actual roots of what
causes human behavior? What if we could understand
why some people turn envious and try to sabotage our
work, or why their misplaced confidence causes them to
imagine themselves as godlike and infallible? What if we
could truly fathom why people suddenly behave
irrationally and reveal a much darker side to their
character, or why they are always ready to provide a
rationalization for their behavior, or why we continually
turn to leaders who appeal to the worst in us? What if we
could look deep inside and judge people’s character,
avoiding the bad hires and personal relationships that
cause us so much emotional damage?
If we really understood the roots of human behavior,
it would be much harder for the more destructive types
to continually get away with their actions. We would not
be so easily charmed and misled. We would be able to
anticipate their nasty and manipulative maneuvers and
see through their cover stories. We would not allow
ourselves to get dragged into their dramas, knowing in
advance that our interest is what they depend on for
their control. We would finally rob them of their power
through our ability to look into the depths of their
character.
Similarly, with ourselves, what if we could look within
and see the source of our more troubling emotions and
why they drive our behavior, often against our own
wishes? What if we could understand why we are so
compelled to desire what other people have, or to
identify so strongly with a group that we feel contempt
for those who are on the outside? What if we could find
out what causes us to lie about who we are, or to
inadvertently push people away?
Being able to understand more clearly that stranger
within us would help us to realize that it is not a stranger
at all but very much a part of ourselves, and that we are
far more mysterious, complex, and interesting than we
had imagined. And with that awareness we would be able
to break the negative patterns in our lives, stop making
excuses for ourselves, and gain better control of what we
do and what happens to us.
 Having such clarity about ourselves and others could
change the course of our lives in so many ways, but first
we must clear up a common misconception: we tend to
think of our behavior as largely conscious and willed. To
imagine that we are not always in control of what we do
is a frightening thought, but in fact it is the reality. We
are subject to forces from deep within us that drive our
behavior and that operate below the level of our
awareness. We see the results—our thoughts, moods, and
actions—but have little conscious access to what actually
moves our emotions and compels us to behave in certain
ways.
Look at our anger, for instance. We usually identify an
individual or a group as the cause of this emotion. But if
we were honest and dug down deeper, we would see that
what often triggers our anger or frustration has deeper
roots. It could be something in our childhood or some
particular set of circumstances that triggers the emotion.
We can discern distinct patterns if we look—when this or
that happens, we get angry. But in the moment that we
feel anger, we are not reflective or rational—we merely
ride the emotion and point fingers. We could say
something similar about a whole slew of emotions that
we feel—specific types of events trigger sudden
confidence, or insecurity, or anxiety, or attraction to a
particular person, or hunger for attention.
Let us call the collection of these forces that push and
pull at us from deep within human nature. Human
nature stems from the particular wiring of our brains,
the configuration of our nervous system, and the way we
humans process emotions, all of which developed and
emerged over the course of the five million years or so of
our evolution as a species. We can ascribe many of the
details of our nature to the distinct way we evolved as a
social animal to ensure our survival—learning to
cooperate with others, coordinating our actions with the
group on a high level, creating novel forms of
communication and ways of maintaining group
discipline. This early development lives on within us and
continues to determine our behavior, even in the
modern, sophisticated world we live in.
To take one example, look at the evolution of human
emotion. The survival of our earliest ancestors depended
on their ability to communicate with one another well
before the invention of language. They evolved new and
complex emotions—joy, shame, gratitude, jealousy,
resentment, et cetera. The signs of these emotions could
be read immediately on their faces, communicating their
moods quickly and effectively. They became extremely
permeable to the emotions of others as a way to bind the
group more tightly together—to feel joy or grief as one—
or to remain united in the face of danger.
To this day, we humans remain highly susceptible to
the moods and emotions of those around us, compelling
all kinds of behavior on our part—unconsciously
imitating others, wanting what they have, getting swept
up in viral feelings of anger or outrage. We imagine we’re
acting of our own free will, unaware of how deeply our
susceptibility to the emotions of others in the group is
affecting what we do and how we respond.
We can point to other such forces that emerged from
this deep past and that similarly mold our everyday
behavior—for instance, our need to continually rank
ourselves and measure our self-worth through our status
is a trait that is noticeable among all hunter-gatherer
cultures, and even among chimpanzees, as are our tribal
instincts, which cause us to divide people into insiders or
outsiders. We can add to these primitive qualities our
need to wear masks to disguise any behavior that is
frowned upon by the tribe, leading to the formation of a
shadow personality from all the dark desires we have
repressed. Our ancestors understood this shadow and its
dangerousness, imagining it originated from spirits and
demons that needed to be exorcised. We rely on a
different myth—“something came over me.”
Once this primal current or force within us reaches
the level of consciousness, we have to react to it, and we
do so depending on our individual spirit and
circumstances, usually explaining it away superficially
without really understanding it. Because of the precise
way in which we evolved, there are a limited number of
these forces of human nature, and they lead to the
behavior mentioned above—envy, grandiosity,
irrationality, shortsightedness, conformity, aggression,
and passive aggression, to name a few. They also lead to
empathy and other positive forms of human behavior.
For thousands of years, it has been our fate to largely
grope in the shadows when it comes to understanding
ourselves and our own nature. We have labored under so
many illusions about the human animal—imagining we
descended magically from a divine source, from angels
instead of primates. We have found any signs of our
primitive nature and our animal roots deeply distressing,
something to deny and repress. We have covered up our
darker impulses with all kinds of excuses and
rationalizations, making it easier for some people to get
away with the most unpleasant behavior. But finally
we’re at a point where we can overcome our resistance to
the truth about who we are through the sheer weight of
knowledge we have now accumulated about human
nature.
We can exploit the vast literature in psychology
amassed over the last one hundred years, including
detailed studies of childhood and the impact of our early
development (Melanie Klein, John Bowlby, Donald
Winnicott), as well as works on the roots of narcissism
(Heinz Kohut), the shadow sides of our personality (Carl
Jung), the roots of our empathy (Simon Baron-Cohen),
and the configuration of our emotions (Paul Ekman). We
can now cull the many advances in the sciences that can
aid us in our self-understanding—studies of the brain
(Antonio Damasio, Joseph E. LeDoux), of our unique
biological makeup (Edward O. Wilson), of the
relationship between the body and the mind (V. S.
Ramachandran), of primates (Frans de Waal) and
hunter-gatherers (Jared Diamond), of our economic
behavior (Daniel Kahneman), and of how we operate in
groups (Wilfred Bion, Elliot Aronson).
We can also include in this the works of certain
philosophers (Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich
Nietzsche, José Ortega y Gasset) who have illuminated so
many aspects of human nature, as well as the insights of
many novelists (George Eliot, Henry James, Ralph
Ellison), who are often the most sensitive to the unseen
parts of our behavior. And finally, we can include the
rapidly expanding library of biographies now available,
revealing human nature in depth and in action.
This book is an attempt to gather together this
immense storehouse of knowledge and ideas from
different branches (see the bibliography for the key
sources), to piece together an accurate and instructive
guide to human nature, basing itself on the evidence, not
on particular viewpoints or moral judgments. It is a
brutally realistic appraisal of our species, dissecting who
we are so we can operate with more awareness.
Consider The Laws of Human Nature a kind of
codebook for deciphering people’s behavior—ordinary,
strange, destructive, the full gamut. Each chapter deals
with a particular aspect or law of human nature. We can
call them laws in that under the influence of these
elemental forces, we humans tend to react in relatively
predictable ways. Each chapter has the story of some
iconic individual or individuals who illustrate the law
(negatively or positively), along with ideas and strategies
on how to deal with yourself and others under the
influence of this law. Each chapter ends with a section on
how to transform this basic human force into something
more positive and productive, so that we are no longer
passive slaves to human nature but actively transforming
it.
You might be tempted to imagine that this knowledge
is a bit old-fashioned. After all, you might argue, we are
now so sophisticated and technologically advanced, so
progressive and enlightened; we have moved well beyond
our primitive roots; we are in the process of rewriting
our nature. But the truth is in fact the opposite—we have
never been more in the thrall of human nature and its
destructive potential than now. And by ignoring this fact,
we are playing with fire.
Look at how the permeability of our emotions has
only been heightened through social media, where viral
effects are continually sweeping through us and where
the most manipulative leaders are able to exploit and
control us. Look at the aggression that is now openly
displayed in the virtual world, where it is so much easier
to play out our shadow sides without repercussions.
Notice how our propensities to compare ourselves with
others, to feel envy, and to seek status through attention
have only become intensified with our ability to
communicate so quickly with so many people. And
finally, look at our tribal tendencies and how they have
now found the perfect medium to operate in—we can
find a group to identify with, reinforce our tribal
opinions in a virtual echo chamber, and demonize any
outsiders, leading to mob intimidation. The potential for
mayhem stemming from the primitive side of our nature
has only increased.
It is simple: Human nature is stronger than any
individual, than any institution or technological
invention. It ends up shaping what we create to reflect
itself and its primitive roots. It moves us around like
pawns.
Ignore the laws at your own peril. Refusing to come to
terms with human nature simply means that you are
dooming yourself to patterns beyond your control and to
feelings of confusion and helplessness.

—
The Laws of Human Nature is designed to immerse you
in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root
causes. If you let it guide you, it will radically alter how
you perceive people and your entire approach to dealing
with them. It will also radically change how you see
yourself. It will accomplish these shifts in perspective in
the following ways:
First, the Laws will work to transform you into a
calmer and more strategic observer of people, helping
to free you from all the emotional drama that needlessly
drains you.
Being around people stirs up our anxieties and
insecurities as to how others perceive us. Once we feel
such emotions, it becomes very hard to observe people as
we are drawn into our own feelings, evaluating what
people say and do in personal terms—do they like me or
dislike me? The Laws will help you avoid falling into this
trap by revealing that people are generally dealing with
emotions and issues that have deep roots. They’re
experiencing some desires and disappointments that
predate you by years and decades. You cross their path at
a particular moment and become the convenient target
of their anger or frustration. They’re projecting onto you
certain qualities they want to see. In most cases, they’re
not relating to you as an individual.
This should not upset you but liberate you. The book
will teach you to stop taking personally their insinuating
comments, shows of coldness, or moments of irritation.
The more you grasp this, the easier it will be to react not
with your emotions but rather with the desire to
understand where their behavior might come from. You
will feel much calmer in the process. And as this takes
root in you, you will be less prone to moralize and judge
people; instead you will accept them and their flaws as
part of human nature. People will like you all the more as
they sense this tolerant attitude in you.
Second, the Laws will make you a master interpreter
of the cues that people continually emit, giving you a
much greater ability to judge their character.
Normally, if we pay attention to people’s behavior, we
are in a rush to fit their actions into categories and to
hurry to conclusions, so we settle for the judgment that
suits our own preconceptions. Or we accept their self-
serving explanations. The Laws will rid you of this habit
by making it clear how easy it is to misread people and
how deceptive first impressions can be. You will slow
yourself down, mistrust your initial judgment, and
instead train yourself to analyze what you see.
You will think in terms of opposites—when people
overtly display some trait, such as confidence or
hypermasculinity, they are most often concealing the
contrary reality. You will realize that people are
continually playing to the public, making a show of being
progressive and saintly only to better disguise their
shadow. You will see the signs of this shadow leaking out
in everyday life. If people take an action that seems out
of character, you will take note: what often appears out
of character is actually more of their true character. If
people are essentially lazy or foolish, they leave clues to
this in the smallest of details that you can pick up well
before their behavior harms you. The ability to gauge
people’s true worth, their degree of loyalty and
conscientiousness, is one of the most important skills
you can possess, helping you avoid the bad hires,
partnerships, and relationships that can make your life
miserable.
Third, the Laws will empower you to take on and
outthink the toxic types who inevitably cross your path
and who tend to cause long-term emotional damage.
Aggressive, envious, and manipulative people don’t
usually announce themselves as such. They have learned
to appear charming in initial encounters, to use flattery
and other means of disarming us. When they surprise us
with their ugly behavior, we feel betrayed, angry, and
helpless. They create constant pressure, knowing that in
doing so they overwhelm our minds with their presence,
making it doubly hard to think straight or strategize.
The Laws will teach you how to identify these types in
advance, which is your greatest defense against them.
Either you will steer clear of them or, foreseeing their
manipulative actions, you will not be blindsided and thus
will be better able to maintain your emotional balance.
You will learn to mentally cut them down to size and
focus on the glaring weaknesses and insecurities behind
all of their bluster. You will not fall for their myth, and
this will neutralize the intimidation they depend on. You
will scoff at their cover stories and elaborate
explanations for their selfish behavior. Your ability to
stay calm will infuriate them and often push them into
overreaching or making a mistake.
Instead of being weighed down by these encounters,
you might even come to appreciate them as a chance to
hone your skills of self-mastery and toughen yourself up.
Outsmarting just one of these types will give you a great
deal of confidence that you can handle the worst in
human nature.
Fourth, the Laws will teach you the true levers for
motivating and influencing people, making your path in
life that much easier.
Normally, when we meet resistance to our ideas or
plans, we cannot help trying to directly change people’s
minds by arguing, lecturing, or cajoling them, all of
which makes them more defensive. The Laws will teach
you that people are naturally stubborn and resistant to
influence. You must begin any attempt by lowering their
resistance and never inadvertently feeding their
defensive tendencies. You will train yourself to discern
their insecurities and never inadvertently stir them up.
You will think in terms of their self-interest and the self-
opinion they need validated.
Understanding the permeability of emotions, you will
learn that the most effective means of influence is to alter
your moods and attitude. People are responding to your
energy and demeanor even more than to your words.
You will get rid of any defensiveness on your part.
Instead, feeling relaxed and genuinely interested in the
other person will have a positive and hypnotic effect. You
will learn that as a leader your best means of moving
people in your direction lies in setting the right tone
through your attitude, empathy, and work ethic.
Fifth, the Laws will make you realize how deeply the
forces of human nature operate within you, giving you
the power to alter your own negative patterns.
Our natural response to reading or hearing about the
darker qualities in human nature is to exclude ourselves.
It is always the other person who is narcissistic,
irrational, envious, grandiose, aggressive, or passive-
aggressive. We almost always see ourselves as having the
best intentions. If we go astray, it is the fault of
circumstances or people forcing us to react negatively.
The Laws will make you stop once and for all this self-
deluding process. We are all cut from the same cloth, and
we all share the same tendencies. The sooner you realize
this, the greater your power will be in overcoming these
potential negative traits within you. You will examine
your own motives, look at your own shadow, and become
aware of your own passive-aggressive tendencies. This
will make it that much easier to spot such traits in
others.
You will also become humbler, realizing you’re not
superior to others in the way you had imagined. This will
not make you feel guilty or weighed down by your self-
awareness, but quite the opposite. You will accept
yourself as a complete individual, embracing both the
good and the bad, dropping your falsified self-image as a
saint. You will feel relieved of your hypocrisies and free
to be more yourself. People will be drawn to this quality
in you.
Sixth, the Laws will transform you into a more
empathetic individual, creating deeper and more
satisfying bonds with the people around you.
We humans are born with a tremendous potential for
understanding people on a level that is not merely
intellectual. It is a power developed by our earliest
ancestors, in which they learned how to intuit the moods
and feelings of others by placing themselves in their
perspective.
The Laws will instruct you in how to bring out this
latent power to the highest degree possible. You will
learn to slowly cut off your incessant interior monologue
and listen more closely. You will train yourself to assume
the other’s viewpoint as best you can. You will use your
imagination and experiences to help you feel how they
might feel. If they are describing something painful, you
have your own painful moments to draw upon as
analogues. You will not be simply intuitive, but rather
you will analyze the information you glean in this
empathic fashion, gaining insights. You will continually
cycle between empathy and analysis, always updating
what you observe and increasing your ability to see the
world through their eyes. You will notice a physical
sensation of connection between you and the other that
will emerge from this practice.
You will need a degree of humility in this process. You
can never know exactly what people are thinking and can
easily make mistakes, and so you must not rush to
judgments but keep yourself open to learning more.
People are more complex than you imagine. Your goal is
to simply see their point of view better. As you go
through this process, it becomes like a muscle that gets
stronger the more you exercise it.
Cultivating such empathy will have innumerable
benefits. We are all self-absorbed, locked in our own
worlds. It is a therapeutic and liberating experience to be
drawn outside ourselves and into the world of another. It
is what attracts us to film and any form of fiction,
entering the minds and perspectives of people so
different from ourselves. Through this practice your
whole way of thinking will shift. You are training yourself
to let go of preconceptions, to be alive in the moment,
and to continually adapt your ideas about people. You
will find such fluidity affecting how you attack problems
in general—you will find yourself entertaining other
possibilities, taking alternative perspectives. This is the
essence of creative thinking.
Finally, the Laws will alter how you see your own
potential, making you aware of a higher, ideal self
within you that you will want to bring out.
We can say that we humans have two contrary selves
within us—a lower and a higher. The lower tends to be
stronger. Its impulses pull us down into emotional
reactions and defensive postures, making us feel self-
righteous and superior to others. It makes us grab for
immediate pleasures and distractions, always taking the
path of least resistance. It induces us to adopt what other
people are thinking, losing ourselves in the group.
We feel the impulses of the higher self when we are
drawn out of ourselves, wanting to connect more deeply
with others, to absorb our minds in our work, to think
instead of react, to follow our own path in life, and to
discover what makes us unique. The lower is the more
animal and reactive side of our nature, and one that we
easily slip into. The higher is the more truly human side
of our nature, the side that makes us thoughtful and self-
aware. Because the higher impulse is weaker, connecting
to it requires effort and insight.
Bringing out this ideal self within us is what we all
really want, because it is only in developing this side of
ourselves that we humans feel truly fulfilled. The book
will help you accomplish this by making you aware of the
potentially positive and active elements contained within
each law.
Knowing our propensity for irrationality, you will
learn to become aware of how your emotions color your
thinking (chapter 1), giving you the ability to subtract
them and become truly rational. Knowing how our
attitude in life effects what happens to us, and how
naturally our minds tend to close up out of fear (chapter
8), you will learn how to forge an attitude that is
expansive and fearless. Knowing you have the propensity
to compare yourself with others (chapter 10), you will
use this as a spur to excel in society through your
superior work, to admire those who achieve great things,
and to be inspired by their example to emulate them.
You will work this magic on each of the primal qualities,
using your expanded knowledge of human nature to
resist the strong downward pull of your lower nature.
Think of the book in the following way: you are about
to become an apprentice in human nature. You will be
developing some skills—how to observe and measure the
character of your fellow humans and see into your own
depths. You will work on bringing out your higher self.
And through practice you will emerge a master of the art,
able to thwart the worst that other people can throw at
you and to mold yourself into a more rational, self-
aware, and productive individual.
Man will only become better when you make him see what
he is like.
—Anton Chekhov
 1

Master Your Emotional

Self

The Law of Irrationality

Y ou like to imagine yourself in control of your fate,

consciously planning the course of your life as best you
can. But you are largely unaware of how deeply your
emotions dominate you. They make you veer toward ideas
that soothe your ego. They make you look for evidence that
confirms what you already want to believe. They make
you see what you want to see, depending on your mood,
and this disconnect from reality is the source of the bad
decisions and negative patterns that haunt your life.
Rationality is the ability to counteract these emotional
effects, to think instead of react, to open your mind to what
is really happening, as opposed to what you are feeling. It
does not come naturally; it is a power we must cultivate,
but in doing so we realize our greatest potential.

The Inner Athena

One day toward the end of the year 432 BC, the citizens of
Athens received some very disturbing news: representatives
from the city-state of Sparta had arrived in town and
presented to the Athenian governing council new terms of
peace. If Athens did not agree to these terms, then Sparta
would declare war. Sparta was Athens’s archenemy and in
many ways its polar opposite. Athens led a league of
democratic states in the region, while Sparta led a
confederation of oligarchies, known as the Peloponnesians.
Athens depended on its navy and on its wealth—it was the
preeminent commercial power in the Mediterranean.
Sparta depended on its army. It was a total military state.
Up until then, the two powers had largely avoided a direct
war because the consequences could be devastating—not
only could the defeated side lose its influence in the region,
but its whole way of life could be put in jeopardy—certainly
for Athens its democracy and its wealth. Now, however, war
seemed inevitable and a sense of impending doom quickly
settled on the city.
A few days later, the Athenian Assembly met on the Pnyx
Hill overlooking the Acropolis to debate the Spartan
ultimatum and decide what to do. The Assembly was open
to all male citizens, and on that day close to ten thousand of
them crowded on the hill to participate in the debate. The
hawks among them were in a state of great agitation—
Athens should seize the initiative and attack Sparta first,
they said. Others reminded them that in a land battle the
Spartan forces were nearly unbeatable. Attacking Sparta in
this way would play straight into their hands. The doves
were all in favor of accepting the peace terms, but as many
pointed out, that would only show fear and embolden the
Spartans. It would only give them more time to enlarge
their army. Back and forth went the debate, with emotions
getting heated, people shouting, and no satisfactory
solution in sight.
Then toward the end of the afternoon, the crowd
suddenly grew quiet as a familiar figure stepped forward to
address the Assembly. This was Pericles, the elder
statesman of Athenian politics, now over sixty years old.
Pericles was beloved, and his opinion would matter more
than anyone’s, but despite the Athenians’ respect for him,
they found him a very peculiar leader—more of a
philosopher than a politician. To those old enough to
remember the start of his career, it was truly surprising how
powerful and successful he had become. He did nothing the
usual way.
In the earliest years of their democracy, before Pericles
had appeared on the scene, the Athenians had preferred a
certain personality type in their leaders—men who could
give an inspiring, persuasive speech and had a flair for
drama. On the battlefield these men were risk takers; they
often pushed for military campaigns that they could lead,
giving them a chance to gain glory and attention. They
advanced their careers by representing some faction in the
Assembly—landowners, soldiers, aristocrats—and doing
everything they could to further its interests. This led to
highly divisive politics. Leaders would rise and fall in cycles
of a few years, but the Athenians were fine with this; they
mistrusted anyone who lasted long in power.
Then Pericles entered public life around 463 BC, and
Athenian politics would never be the same. His first move
was the most unusual of all. Although he came from an
illustrious aristocratic family, he allied himself with the
growing lower and middle classes of the city—farmers,
oarsmen in the navy, the craftsmen who were the pride of
Athens. He worked to increase their voice in the Assembly
and give them greater power in the democracy. This was
not some small faction he now led but the majority of
Athenian citizens. It would seem impossible to control such
a large, unruly mob of men, with their varied interests, but
he was so fervent in increasing their power that he slowly
gained their trust and backing.
As his influence grew, he started to assert himself in the
Assembly and alter its policies. He argued against
expanding Athens’s democratic empire. He feared the
Athenians would overreach and lose control. He worked to
consolidate the empire and strengthen existing alliances.
When it came to war and to serving as a general, he strove
to limit campaigns and to win through maneuvers, with
minimal loss of lives. To many this seemed unheroic, but as
these policies took effect, the city entered a period of
unprecedented prosperity. There were no more needless
wars to drain the coffers, and the empire was functioning
more smoothly than ever.
What Pericles did with the growing surplus of money
startled and amazed the citizenry: instead of using it to buy
political favors, he initiated a massive public building
project in Athens. He commissioned temples, theaters, and
concert halls, putting all of the Athenian craftsmen to work.
Everywhere one looked, the city was becoming more
sublimely beautiful. He favored a form of architecture that
reflected his personal aesthetics—ordered, highly
geometric, monumental yet soothing to the eye. His
greatest commission was that of the Parthenon, with its
enormous forty-foot statue of Athena. Athena was the
guiding spirit of Athens, the goddess of wisdom and
practical intelligence. She represented all of the values
Pericles wanted to promote. Singlehandedly Pericles had
transformed the look and spirit of Athens, and it entered a
golden age in all of the arts and sciences.
What was perhaps the strangest quality of Pericles was
his speaking style—restrained and dignified. He did not go
in for the usual flights of rhetoric. Instead, he worked to
convince an audience through airtight arguments. This
would make people listen closely, as they followed the
interesting course of his logic. The style was compelling and
calming.
Unlike any of the other leaders, Pericles remained in
power year after year, decade after decade, putting his total
stamp on the city in his quiet, unobtrusive way. He had his
enemies. This was inevitable. He had stayed in power so
long that many accused him of being a secret dictator. He
was suspected of being an atheist, a man who scoffed at all
traditions. That would explain why he was so peculiar. But
nobody could argue against the results of his leadership.
And so now, as he began to address the Assembly that
afternoon, his opinion on war with Sparta would carry the
most weight, and a hush came over the crowd as they
anxiously waited to hear his argument.
“Athenians,” he began, “my views are the same as ever: I
am against making any concessions to the Peloponnesians,
even though I am aware that the enthusiastic state of mind
in which people are persuaded to enter upon a war is not
retained when it comes to action, and that people’s minds
are altered by the course of events.” Differences between
Athens and Sparta were supposed to be settled through
neutral arbitrators, he reminded them. It would set a
dangerous precedent if they gave in to the Spartans’
unilateral demands. Where would it end? Yes, a direct land
battle with Sparta would be suicide. What he proposed
instead was a completely novel form of warfare—limited
and defensive.
He would bring within the walls of Athens all those
living in the area. Let the Spartans come and try to lure us
into fighting, he said; let them lay waste to our lands. We
will not take the bait; we will not fight them on land. With
our access to the sea we will keep the city supplied. We will
use our navy to raid their coastal towns. As time goes on,
they will grow frustrated by the lack of battle. Having to
feed and supply their standing army, they will run out of
money. Their allies will bicker among themselves. The war
party within Sparta will be discredited and a real lasting
peace will be agreed upon, all with minimal expenditure of
lives and money on our part.
“I could give you many other reasons,” he concluded,
“why you should feel confident in ultimate victory, if only
you will make up your minds not to add to the empire while
the war is in progress, and not to go out of your way to
involve yourselves in new perils. What I fear is not the
enemy’s strategy but our own mistakes.” The novelty of
what he was proposing aroused great debate. Neither hawks
nor doves were satisfied with his plan, but in the end, his
reputation for wisdom carried the day and his strategy was
approved. Several months later the fateful war began.
In the beginning, all did not proceed as Pericles had
envisioned. The Spartans and their allies did not grow
frustrated as the war dragged on, but only bolder. The
Athenians were the ones to become discouraged, seeing
their lands destroyed without retaliation. But Pericles
believed his plan could not fail as long as the Athenians
remained patient. Then, in the second year of the war, an
unexpected disaster upended everything: a powerful plague
entered the city; with so many people packed within the
walls it spread quickly, killing over one third of the citizenry
and decimating the ranks of the army. Pericles himself
caught the disease, and as he lay dying he witnessed the
ultimate nightmare: all that he had done for Athens over so
many decades seemed to unravel at once, the people
descending into group delirium until it was every man for
himself. If he had survived, he almost certainly would have
found a way to calm the Athenians down and broker an
acceptable peace with Sparta, or adjust his defensive
strategy, but now it was too late.
Strangely enough, the Athenians did not mourn for their
leader. They blamed him for the plague and railed at the
ineffectiveness of his strategy. They were not in a mood
anymore for patience or restraint. He had outlived his time,
and his ideas were now seen as the tired reactions of an old
man. Their love of Pericles had turned to hate. With him no
longer there, the factions returned with a vengeance. The
war party became popular. The party fed off the people’s
growing bitterness toward the Spartans, who had used the
plague to advance their positions. The hawks promised they
would regain the initiative and crush the Spartans with an
offensive strategy. For many Athenians, such words came
as a great relief, a release of pent-up emotions.
As the city slowly recovered from the plague, the
Athenians managed to gain the upper hand, and the
Spartans sued for peace. Wanting to completely defeat their
enemy, the Athenians pressed their advantage, only to find
the Spartans recover and turn the tables. Back and forth it
went, year after year. The violence and bitterness on both
sides increased. At one point Athens attacked the island of
Melos, a Spartan ally, and when the Melians surrendered,
the Athenians voted to kill all of their men and sell the
women and children into slavery. Nothing remotely like this
had ever happened under Pericles.
Then, after so many years of a war without end, in 415
BC several Athenian leaders had an interesting idea about
how to deliver the fatal blow. The city-state of Syracuse was
the rising power on the island of Sicily. Syracuse was a
critical ally of the Spartans, supplying them with much-
needed resources. If the Athenians, with their great navy,
could launch an expedition and take control of Syracuse,
they would gain two advantages: it would add to their
empire, and it would deprive Sparta of the resources it
needed to continue the war. The Assembly voted to send
sixty ships with an appropriate-sized army on board to
accomplish this goal.
One of the commanders assigned to this expedition,
Nicias, had great doubts as to the wisdom of this plan. He
feared the Athenians were underestimating the strength of
Syracuse. He laid out all of the possible negative scenarios;
only a much larger expedition could ensure victory. He
wanted to squelch the plan, but his argument had the
opposite effect. If a larger expedition was necessary, then
that was what they would send—one hundred ships and
double the number of soldiers. The Athenians smelled
victory in this strategy and nothing would deter them.
In the ensuing days, Athenians of all ages could be seen
in the streets drawing maps of Sicily, dreaming of the riches
that would pour into Athens and the final humiliation of the
Spartans. The day of the launching of the ships turned into
a great holiday and the most awe-inspiring spectacle they
had ever seen—an enormous armada filling the harbor as
far as the eye could see, the ships beautifully decorated, the
soldiers, glistening in their armor, crowding the decks. It
was a dazzling display of the wealth and power of Athens.
As the months went by, the Athenians desperately
sought news of the expedition. At one point, through the
sheer size of the force, it seemed that Athens had gained the
advantage and had laid siege to Syracuse. But at the last
moment, reinforcements arrived from Sparta, and now the
Athenians were on the defensive. Nicias sent off a letter to
the Assembly describing this negative turn of events. He
recommended either giving up and returning to Athens, or
the sending of reinforcements right away. Unwilling to
believe in the possibility of defeat, the Athenians voted to
send reinforcements—a second armada of ships almost as
large as the first. In the months after this, the Athenians’
anxiety reached new heights—for now the stakes had been
doubled and Athens could not afford to lose.
 One day a barber in Athens’s port town of Piraeus heard
a rumor from a customer that the Athenian expedition,
every ship and almost every man, had been wiped out in
battle. The rumor quickly spread to Athens. It was hard to
believe, but slowly panic set in. A week later the rumor was
confirmed and Athens seemed doomed, drained of money,
ships, and men.
Miraculously, the Athenians managed to hold on. But
over the next few years, severely imbalanced by the losses
in Sicily, they staggered from one reeling blow to another,
until finally in 405 BC Athens suffered its final loss and was
forced to agree to the harsh terms of peace imposed by
Sparta. Their years of glory, their great democratic empire,
the Periclean golden age were now and forever over. The
man who had curbed their most dangerous emotions—
aggression, greed, hubris, selfishness—had been gone from
the scene for too long, his wisdom long forgotten.

• • •
Interpretation: As Pericles surveyed the political scene
early in his career, he noticed the following phenomenon:
Every Athenian political figure believed he was rational,
had realistic goals, and plans on how to get there. They all
worked hard for their political factions and tried to increase
their power. They led Athenian armies into battle and often
came out ahead. They strove to expand the empire and
bring in more money. And when their political
maneuvering suddenly backfired, or the wars turned out
badly, they had excellent reasons for why this had
happened. They could always blame the opposition or, if
need be, the gods. And yet, if all these men were so rational,
why did their policies add up to so much chaos and self-
destructiveness? Why was Athens such a mess and the
democracy itself so fragile? Why was there so much
corruption and turbulence? The answer was simple: his
fellow Athenians were not rational at all, merely selfish and
shrewd. What guided their decisions was their base
emotions—hunger for power, attention, and money. And for
those purposes they could be very tactical and clever, but
none of their maneuvers led to anything that lasted or
served the overall interests of the democracy.
What consumed Pericles as a thinker and a public figure
was how to get out of this trap, how to be truly rational in
an arena dominated by emotions. The solution he came up
with is unique in history and devastatingly powerful in its
results. It should serve as our ideal. In his conception, the
human mind has to worship something, has to have its
attention directed to something it values above all else. For
most people, it is their ego; for some it is their family, their
clan, their god, or their nation. For Pericles it would be
nous, the ancient Greek word for “mind” or “intelligence.”
Nous is a force that permeates the universe, creating
meaning and order. The human mind is naturally attracted
to this order; this is the source of our intelligence. For
Pericles, the nous that he worshipped was embodied in the
figure of the goddess Athena.
Athena was literally born from the head of Zeus, her
name itself reflecting this—a combination of “god” (theos)
and “mind” (nous). But Athena came to represent a very
particular form of nous—eminently practical, feminine, and
earthy. She is the voice that comes to heroes in times of
need, instilling in them a calm spirit, orienting their minds
toward the perfect idea for victory and success, then giving
them the energy to achieve this. To be visited by Athena was
the highest blessing of them all, and it was her spirit that
guided great generals and the best artists, inventors, and
tradesmen. Under her influence, a man or woman could see
the world with perfect clarity and hit upon the action that
was just right for the moment. For Athens, her spirit was
invoked to unify the city, make it prosperous and
productive. In essence, Athena stood for rationality, the
greatest gift of the gods to mortals, for it alone could make a
human act with divine wisdom.
To cultivate his inner Athena, Pericles first had to find a
way to master his emotions. Emotions turn us inward, away
from nous, away from reality. We dwell on our anger or our
insecurities. If we look out at the world and try to solve
problems, we see things through the lens of these emotions;
they cloud our vision. Pericles trained himself to never react
in the moment, to never make a decision while under the
influence of a strong emotion. Instead, he analyzed his
feelings. Usually when he looked closely at his insecurities
or his anger, he saw that they were not really justified, and
they lost their significance under scrutiny. Sometimes he
had to physically get away from the heated Assembly and
retire to his house, where he remained alone for days on
end, calming himself down. Slowly, the voice of Athena
would come to him.
He decided to base all of his political decisions on one
thing—what actually served the greater good of Athens. His
goal was to unify the citizenry through genuine love of
democracy and belief in the superiority of the Athenian
way. Having such a standard helped him avoid the ego trap.
It impelled him to work to increase the participation and
power of the lower and middle classes, even though such a
strategy could easily turn against him. It inspired him to
limit wars, even though this meant less personal glory for
him. And finally it led to his greatest decision of all—the
public works project that transformed Athens.
To help himself in this deliberative process, he opened
his mind to as many ideas and options as possible, even to
those of his opponents. He imagined all of the possible
consequences of a strategy before committing to it. With a
calm spirit and an open mind, he hit upon policies that
sparked one of the true golden ages in history. One man
was able to infect an entire city with his rational spirit.
What happened to Athens after he departed from the scene
speaks for itself. The Sicilian expedition represented
everything he had always opposed—a decision secretly
motivated by the desire to grab more land, blinded to its
potential consequences.
Understand: Like everyone, you think you are rational,
but you are not. Rationality is not a power you are born
with but one you acquire through training and practice. The
voice of Athena simply stands for a higher power that exists
within you right now, a potential you have perhaps felt in
moments of calmness and focus, the perfect idea coming to
you after much thinking. You are not connected to this
higher power in the present because your mind is weighed
down with emotions. Like Pericles in the Assembly, you are
infected by all of the drama that others churn up; you are
continually reacting to what people give you, experiencing
waves of excitement, insecurity, and anxiety that make it
hard to focus. Your attention is pulled this way and that,
and without the rational standard to guide your decisions,
you never quite reach the goals that you set. At any moment
this can change with a simple decision—to cultivate your
inner Athena. Rationality is then what you will value the
most and that which will serve as your guide.
Your first task is to look at those emotions that are
continually infecting your ideas and decisions. Learn to
question yourself: Why this anger or resentment? Where
does this incessant need for attention come from? Under
such scrutiny, your emotions will lose their hold on you.
You will begin to think for yourself instead of reacting to
what others give you. Emotions tend to narrow the mind,
making us focus on one or two ideas that satisfy our
immediate desire for power or attention, ideas that usually
backfire. Now, with a calm spirit, you can entertain a wide
range of options and solutions. You will deliberate longer
before acting and reassess your strategies. The voice will
become clearer and clearer. When people besiege you with
their endless dramas and petty emotions, you will resent
the distraction and apply your rationality to think past
them. Like an athlete continually getting stronger through
training, your mind will become more flexible and resilient.
Clear and calm, you will see answers and creative solutions
that no one else can envision.
It’s just as though one’s second self were standing beside one;
one is sensible and rational oneself, but the other self is
impelled to do something perfectly senseless, and sometimes
very funny; and suddenly you notice that you are longing to do
that amusing thing, goodness knows why; that is, you want to,
as it were, against your will; though you fight against it with all
of your might, you want to.
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky, A Raw Youth
 Keys to Human Nature
Whenever anything goes wrong in our life, we naturally
seek an explanation. To not find some cause for why our
plans went awry, or why we faced sudden resistance to our
ideas, would be deeply disturbing to us and intensify our
pain. But in looking for a cause, our minds tend to revolve
around the same types of explanations: someone or some
group sabotaged me, perhaps out of dislike; large
antagonistic forces out there, such as the government or
social conventions, hindered me; I received bad advice, or
information was kept from me. Finally—if worse comes to
worst—it was all bad luck and unfortunate circumstances.
These explanations generally emphasize our
helplessness. “What could I have done differently? How
could I have possibly foreseen the nasty actions of X against
me?” They are also somewhat vague. We usually can’t point
to specific malicious actions of others. We can only suspect
or imagine. These explanations tend to intensify our
emotions—anger, frustration, depression—which we can
then wallow in and feel bad for ourselves. Most
significantly, our first reaction is to look outward for the
cause. Yes, we might be responsible for some of what
happened, but for the most part, other people and
antagonistic forces tripped us up. This reaction is deeply
ingrained in the human animal. In ancient times, it might
have been the gods or evil spirits who were to blame. We of
the present choose to call them other names.
The truth, however, is very different from this. Certainly
there are individuals and larger forces out there that
continually have an effect on us, and there is much we
cannot control in the world. But generally what causes us to
go astray in the first place, what leads to bad decisions and
miscalculations, is our deep-rooted irrationality, the extent
to which our minds are governed by emotion. We cannot
see this. It is our blind spot, and as exhibit A of this blind
spot, let’s look at the crash of 2008, which can serve as a
compendium of all varieties of human irrationality.
 In the aftermath of the crash, the following were the
most common explanations in the media for what had
happened: trade imbalances and other factors led to cheap
credit in the early 2000s, which led to excess leverage; it
was impossible to place accurate value on the highly
complex derivatives that were being traded, so no one really
could gauge profits and losses; there existed a shrewd and
corrupt cabal of insiders who had incentives to manipulate
the system for quick profits; greedy lenders pushed
subprime mortgages on unsuspecting homeowners; there
was too much government regulation; there was not enough
government oversight; computer models and trading
systems ran amok.
These explanations reveal a remarkable denial of a basic
reality. Leading up to the crash of 2008, millions of people
made daily decisions on whether to invest or not invest. At
each point of these transactions, buyers and sellers could
have pulled back from the riskiest forms of investment but
decided not to. There were plenty of people out there
warning of a bubble. Only a few years before, the crash of
the giant hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management
showed exactly how a larger crash could and would occur. If
people had longer memories, they could think back to the
bubble of 1987; if they read history, the stock market
bubble and crash of 1929. Almost any potential homeowner
can understand the risks of no-money-down mortgages and
lending terms with fast-rising interest rates.
What all of the analysis ignores is the basic irrationality
that drove these millions of buyers and sellers up and down
the line. They became infected with the lure of easy money.
This made even the most educated investor emotional.
Studies and experts were pulled in to bolster ideas that
people were already disposed to believe in—such as the
proverbial “this time it’s different” and “housing prices
never go down.” A wave of unbridled optimism swept
through masses of people. Then came the panic and crash
and the ugly confrontation with reality. Instead of coming
to terms with the orgy of speculation that had overwhelmed
one and all, making smart people look like idiots, fingers
were pointed at outside forces, anything to deflect the real
source of the madness. This is not something peculiar to the
crash of 2008. The same types of explanations were trotted
out after the crashes of 1987 and 1929, the railway mania in
the 1840s in England, and the South Sea bubble of the
1720s, also in England. People spoke of reforming the
system; laws were passed to limit speculation. And none of
this worked.
Bubbles occur because of the intense emotional pull they
have on people, which overwhelms any reasoning powers
an individual mind might possess. They stimulate our
natural tendencies toward greed, easy money, and quick
results. It is hard to see other people making money and not
join in. There is no regulatory force on the planet that can
control human nature. And because we do not confront the
real source of the problem, bubbles and crashes keep
repeating, and will keep repeating as long as there are
suckers and people who do not read history. The recurrence
of this mirrors the recurrence in our own lives of the same
problems and mistakes, forming negative patterns. It is
hard to learn from experience when we are not looking
inward, at the true causes.
Understand: The first step toward becoming rational
is to understand our fundamental irrationality. There are
two factors that should render this more palatable to our
egos: nobody is exempt from the irresistible effect of
emotions on the mind, not even the wisest among us; and
to some extent irrationality is a function of the structure of
our brains and is wired into our very nature by the way we
process emotions. Being irrational is almost beyond our
control. To understand this, we must look at the evolution
of emotions themselves.
For millions of years, living organisms depended on
finely tuned instincts for survival. In a split second, a reptile
could sense danger in the environment and respond with an
instantaneous flight from the scene. There was no
separation between impulse and action. Then, slowly, for
some animals this sensation evolved into something larger
and longer—a feeling of fear. In the beginning this fear
merely consisted of a high level of arousal with the release
of certain chemicals, alerting the animal to a possible
danger. With this arousal and the attention that came with
it, the animal could respond in several ways instead of just
one. It could become more sensitive to the environment and
learn. It stood a better chance of survival because its
options were widened. This sensation of fear would last
only a few seconds or even less, for speed was of the
essence.
For social animals, these arousals and feelings took on a
deeper and more important role: they became a critical
form of communication. Vicious sounds or hair standing on
end could display anger, warding off an enemy or signaling
a danger; certain postures or smells revealed sexual desire
and readiness; postures and gestures signaled the desire to
play; certain calls from the young revealed deep anxiety and
the need for the mother to return. With primates, this
became ever more elaborate and complex. It has been
shown that chimpanzees can feel envy and the desire for
vengeance, among other emotions. This evolution took
place over the course of hundreds of millions of years.
Much more recently, cognitive powers developed in animals
and humans, culminating in the invention of language and
abstract thinking.
As many neuroscientists have affirmed, this evolution
has led to the higher mammalian brain being composed of
three parts. The oldest is the reptilian part of the brain,
which controls all automatic responses that regulate the
body. This is the instinctive part. Above that is the old
mammalian or limbic brain, governing feeling and emotion.
And on top of that has evolved the neocortex, the part that
controls cognition and, for humans, language.
Emotions originate as physical arousal designed to
capture our attention and cause us to take notice of
something around us. They begin as chemical reactions and
sensations that we must then translate into words to try to
understand. But because they are processed in a different
part of the brain from language and thinking, this
translation is often slippery and inaccurate. For instance,
we feel anger at person X, whereas in fact the true source of
this may be envy; below the level of conscious awareness we
feel inferior in relation to X and want something he or she
has. But envy is not a feeling that we are ever comfortable
with, and so often we translate it as something more
palatable—anger, dislike, resentment. Or let us say one day
we are feeling a mood of frustration and impatience; person
Y crosses our path at the wrong moment and we lash out,
unaware that this anger is prompted by a different mood
and out of proportion to Y’s actions. Or let us say that we
are truly angry at person Z. But the anger is sitting inside of
us, caused by someone in our past who hurt us deeply,
perhaps a parent. We direct the anger at Z because they
remind us of this other person.
In other words, we do not have conscious access to the
origins of our emotions and the moods they generate. Once
we feel them, all we can do is try to interpret the emotion,
translate it into language. But more often than not we get
this wrong. We latch onto interpretations that are simple
and that suit us. Or we remain baffled. We don’t know why
we feel depressed, for example. This unconscious aspect of
emotions also means that it is very hard for us to learn from
them, to stop or prevent compulsive behavior. Children
who felt abandoned by their parents will tend to create
patterns of abandonment in later life, without seeing the
reason. (See Trigger Points from Early Childhood, on this
page.)
The communicating function of emotions, a critical
factor for social animals, also becomes somewhat tricky for
us. We communicate anger when it is something else we are
feeling, or about someone else, but the other person cannot
see this and so they react as if personally attacked, which
can create cascading misinterpretations.
Emotions evolved for a different reason than cognition.
These two forms of relating to the world are not connected
seamlessly in our brains. For animals, unburdened by the
need to translate physical sensations into abstract language,
emotions function smoothly, as they were meant to. For us,
the split between our emotions and our cognition is a
source of constant internal friction, comprising a second
Emotional Self within us that operates beyond our will.
Animals feel fear for a brief time, then it is gone. We dwell
on our fears, intensifying them and making them last well
past the moment of danger, even to the point of feeling
constant anxiety.
Many might be tempted to imagine that we have
somehow tamed this Emotional Self through all of our
intellectual and technological progress. After all, we don’t
appear as violent or passionate or superstitious as our
ancestors; but this is an illusion. Progress and technology
have not rewired us; they have merely altered the forms of
our emotions and the type of irrationality that comes with
them. For instance, new forms of media have enhanced the
age-old ability of politicians and others to play on our
emotions, in ever subtler and more sophisticated ways.
Advertisers bombard us with highly effective subliminal
messages. Our continual connection to social media makes
us prone to new forms of viral emotional effects. These are
not media designed for calm reflection. With their constant
presence, we have less and less mental space to step back
and think. We are as besieged with emotions and needless
drama as the Athenians in the Assembly, because human
nature has not changed.
Clearly the words rational and irrational can be quite
loaded. People are always labeling those who disagree with
them “irrational.” What we need is a simple definition that
can be applied as a way of judging, as accurately as possible,
the difference between the two. The following shall serve as
our barometer: We constantly feel emotions, and they
continually infect our thinking, making us veer toward
thoughts that please us and soothe our egos. It is impossible
to not have our inclinations and feelings somehow involved
in what we think. Rational people are aware of this and
through introspection and effort are able, to some extent, to
subtract emotions from their thinking and counteract their
effect. Irrational people have no such awareness. They rush
into action without carefully considering the ramifications
and consequences.
 We can see the difference in the decisions and actions
that people take and the results that ensue. Rational people
demonstrate over time that they are able to finish a project,
to realize their goals, to work effectively with a team, and to
create something that lasts. Irrational people reveal in their
lives negative patterns—mistakes that keep repeating,
unnecessary conflicts that follow them wherever they go,
dreams and projects that are never realized, anger and
desires for change that are never translated into concrete
action. They are emotional and reactive and unaware of
this. Everyone is capable of irrational decisions, some of
which are caused by circumstances beyond our control. And
even the most emotional types can hit upon great ideas or
succeed momentarily through boldness. So it is important
to judge over time whether a person is rational or irrational.
Can they sustain success and hit upon several good
strategies? Can they adjust and learn from failures?
We can also see the difference between a rational and
irrational person in particular situations, when it comes to
calculating long-term effects and seeing what truly matters.
For instance: In a divorce proceeding with child custody
issues, rational people will manage to let go of their
bitterness and prejudice and reason what is in the best
overall long-term interests of the child. Irrational people
will become consumed with a power struggle against the
spouse, will let resentments and desires for vengeance
secretly guide their decisions. This will lead to a protracted
battle and a damaged child.
When it comes to hiring an assistant or partner, rational
people will use competence as their barometer—can this
person do the job? An irrational person will easily fall under
the spell of those who are charming, who know how to feed
their insecurities, or who pose little challenge or threat, and
will hire them without realizing the reasons. This will lead
to mistakes and inefficiencies, for which the irrational
person will blame others. When it comes to career
decisions, rational people will look for positions that fit
their long-term goals. Irrational types will decide based on
how much money they can immediately make, what they
feel they deserve in life (sometimes very little), how much
they can slack off on the job, or how much attention the
position might bring them. This will lead to career dead
ends.
In all cases, the degree of awareness represents the
difference. Rational people can readily admit their own
irrational tendencies and the need to be vigilant. On the
other hand, irrational people become highly emotional
when challenged about the emotional roots of their
decisions. They are incapable of introspection and learning.
Their mistakes make them increasingly defensive.
It is important to understand that rationality is not some
means of transcending emotion. Pericles himself valued
bold and adventurous action. He loved the spirit of Athena
and the inspiration she brought. He wanted Athenians to
feel love for their city and empathy for their fellow citizens.
What he envisioned was a state of balance—a clear
understanding of why we feel the way we do, conscious of
our impulses so that we can think without being secretly
compelled by our emotions. Pericles wanted the energy that
comes from impulses and emotions to serve our thinking
self. That was his vision of rationality, and our ideal.
Fortunately, to acquire rationality is not complicated. It
simply requires knowing and working through a three-step
process. First, we must become aware of what we shall call
low-grade irrationality. This is a function of the continual
moods and feelings that we experience in life, below the
level of consciousness. When we plan or make decisions, we
are not aware of how deeply these moods and feelings skew
the thinking process. They create in our thinking
pronounced biases that are so deeply ingrained in us that
we see evidence of them in all cultures and all periods of
history. These biases, by distorting reality, lead to the
mistakes and ineffective decisions that plague our lives.
Being aware of them, we can begin to counterbalance their
effects.
Second, we must understand the nature of what we shall
call high-grade irrationality. This occurs when our
emotions become inflamed, generally because of certain
pressures. As we think about our anger, excitement,
resentment, or suspicion, it intensifies into a reactive state
—everything we see or hear is interpreted through the lens
of this emotion. We become more sensitive and more prone
to other emotional reactions. Impatience and resentment
can bleed into anger and deep distrust. These reactive states
are what lead people to violence, to manic obsessions, to
uncontrollable greed, or to desires to control another
person. This form of irrationality is the source of more
acute problems—crises, conflicts, and disastrous decisions.
Understanding how this type of irrationality operates can
allow us to recognize the reactive state as it is happening
and pull back before we do something we regret.
Third, we need to enact certain strategies and exercises
that will strengthen the thinking part of the brain and give
it more power in the eternal struggle with our emotions.
The following three steps will help you begin on the path
toward rationality. It would be wise to incorporate all three
into your study and practice in human nature.

Step One: Recognize the Biases

Emotions are continually affecting our thought processes
and decisions, below the level of our awareness. And the
most common emotion of them all is the desire for pleasure
and the avoidance of pain. Our thoughts almost inevitably
revolve around this desire; we simply recoil from
entertaining ideas that are unpleasant or painful to us. We
imagine we are looking for the truth, or being realistic,
when in fact we are holding on to ideas that bring a release
from tension and soothe our egos, make us feel superior.
This pleasure principle in thinking is the source of all of
our mental biases. If you believe that you are somehow
immune to any of the following biases, it is simply an
example of the pleasure principle in action. Instead, it is
best to search and see how they continually operate inside
you, as well as learn how to identify such irrationality in
others.
Confirmation Bias
I look at the evidence and arrive at my decisions through
more or less rational processes.
To hold an idea and convince ourselves we arrived at it
rationally, we go in search of evidence to support our view.
What could be more objective or scientific? But because of
the pleasure principle and its unconscious influence, we
manage to find the evidence that confirms what we want to
believe. This is known as confirmation bias.
We can see this at work in people’s plans, particularly
those with high stakes. A plan is designed to lead to a
positive, desired objective. If people considered the possible
negative and positive consequences equally, they might find
it hard to take any action. Inevitably they veer toward
information that confirms the desired positive result, the
rosy scenario, without realizing it. We also see this at work
when people are supposedly asking for advice. This is the
bane of most consultants. In the end, people want to hear
their own ideas and preferences confirmed by an expert
opinion. They will interpret what you say in light of what
they want to hear; and if your advice runs counter to their
desires, they will find some way to dismiss your opinion,
your so-called expertise. The more powerful the person, the
more they are subject to this form of the confirmation bias.
When investigating confirmation bias in the world, take
a look at theories that seem a little too good to be true.
Statistics and studies are trotted out to prove them; these
are not very difficult to find, once you are convinced of the
rightness of your argument. On the internet, it is easy to
find studies that support both sides of an argument. In
general, you should never accept the validity of people’s
ideas because they have supplied “evidence.” Instead,
examine the evidence yourself in the cold light of day, with
as much skepticism as you can muster. Your first impulse
should always be to find the evidence that disconfirms your
most cherished beliefs and those of others. That is true
science.
Conviction Bias
I believe in this idea so strongly. It must be true.
We hold on to an idea that is secretly pleasing to us, but
deep inside we might have some doubts as to its truth, and
so we go an extra mile to convince ourselves—to believe in
it with great vehemence and to loudly contradict anyone
who challenges us. How can our idea not be true if it brings
out in us such energy to defend it, we tell ourselves? This
bias is revealed even more clearly in our relationship to
leaders—if they express an opinion with heated words and
gestures, colorful metaphors and entertaining anecdotes,
and a deep well of conviction, it must mean they have
examined the idea carefully to express it with such
certainty. Those, on the other hand, who express nuances,
whose tone is more hesitant, reveal weakness and self-
doubt. They are probably lying, or so we think. This bias
makes us susceptible to salesmen and demagogues who
display conviction as a way to convince and deceive. They
know that people are hungry for entertainment, so they
cloak their half-truths with dramatic effects.

Appearance Bias
I understand the people I deal with; I see them just as they
are.
We see people not as they are, but as they appear to us.
And these appearances are usually misleading. First, people
have trained themselves in social situations to present the
front that is appropriate and that will be judged positively.
They seem to be in favor of the noblest causes, always
presenting themselves as hardworking and conscientious.
We take these masks for reality. Second, we are prone to fall
for the halo effect—when we see certain negative or positive
qualities in a person (social awkwardness, intelligence),
other positive or negative qualities are implied that fit with
this. People who are good-looking generally seem more
trustworthy, particularly politicians. If a person is
successful, we imagine they are probably also ethical,
conscientious, and deserving of their good fortune. This
obscures the fact that many people who have gotten ahead
have done so through less-than-moral actions, which they
cleverly disguise from view.

The Group Bias

My ideas are my own. I do not listen to the group. I am not
a conformist.
We are social animals by nature. The feeling of isolation,
of difference from the group, is depressing and terrifying.
We experience tremendous relief when we find others who
think the same way we do. In fact, we are motivated to take
up ideas and opinions because they bring us this relief. We
are unaware of this pull and so imagine we have come to
certain ideas completely on our own. Look at people who
support one party or the other, one ideology—a noticeable
orthodoxy or correctness prevails, without anyone saying
anything or applying overt pressure. If someone is on the
right or the left, their opinions will almost always follow the
same direction on dozens of issues, as if by magic, and yet
few would ever admit this influence on their thought
patterns.

The Blame Bias

I learn from my experience and mistakes.
Mistakes and failures elicit the need to explain. We want
to learn the lesson and not repeat the experience. But in
truth, we do not like to look too closely at what we did; our
introspection is limited. Our natural response is to blame
others, circumstances, or a momentary lapse of judgment.
The reason for this bias is that it is often too painful to look
at our mistakes. It calls into question our feelings of
superiority. It pokes at our ego. We go through the motions,
pretending to reflect on what we did. But with the passage
of time, the pleasure principle rises and we forget what
small part in the mistake we ascribed to ourselves. Desire
and emotion will blind us yet again, and we will repeat
exactly the same mistake and go through the same mild
recriminating process, followed by forgetfulness, until we
die. If people truly learned from their experience, we would
find few mistakes in the world and career paths that ascend
ever upward.

Superiority Bias
I’m different. I’m more rational than others, more ethical
as well.
Few would say this to people in conversation. It sounds
arrogant. But in numerous opinion polls and studies, when
asked to compare themselves with others, people generally
express a variation of this. It’s the equivalent of an optical
illusion—we cannot seem to see our faults and
irrationalities, only those of others. So, for instance, we’ll
easily believe that those in the other political party do not
come to their opinions based on rational principles, but
those on our side have done so. On the ethical front, few of
us will ever admit that we have resorted to deception or
manipulation in our work or have been clever and strategic
in our career advancement. Everything we’ve got, or so we
think, comes from natural talent and hard work. But with
other people, we are quick to ascribe to them all kinds of
Machiavellian tactics. This allows us to justify whatever we
do, no matter the results.
We feel a tremendous pull to imagine ourselves as
rational, decent, and ethical. These are qualities highly
promoted in the culture. To show signs otherwise is to risk
great disapproval. If all of this were true—if people were
rational and morally superior—the world would be suffused
with goodness and peace. We know, however, the reality,
and so some people, perhaps all of us, are merely deceiving
ourselves. Rationality and ethical qualities must be
achieved through awareness and effort. They do not come
naturally. They come through a maturation process.

Step Two: Beware the Inflaming Factors

Low-grade emotions continually affect our thinking, and
they originate from our own impulses—for instance, the
desire for pleasing and comforting thoughts. High-grade
emotion, however, comes at certain moments, reaches an
explosive pitch, and is generally sparked by something
external—a person who gets under our skin, or particular
circumstances. The level of arousal is higher and our
attention is captured completely. The more we think about
the emotion, the stronger it gets, which makes us focus even
more on it, and so on and so forth. Our minds tunnel into
the emotion, and everything reminds us of our anger or
excitement. We become reactive. Because we are unable to
bear the tension this brings, high-grade emotion usually
culminates in some rash action with disastrous
consequences. In the middle of such an attack we feel
possessed, as if a second, limbic self has taken over.
It is best to be aware of these factors so that you can stop
the mind from tunneling and prevent the releasing action
that you will always come to regret. You should also be
aware of high-grade irrationality in others, to either get out
of their way or help bring them back to reality.

Trigger Points from Early Childhood

In early childhood we were at our most sensitive and
vulnerable. Our relationship to our parents had a much
greater impact on us the further back in time we go. The
same could be said for any early powerful experience. These
vulnerabilities and wounds remain buried deep within our
minds. Sometimes we try to repress the memory of these
influences, if they happen to be negative—great fears or
humiliations. Sometimes, however, they are associated with
positive emotions, experiences of love and attention that we
continually want to relive. Later in life, a person or event
will trigger a memory of this positive or negative
experience, and with it a release of powerful chemicals or
hormones associated with the memory.
Take, for example, a young man who had a distant,
narcissistic mother. As an infant or child, he experienced
her coldness as abandonment, and to be abandoned must
mean he was somehow unworthy of her love. Or similarly, a
new sibling on the scene caused his mother to give him
much less attention, which he equally experienced as
abandonment. Later in life, in a relationship, a woman
might hint at disapproval of some trait or action of his, all
of which is part of a healthy relationship. This will hit a
trigger point—she is noticing his flaws, which, he imagines,
precedes her abandonment of him. He feels a powerful rush
of emotion, a sense of imminent betrayal. He does not see
the source of this; it is beyond his control. He overreacts,
accuses, withdraws, all of which leads to the very thing he
feared—abandonment. His reaction was to some reflection
in his mind, not to the reality. This is the height of
irrationality.
The way to recognize this in yourself and in others is by
noticing behavior that is suddenly childish in its intensity
and seemingly out of character. This could center on any
key emotion. It could be fear—of losing control, of failure.
In this case, we react by withdrawing from the situation and
the presence of others, like a child curling up into a ball. A
sudden illness, brought on by the intense fear, will
conveniently cause us to have to leave the scene. It could be
love—desperately searching to re-create a close parental or
sibling relationship in the present, triggered by someone
who vaguely reminds us of the lost paradise. It could be
extreme mistrust, originating from an authority figure in
early childhood who disappointed or betrayed us, generally
the father. This often triggers a sudden rebellious attitude.
The great danger here is that in misreading the present
and reacting to something in the past, we create conflict,
disappointments, and mistrust that only strengthen the
wound. In some ways, we are programmed to repeat the
early experience in the present. Our only defense is
awareness as it is happening. We can recognize a trigger
point by the experience of emotions that are unusually
primal, more uncontrollable than normal. They trigger
tears, deep depression, or excessive hope. People under the
spell of these emotions will often have a very different tone
of voice and body language, as if they were physically
reliving a moment from early life.
 In the midst of such an attack, we must struggle to
detach ourselves and contemplate the possible source—the
wound in early childhood—and the patterns it has locked us
into. This deep understanding of ourselves and our
vulnerabilities is a key step toward becoming rational.

Sudden Gains or Losses

Sudden success or winnings can be very dangerous.
Neurologically, chemicals are released in the brain that give
a powerful jolt of arousal and energy, leading to the desire
to repeat this experience. It can be the start of any kind of
addiction and manic behavior. Also, when gains come
quickly we tend to lose sight of the basic wisdom that true
success, to really last, must come through hard work. We do
not take into account the role that luck plays in such sudden
gains. We try again and again to recapture that high from
winning so much money or attention. We acquire feelings
of grandiosity. We become especially resistant to anyone
who tries to warn us—they don’t understand, we tell
ourselves. Because this cannot be sustained, we experience
an inevitable fall, which is all the more painful, leading to
the depression part of the cycle. Although gamblers are the
most prone to this, it equally applies to businesspeople
during bubbles and to people who gain sudden attention
from the public.
Unexpected losses or a string of losses equally create
irrational reactions. We imagine we are cursed with bad
luck and that this will go on indefinitely. We become fearful
and hesitant, which will often lead to more mistakes or
failures. In sports, this can induce what is known as
choking, as previous losses and misses weigh on the mind
and tighten it up.
The solution here is simple: whenever you experience
unusual gains or losses, that is precisely the time to step
back and counterbalance them with some necessary
pessimism or optimism. Be extra wary of sudden success
and attention—they are not built on anything that lasts and
they have an addictive pull. And the fall is always painful.
Rising Pressure
The people around you generally appear sane and in control
of their lives. But put any of them in stressful
circumstances, with the pressure rising, and you will see a
different reality. The cool mask of self-control comes off.
They suddenly lash out in anger, reveal a paranoid streak,
and become hypersensitive and often petty. Under stress or
any threat, the most primitive parts of the brain are aroused
and engaged, overwhelming people’s reasoning powers. In
fact, stress or tension can reveal flaws in people that they
have carefully concealed from view. It is often wise to
observe people in such moments, precisely as a way to
judge their true character.
Whenever you notice rising pressure and stress levels in
your life, you must watch yourself carefully. Monitor any
signs of unusual brittleness or sensitivity, sudden
suspicions, fears disproportionate to the circumstances.
Observe with as much detachment as possible, finding time
and space to be alone. You need perspective. Never imagine
that you are someone who can withstand rising stress
without emotional leakage. It is not possible. But through
self-awareness and reflection you can prevent yourself from
making decisions you will come to regret.

Inflaming Individuals
There are people in the world who by their nature tend to
trigger powerful emotions in almost everyone they
encounter. These emotions range among the extremes of
love, hatred, confidence, and mistrust. Some examples in
history would include King David in the Bible, Alcibiades in
ancient Athens, Julius Caesar in ancient Rome, Georges
Danton during the French Revolution, and Bill Clinton.
These types have a degree of charisma—they have the
ability to express eloquently emotions they are feeling,
which inevitably stirs parallel emotions in others. But some
of them can also be quite narcissistic; they project their
internal drama and troubles outward, catching other people
up in the turmoil they create. This leads to profound
feelings of attraction in some and repulsion in others.
It is best to recognize these inflamers by how they affect
others, not just yourself. No one can remain indifferent to
them. People find themselves incapable of reasoning or
maintaining any distance in their presence. They make you
think of them continually when not in their presence. They
have an obsessive quality, and they can lead you to extreme
actions as a devoted follower or as an inveterate enemy. On
either end of the spectrum—attraction or repulsion—you
will tend to be irrational and you will desperately need to
distance yourself. A good strategy to utilize is to see through
the front they project. They inevitably try to cast a larger-
than-life image, a mythic, intimidating quality; but in fact
they are all too human, full of the same insecurities and
weaknesses we all possess. Try to recognize these very
human traits and demythologize them.

The Group Effect

This is the high-grade variety of the group bias. When we
are in a group of a large enough size, we become different.
Notice yourself and others at a sporting event, a concert, a
religious or political gathering. It is impossible to not feel
yourself caught up in the collective emotions. Your heart
beats faster. Tears of joy or sadness come more readily.
Being in a group does not stimulate independent reasoning
but rather the intense desire to belong. This can happen
equally in a work environment, particularly if the leader
plays on people’s emotions to spur competitive, aggressive
desires, or creates an us-versus-them dynamic. The group
effect does not necessarily require the presence of others. It
can occur virally, as some opinion spreads over social
media and infects us with the desire to share the opinion—
generally of a strong variety, such as outrage.
There is an exhilarating, positive aspect to the
stimulation of group emotions. It is how we can be rallied to
do something for the collective good. But if you notice the
appeal is to more diabolical emotions, such as hatred of the
other, rabid patriotism, aggression, or sweeping
worldviews, you need to inoculate yourself and see through
the powerful pull as it works on you. It is often best to avoid
the group setting if possible in order to maintain your
reasoning powers, or to enter such moments with
maximum skepticism.
Be aware of demagogues who exploit the group effect
and stimulate outbreaks of irrationality. They inevitably
resort to certain devices. In a group setting, they begin by
warming up the crowd, talking about ideas and values that
everyone shares, creating a pleasant feeling of agreement.
They rely on vague but loaded words full of emotive quality
such as justice or truth or patriotism. They talk of abstract,
noble goals rather than the solving of specific problems
with concrete action.
Demagogues in politics or the media try to stir a
continual sense of panic, urgency, and outrage. They must
keep the emotional levels high. Your defense is simple:
Consider your reasoning powers, your ability to think for
yourself, your most precious possession. Resent any kind of
intrusion upon your independent mind by others. When
you feel you are in the presence of a demagogue, become
doubly wary and analytical.

—
A final word on the irrational in human nature: do not
imagine that the more extreme types of irrationality have
somehow been overcome through progress and
enlightenment. Throughout history we witness continual
cycles of rising and falling levels of the irrational. The great
golden age of Pericles, with its philosophers and its first
stirrings of the scientific spirit, was followed by an age of
superstition, cults, and intolerance. This same phenomenon
happened after the Italian Renaissance. That this cycle is
bound to recur again and again is part of human nature.
 The irrational simply changes its look and its fashions.
We may no longer have literal witch hunts, but in the
twentieth century, not so very long ago, we witnessed the
show trials of Stalin, the McCarthy hearings in the U.S.
Senate, and the mass persecutions during the Chinese
Cultural Revolution. Various cults are continually being
generated, including cults of personality and the fetishizing
of celebrities. Technology now inspires religious fervor.
People have a desperate need to believe in something and
they will find it anywhere. Polls have revealed that
increasing numbers of people believe in ghosts, spirits, and
angels, in the twenty-first century.
As long as there are humans, the irrational will find its
voices and means of spreading. Rationality is something to
be acquired by individuals, not by mass movements or
technological progress. Feeling superior and beyond it is a
sure sign that the irrational is at work.

Step Three: Strategies Toward Bringing Out the

Rational Self
Despite our pronounced irrational tendencies, two factors
should give us all hope. First and foremost is the existence
throughout history and in all cultures of people of high
rationality, the types who have made progress possible.
They serve as ideals for all of us to aim for. These include
Pericles, the ruler Aśoka of ancient India, Marcus Aurelius
of ancient Rome, Marguerite de Valois in medieval France,
Leonardo da Vinci, Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln, the
writer Anton Chekhov, the anthropologist Margaret Mead,
and the businessman Warren Buffett, to name but a few. All
of these types share certain qualities—a realistic appraisal
of themselves and their weaknesses; a devotion to truth and
reality; a tolerant attitude toward people; and the ability to
reach goals that they have set.
The second factor is that almost all of us at some point in
our lives have experienced moments of greater rationality.
This often comes with what we shall call the maker’s mind-
set. We have a project to get done, perhaps with a deadline.
The only emotion we can afford is excitement and energy.
Other emotions simply make it impossible to concentrate.
Because we have to get results, we become exceptionally
practical. We focus on the work—our mind calm, our ego
not intruding. If people try to interrupt or infect us with
emotions, we resent it. These moments—as fleeting as a few
weeks or hours—reveal the rational self that is waiting to
come out. It just requires some awareness and some
practice.
The following strategies are designed to help you bring
out that inner Pericles or Athena:
Know yourself thoroughly. The Emotional Self
thrives on ignorance. The moment you are aware of how it
operates and dominates you is the moment it loses its hold
on you and can be tamed. Therefore, your first step toward
the rational is always inward. You want to catch that
Emotional Self in action. For this purpose, you must reflect
on how you operate under stress. What particular
weaknesses come out in such moments—the desire to
please, to bully or control, deep levels of mistrust? Look at
your decisions, especially those that have been ineffective—
can you see a pattern, an underlying insecurity that impels
them? Examine your strengths, what makes you different
from other people. This will help you decide upon goals that
mesh with your long-term interests and that are aligned
with your skills. By knowing and valuing what marks you as
different, you will also be able to resist the pull of the group
bias and effect.
Examine your emotions to their roots. You are
angry. Let the feeling settle from within, and think about it.
Was it triggered by something seemingly trivial or petty?
That is a sure sign that something or someone else is
behind it. Perhaps a more uncomfortable emotion is at the
source—such as envy or paranoia. You need to look at this
square in the eye. Dig below any trigger points to see where
they started. For these purposes, it might be wise to use a
journal in which you record your self-assessments with
ruthless objectivity. Your greatest danger here is your ego
and how it makes you unconsciously maintain illusions
about yourself. These may be comforting in the moment,
but in the long run they make you defensive and unable to
learn or progress. Find a neutral position from which you
can observe your actions, with a bit of detachment and even
humor. Soon all of this will become second nature, and
when the Emotional Self suddenly rears its head in some
situation, you will see it as it happens and be able to step
back and find that neutral position.
Increase your reaction time. This power comes
through practice and repetition. When some event or
interaction requires a response, you must train yourself to
step back. This could mean physically removing yourself to
a place where you can be alone and not feel any pressure to
respond. Or it could mean writing that angry email but not
sending it. You sleep on it for a day or two. You do not make
phone calls or communicate while feeling some sudden
emotion, particularly resentment. If you find yourself
rushing to commit to people, to hire or be hired by them,
step back and give it a day. Cool the emotions down. The
longer you can take the better, because perspective comes
with time. Consider this like resistance training—the longer
you can resist reacting, the more mental space you have for
actual reflection, and the stronger your mind will become.
Accept people as facts. Interactions with people are
the major source of emotional turmoil, but it doesn’t have
to be that way. The problem is that we are continually
judging people, wishing they were something that they are
not. We want to change them. We want them to think and
act a certain way, most often the way we think and act. And
because this is not possible, because everyone is different,
we are continually frustrated and upset. Instead, see other
people as phenomena, as neutral as comets or plants. They
simply exist. They come in all varieties, making life rich and
interesting. Work with what they give you, instead of
resisting and trying to change them. Make understanding
people a fun game, the solving of puzzles. It is all part of the
human comedy. Yes, people are irrational, but so are you.
Make your acceptance of human nature as radical as
possible. This will calm you down and help you observe
people more dispassionately, understanding them on a
deeper level. You will stop projecting your own emotions on
to them. All of this will give you more balance and
calmness, more mental space for thinking.
It is certainly difficult to do this with the nightmare
types who cross our path—the raging narcissists, the
passive aggressors, and other inflamers. They remain a
continual test to our rationality. Look at the Russian writer
Anton Chekhov, one of the most fiercely rational people
who ever lived, as the model for this. His family was large
and poor, and his father, an alcoholic, mercilessly beat all of
the children, including young Chekhov. Chekhov became a
doctor and took up writing as a side career. He applied his
training as a doctor to the human animal, his goal to
understand what makes us so irrational, so unhappy, and so
dangerous. In his stories and plays, he found it immensely
therapeutic to get inside his characters and make sense of
even the worst types. In this way, he could forgive anybody,
even his father. His approach in these cases was to imagine
that each person, no matter how twisted, has a reason for
what they’ve become, a logic that makes sense to them. In
their own way, they are striving for fulfillment, but
irrationally. By stepping back and imagining their story
from the inside, Chekhov demythologized the brutes and
aggressors; he cut them down to human size. They no
longer elicited hatred but rather pity. You must think more
like a writer in approaching the people you deal with, even
the worst sorts.
Find the optimal balance of thinking and
emotion. We cannot divorce emotions from thinking. The
two are completely intertwined. But there is inevitably a
dominant factor, some people more clearly governed by
emotions than others. What we are looking for is the proper
ratio and balance, the one that leads to the most effective
action. The ancient Greeks had an appropriate metaphor
for this: the rider and the horse.
The horse is our emotional nature continually impelling
us to move. This horse has tremendous energy and power,
but without a rider it cannot be guided; it is wild, subject to
predators, and continually heading into trouble. The rider is
our thinking self. Through training and practice, it holds
the reins and guides the horse, transforming this powerful
animal energy into something productive. The one without
the other is useless. Without the rider, no directed
movement or purpose. Without the horse, no energy, no
power. In most people the horse dominates, and the rider is
weak. In some people the rider is too strong, holds the reins
too tightly, and is afraid to occasionally let the animal go
into a gallop. The horse and rider must work together. This
means we consider our actions beforehand; we bring as
much thinking as possible to a situation before we make a
decision. But once we decide what to do, we loosen the
reins and enter action with boldness and a spirit of
adventure. Instead of being slaves to this energy, we
channel it. That is the essence of rationality.
As an example of this ideal in action, try to maintain a
perfect balance between skepticism (rider) and curiosity
(horse). In this mode you are skeptical about your own
enthusiasms and those of others. You do not accept at face
value people’s explanations and their application of
“evidence.” You look at the results of their actions, not what
they say about their motivations. But if you take this too far,
your mind will close itself off from wild ideas, from exciting
speculations, from curiosity itself. You want to retain the
elasticity of spirit you had as a child, interested in
everything, while retaining the hard-nosed need to verify
and scrutinize for yourself all ideas and beliefs. The two can
coexist. It is a balance that all geniuses possess.
Love the rational. It is important to not see the path
to rationality as something painful and ascetic. In fact, it
brings powers that are immensely satisfying and
pleasurable, much deeper than the more manic pleasures
the world tends to offer us. You have felt this in your own
life when absorbed in a project, time flowing by, and
experiencing occasional bursts of excitement as you make
discoveries or progress in your work. There are other
pleasures as well. Being able to tame the Emotional Self
leads to an overall calmness and clarity. In this state of
mind you are less consumed by petty conflicts and
considerations. Your actions are more effective, which also
leads to less turmoil. You have the immense satisfaction of
mastering yourself in a deep way. You have more mental
space to be creative. You feel more in control.
Knowing all of this, it will become easier to motivate
yourself to develop this power. In this sense, you are
following the path of Pericles himself. He envisioned the
goddess Athena embodying all of the practical powers of
rationality. He worshipped and loved this goddess above all
others. We may no longer venerate the goddess as a deity,
but we can appreciate on a deep level all of those who
promote rationality in our own world, and we can seek to
internalize their power as much as we can.
“Trust your feelings!”—But feelings are nothing final or
original; behind feelings there stand judgments and evaluations
which we inherit in the form of . . . inclinations, aversions. . . .
The inspiration born of a feeling is the grandchild of a judgment
—and often of a false judgment!—and in any event not a child of
your own! To trust one’s feelings—means to give more
obedience to one’s grandfather and grandmother and their
grandparents than to the gods which are in us: our reason and
our experience.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
 2

Transform Self-love into

Empathy

The Law of Narcissism

W e all naturally possess the most remarkable tool

for connecting to people and attaining social
power—empathy. When cultivated and properly used, it
can allow us to see into the moods and minds of others,
giving us the power to anticipate people’s actions and
gently lower their resistance. This instrument, however,
is blunted by our habitual self-absorption. We are all
narcissists, some deeper on the spectrum than others.
Our mission in life is to come to terms with this self-love
and learn how to turn our sensitivity outward, toward
others, instead of inward. We must recognize at the
same time the toxic narcissists among us before getting
enmeshed in their dramas and poisoned by their envy.

The Narcissistic Spectrum

From the moment we are born, we humans feel a never-
ending need for attention. We are social animals to the
core. Our survival and happiness depend on the bonds
we form with others. If people do not pay attention to us,
we cannot connect to them on any level. Some of this is
purely physical—we must have people looking at us to
feel alive. As those who have gone through long periods
of isolation can attest, without eye contact we begin to
doubt our existence and to descend into a deep
depression. But this need is also deeply psychological:
through the quality of attention we receive from others,
we feel recognized and appreciated for who we are. Our
sense of self-worth depends on this. Because this is so
important to the human animal, people will do almost
anything to get attention, including committing a crime
or attempting suicide. Look behind almost any action,
and you will see this need as a primary motivation.
In trying to satisfy our hunger for attention, however,
we face an inevitable problem: there is only so much of it
to go around. In the family, we have to compete with our
siblings; at school, with classmates; at work, with
colleagues. The moments in which we feel recognized
and appreciated are fleeting. People can largely be
indifferent to our fate, as they must deal with their own
problems. There are even some who are downright
hostile and disrespectful to us. How do we handle those
moments when we feel psychologically alone, or even
abandoned? We can double our efforts to get attention
and notice, but this can exhaust our energy and it can
often have the opposite effect—people who try too hard
seem desperate and repulse the attention they want. We
simply cannot rely on others to give us constant
validation, and yet we crave it.
Facing this dilemma from early childhood on, most of
us come up with a solution that works quite well: we
create a self, an image of ourselves that comforts us and
makes us feel validated from within. This self is
composed of our tastes, our opinions, how we look at the
world, what we value. In building this self-image, we
tend to accentuate our positive qualities and explain
away our flaws. We cannot go too far in this, for if our
self-image is too divorced from reality, other people will
make us aware of the discrepancy, and we will doubt
ourselves. But if it is done properly, in the end we have a
self that we can love and cherish. Our energy turns
inward. We become the center of our attention. When we
experience those inevitable moments when we are alone
or not feeling appreciated, we can retreat to this self and
soothe ourselves. If we have moments of doubt and
depression, our self-love raises us up, makes us feel
worthy and even superior to others. This self-image
operates as a thermostat, helping us to regulate our
doubts and insecurities. We are no longer completely
dependent on others for attention and recognition. We
have self-esteem.
This idea might seem strange. We generally take this
self-image completely for granted, like the air we
breathe. It operates on a largely unconscious basis. We
don’t feel or see the thermostat as it operates. The best
way to literally visualize this dynamic is to look at those
who lack a coherent sense of self—people we shall call
deep narcissists.
In constructing a self that we can hold on to and love,
the key moment in its development occurs between the
ages of two and five years old. As we slowly separate
from our mother, we face a world in which we cannot get
instant gratification. We also become aware that we are
alone and yet dependent on our parents for survival. Our
answer is to identify with the best qualities of our
parents—their strength, their ability to soothe us—and
incorporate these qualities into ourselves. If our parents
encourage us in our first efforts at independence, if they
validate our need to feel strong and recognize our unique
qualities, then our self-image takes root, and we can
slowly build upon it. Deep narcissists have a sharp break
in this early development, and so they never quite
construct a consistent and realistic feeling of a self.
Their mothers (or fathers) might be deep narcissists
themselves, too self-absorbed to acknowledge the child,
to encourage its early efforts at independence. Or
alternatively the parents could be enmeshers—
overinvolved in the child’s life, suffocating it with
attention, isolating it from others, and living through its
advancement as a means to validate their own self-
worth. They give the child no room to establish a self. In
the backgrounds of almost all deep narcissists we find
either abandonment or enmeshment. The result is that
they have no self to retreat to, no foundation for self-
esteem, and are completely dependent on the attention
they can get from others to make them feel alive and
worthy.
In childhood, if such narcissists are extroverts, they
can function reasonably well, and even thrive. They
become masters at attracting notice and monopolizing
attention. They can appear vivacious and exciting. In a
child, such qualities can seem a sign of future social
success. But underneath the surface, they are becoming
dangerously addicted to the hits of attention they
stimulate to make them feel whole and worthy. If they
are introverts, they will retreat to a fantasy life,
imagining a self that is quite superior to others. Since
they will not get validation of this self-image from others
because it is so unrealistic, they will also have moments
of great doubt and even self-loathing. They are either a
god or a worm. Lacking a coherent core, they could
imagine themselves to be anyone, and so their fantasies
will keep shifting as they try on new personalities.
The nightmare for deep narcissists generally arrives
in their twenties and thirties. They have failed to develop
that inner thermostat, a cohesive sense of self to love and
depend upon. The extroverts must constantly attract
attention to feel alive and appreciated. They become
more dramatic, more exhibitionistic and grandiose. This
can become tiresome and even pathetic. They have to
change friends and scenes so that they can have a fresh
audience. Introverts fall deeper into a fantasy self. Being
socially awkward yet radiating superiority, they tend to
alienate people, increasing their dangerous isolation. In
both cases, drugs or alcohol or any other form of
addiction can become a necessary crutch to soothe them
in the inevitable moments of doubt and depression.
You can recognize deep narcissists by the following
behavior patterns: If they are ever insulted or challenged,
they have no defense, nothing internal to soothe them or
validate their worth. They generally react with great rage,
thirsting for vengeance, full of a sense of righteousness.
This is the only way they know how to assuage their
insecurities. In such battles, they will position
themselves as the wounded victim, confusing others and
even drawing sympathy. They are prickly and
oversensitive. Almost everything is taken personally.
They can become quite paranoid and have enemies in all
directions to point to. You can see an impatient or
distant look on their face whenever you talk about
something that does not directly involve them in some
way. They immediately turn the conversation back to
themselves, with some story or anecdote to distract from
the insecurity behind it. They can be prone to vicious
bouts of envy if they see others getting the attention they
feel they deserve. They frequently display extreme self-
confidence. This always helps to gain attention, and it
neatly covers up their gaping inner emptiness and their
fragmented sense of self. But beware if this confidence is
ever truly put to the test.
When it comes to other people in their lives, deep
narcissists have an unusual relationship that is hard for
us to understand. They tend to see others as extensions
of themselves, what is known as self-objects. People exist
as instruments for attention and validation. Their desire
is to control them like they control their own arm or leg.
In a relationship, they will slowly make the partner cut
off contact with friends—there must be no competition
for attention.
Some highly talented deep narcissists (see stories
starting on this page for examples) manage to find some
redemption through their work, channeling their
energies and getting the attention they crave through
their accomplishments, although they tend to remain
quite erratic and volatile. For most deep narcissists,
however, it can be difficult to concentrate on their work.
Lacking the self-esteem thermostat, they are prone to
continually worrying about what others think of them.
This makes it hard to actually focus attention outward
for long periods of time, and to deal with the impatience
and anxiety that comes with work. Such types tend to
change jobs and careers quite frequently. This becomes
the nail in their coffin—unable to attract genuine
recognition through their accomplishments, they are
forever thrown back on the need to artificially stimulate
attention.
Deep narcissists can be annoying and frustrating to
deal with; they can also become quite harmful if we get
too close to them. They entangle us in their never-ending
dramas and make us feel guilty if we are not continually
paying them attention. Relationships with them are most
unsatisfying, and having one as a partner or spouse can
be deadly. In the end, everything must revolve around
them. The best solution in such cases is to get out of their
way, once we identify them as a deep narcissist.
There is one variety of this type, however, that is more
dangerous and toxic, because of the levels of power he or
she can attain—namely the narcissistic leader. (This type
has been around for a long time. In the Bible, Absalom
was perhaps the first recorded example, but we find
frequent references in ancient literature to others—
Alcibiades, Cicero, and Emperor Nero, to name a few.)
Almost all dictator types and tyrannical CEOs fall into
this category. They generally have more ambition than
the average deep narcissist and for a while can funnel
this energy into work. Full of narcissistic self-confidence,
they attract attention and followers. They say and do
things that other people don’t dare say or do, which
seems admirable and authentic. They might have a vision
for some innovative product, and because they radiate
such confidence, they can find others to help them
realize their vision. They are experts at using people.
If they have success, a terrible momentum is set in
place—more people are attracted to their leadership,
which only inflates their grandiose tendencies. If anyone
dares to challenge them, they are more prone than others
to go into that deep narcissistic rage. They are
hypersensitive. They also like to stir up constant drama
as a means to justify their power—they are the only ones
who can solve the problems they create. This also gives
them more opportunities to be the center of attention.
The workplace is never stable under their direction.
Sometimes they can become entrepreneurs, people
who found a company because of their charisma and
ability to attract followers. They can have creative flair as
well. But for many of these leader types, eventually their
own inner instability and chaos will come to be mirrored
in the company or group they lead. They cannot forge a
coherent structure or organization. Everything must flow
through them. They have to control everything and
everyone, their self-objects. They will proclaim this as a
virtue—as being authentic and spontaneous—when really
they lack the ability to focus and create something solid.
They tend to burn and destroy whatever they create.
Let us imagine narcissism as a way of gauging the
level of our self-absorption, as if it existed on a
measurable scale from high to low. At a certain depth, let
us say below the halfway mark on the scale, people enter
the realm of deep narcissism. Once they reach this depth,
it is very difficult for them to raise themselves back up,
because they lack the self-esteem device. The deep
narcissist becomes completely self-absorbed, almost
always below the mark. If for a moment they manage to
engage with others, some comment or action will trigger
their insecurities and they will go plummeting down. But
mostly they tend to sink deeper into themselves over
time. Other people are instruments. Reality is just a
reflection of their needs. Constant attention is their only
way of survival.
Above that halfway mark is what we shall call the
functional narcissist, where most of us reside. We also
are self-absorbed, but what prevents us from falling deep
into ourselves is a coherent sense of self that we can rely
upon and love. (It is ironic that the word narcissism has
come to mean self-love, when it is in fact the case that
the worst narcissists have no cohesive self to love, which
is the source of their problem.) This creates some inner
resiliency. We may have deeper narcissistic moments,
fluctuating below the mark, particularly when depressed
or challenged in life, but inevitably we elevate ourselves.
Not feeling continually insecure or wounded, not always
needing to fish for attention, functional narcissists can
turn their attention outward, into their work and into
building relationships with people.
Our task, as students of human nature, is threefold.
First, we must fully understand the phenomenon of the
deep narcissist. Although they are in the minority, some
of them can inflict an unusual amount of harm in the
world. We must be able to distinguish the toxic types that
stir up drama and try to turn us into objects they can use
for their purposes. They can draw us in with their
unusual energy, but if we become enmeshed, it can be a
nightmare to disengage. They are masters at turning the
tables and making others feel guilty. Narcissistic leaders
are the most dangerous of all, and we must resist their
pull and see through the façade of their apparent
creativity. Knowing how to handle the deep narcissists in
our lives is an important art for all of us.
Second, we must be honest about our own nature and
not deny it. We are all narcissists. In a conversation we
are all champing at the bit to talk, to tell our story, to give
our opinion. We like people who share our ideas—they
reflect back to us our good taste. If we happen to be
assertive, we see assertiveness as a positive quality
because it is ours, whereas others, more timid, will rate it
as obnoxious and value introspective qualities. We are all
prone to flattery because of our self-love. Moralizers who
try to separate themselves and denounce the narcissists
in the world today are often the biggest narcissists of
them all—they love the sound of their voice as they point
fingers and preach. We are all on the spectrum of self-
absorption. Creating a self that we can love is a healthy
development, and there should be no stigma attached to
it. Without self-esteem from within, we would fall into
deep narcissism. But to move beyond functional
narcissism, which should be our goal, we must first be
honest with ourselves. Trying to deny our self-absorbed
nature, trying to pretend we are somehow more altruistic
than others, makes it impossible for us to transform
ourselves.
Third and most important, we must begin to make the
transformation into the healthy narcissist. Healthy
narcissists have a stronger, even more resilient sense of
self. They tend to hover closer to the top of the scale.
They recover more quickly from any wounds or insults.
They do not need as much validation from others. They
realize at some point in life that they have limits and
flaws. They can laugh at these flaws and not take slights
so personally. In many ways, by embracing the full
picture of themselves, their self-love is more real and
complete. From this stronger inner position, they can
turn their attention outward more often and more easily.
This attention goes in one of two directions, and
sometimes both. First, they are able to direct their focus
and their love into their work, becoming great artists,
creators, and inventors. Because their outward focus on
the work is more intense, they tend to be successful in
their ventures, which gives them the necessary attention
and validation. They can have moments of doubt and
insecurity, and artists can be notoriously brittle, but
work stands as a continual release from too much self-
absorption.
The other direction healthy narcissists take is toward
people, developing empathic powers. Imagine empathy
as the realm lying at the very top of the scale and beyond
—complete absorption in others. By our very nature, we
humans have tremendous abilities to understand people
from the inside out. In our earliest years, we felt
completely bonded with our mother, and we could sense
her every mood and read her every emotion in a
preverbal way. Unlike any other animal or primate, we
also had the ability to extend this beyond the mother to
other caregivers and people in our vicinity.
This is the physical form of empathy that we feel even
to this day with our closest friends, spouses, or partners.
We also have a natural ability to take the perspective of
others, to think our way inside their minds. These
powers largely lie dormant because of our self-
absorption. But in our twenties and beyond, feeling more
confident about ourselves, we can begin to focus
outward, on people, and rediscover these powers. Those
who practice this empathy often become superior social
observers in the arts or sciences, therapists, and leaders
of the highest order.
The need to develop this empathy is greater than ever.
Various studies have indicated a gradual increase in
levels of self-absorption and narcissism in young people
since the late 1970s, with a much higher spike since
2000. Much of this can be attributed to technology and
the internet. People simply spend less time in social
interactions and more time socializing online, which
makes it increasingly difficult to develop empathy and
sharpen social skills. Like any skill, empathy comes
through the quality of attention. If your attention is
continually interrupted by the need to look at your
smartphone, you are never really gaining a foothold in
the feelings or perspectives of other people. You are
continually drawn back to yourself, flitting about the
surface of social interactions, never really engaging. Even
in a crowd, you remain essentially alone. People come to
serve a function—not to bond with but to placate your
insecurities.
Our brains were built for continual social interaction;
the complexity of this interaction is one of the main
factors that drastically increased our intelligence as a
species. At a certain point, involving ourselves less with
others has a net negative effect on the brain itself and
atrophies our social muscle. To make matters worse, our
culture tends to emphasize the supreme value of the
individual and individual rights, encouraging greater
self-involvement. We find more and more people who
cannot imagine that others have a different perspective,
that we are all not exactly the same in what we desire or
think.
You must try to run counter to these developments
and create empathic energy. Each side of the spectrum
has its peculiar momentum. Deep narcissism tends to
sink you deeper, as your connection to reality lessens and
you are unable to really develop your work or your
relationships. Empathy does the opposite. As you
increasingly turn your attention outward, you get
constant positive feedback. People want to be around you
more. You develop your empathic muscle; your work
improves; without trying, you gain the attention that all
humans thrive on. Empathy creates its own upward,
positive momentum.
The following are the four components that go into
the empathic skill set.
The empathic attitude: Empathy is more than
anything a state of mind, a different way of relating to
others. The greatest danger you face is your general
assumption that you really understand people and that
you can quickly judge and categorize them. Instead, you
must begin with the assumption that you are ignorant
and that you have natural biases that will make you
judge people incorrectly. The people around you present
a mask that suits their purposes. You mistake the mask
for reality. Let go of your tendency to make snap
judgments. Open your mind to seeing people in a new
light. Do not assume that you are similar or that they
share your values. Each person you meet is like an
undiscovered country, with a very particular
psychological chemistry that you will carefully explore.
You are more than ready to be surprised by what you
uncover. This flexible, open spirit is similar to creative
energy—a willingness to consider more possibilities and
options. In fact, developing your empathy will also
improve your creative powers.
The best place to begin this transformation in your
attitude is in your numerous daily conversations. Try
reversing your normal impulse to talk and give your
opinion, desiring instead to hear the other person’s point
of view. You have tremendous curiosity in this direction.
Cut off your incessant interior monologue as best you
can. Give full attention to the other. What matters here is
the quality of your listening, so that in the course of the
conversation you can mirror back to the other person
things they said, or things that were left unsaid but that
you sensed. This will have a tremendous seductive effect.
As part of this attitude, you are giving people the
same level of indulgence that you give yourself. For
instance, we all have a tendency to do the following:
When we make a mistake, we attribute it to
circumstances that pushed us into doing it. But when
others make a mistake, we tend to see it as a character
flaw, as something that flowed from their imperfect
personality. This is known as the attribution bias. You
must work against this. With an empathic attitude, you
consider first the circumstances that might have made a
person do what they did, giving them the same benefit of
the doubt as you give yourself.
 Finally, adopting this attitude depends on the quality
of your self-love. If you feel terribly superior to others, or
gripped by insecurities, your moments of empathy and
absorption in people will be shallow. What you need is a
complete acceptance of your character, including your
flaws, which you can see clearly but even appreciate and
love. You are not perfect. You are not an angel. You have
the same nature as others. With this attitude, you can
laugh at yourself and let slights wash over you. From a
position of genuine inner strength and resilience, you
can more easily direct your attention outward.
Visceral empathy: Empathy is an instrument of
emotional attunement. It is hard for us to read or figure
out the thoughts of another person, but feelings and
moods are much easier for us to pick up. We are all
prone to catching the emotions of another person. The
physical boundaries between us and other people are
much more permeable than we realize. People are
continually affecting our moods. What you are doing
here is turning this physiological response into
knowledge. Pay deep attention to the moods of people, as
indicated by their body language and tone of voice. When
they talk, they have a feeling tone that is either in sync or
not in sync with what they are saying. This tone can be
one of confidence, insecurity, defensiveness, arrogance,
frustration, elation. This tone manifests itself physically
in their voice, their gestures, and their posture. In each
encounter, you must try to detect this before even paying
attention to what they are saying. This will register to
you viscerally, in your own physical response to them. A
defensive tone on their part will tend to create a like
feeling in you.
A key element you are trying to figure out is people’s
intentions. There is almost always an emotion behind
any intention, and beyond their words, you are attuning
yourself to what they want, their goals, which will also
register physically in you if you pay attention. For
instance, someone you know suddenly shows unusual
interest in your life, gives you the kind of attention
you’ve never had before. Is it a real attempt to connect or
a distraction, a means of softening you up so they can use
you for their own purposes? Instead of focusing on their
words, which show interest and excitement, focus on the
overall feeling tone that you pick up. How deeply are
they listening? Are they making consistent eye contact?
Does it feel like even though they are listening to you,
they are absorbed in themselves? If you are the object of
sudden attention but it seems unreliable, they are
probably intending to ask something of you, to use and
manipulate you in some way.
This kind of empathy depends largely on mirror
neurons—those neurons that fire in our brain when we
watch someone do something, such as picking up an
object, just as if we were doing it ourselves. This allows
us to put ourselves in the shoes of others and to feel what
it must be like. Studies have revealed that people who
score high on tests of empathy are generally excellent
mimics. When someone smiles or winces in pain, they
tend to unconsciously imitate the expression, giving
them a feel for what others are feeling. When we see
someone smiling and in a good mood, it tends to have a
contagious effect on us. You can consciously use this
power in trying to get into the emotions of others, either
by literally mimicking their facial gestures or by
conjuring up memories of similar experiences that
stirred such emotions. Before Alex Haley began writing
Roots, he spent some time in the dark interior of a ship,
trying to re-create the claustrophobic horror slaves must
have experienced. A visceral connection to their feelings
allowed him to write himself into their world.
As an adjunct to this, mirroring people on any level
will draw out an empathic response from them. This can
be physical, and is known as the chameleon effect.
People who are connecting physically and emotionally in
a conversation will tend to mimic each other’s gestures
and posture, both crossing their legs, for instance. To a
degree, you can do this consciously to induce a
connection by deliberately mimicking someone.
Similarly, nodding your head as they talk and smiling
will deepen the connection. Even better, you can enter
the spirit of the other person. You absorb their mood
deeply and reflect it back to them. You create a feeling of
rapport. People secretly crave this emotional rapport in
their daily lives, because they get it so rarely. It has a
hypnotic effect and appeals to people’s narcissism as you
become their mirror.
In practicing this type of empathy, keep in mind that
you must maintain a degree of distance. You are not
becoming completely enmeshed in the emotions of
another. This will make it hard for you to analyze what
you are picking up and can lead to a loss of control that is
not healthy. Also, doing this too strongly and obviously
can create a creepy effect. The nodding, smiling, and
mirroring at selected moments should be subtle, almost
impossible to detect.
Analytic empathy: The reason you are able to
understand your friends or partner so deeply is that you
have a lot of information about their tastes, values, and
family background. We have all had the experience of
thinking we know someone but over time having to
adjust our original impression once we get more
information. So while physical empathy is extremely
powerful, it must be supplemented by analytic empathy.
This can prove particularly helpful with people toward
whom we feel resistant and whom we have a hard time
identifying with—either because they are very different
from us or because there is something about them that
repels us. In such cases we naturally resort to judging
and putting them into categories. There are people out
there who are not worth the effort—supreme fools or true
psychopaths. But for most others who seem hard to
figure out, we should see it as an excellent challenge and
a way to improve our skills. As Abraham Lincoln said, “I
don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.”
Analytic empathy comes mostly through conversation
and gathering information that will allow you to get
inside the spirit of others. Some pieces of information
are more valuable than others. For instance, you want to
get a read on people’s values, which are mostly
established in their earliest years. People develop
concepts of what they consider strong, sensitive,
generous, and weak often based on their parents and
their relationship to them. One woman will see a man
crying as a sign of sensitivity and be attracted to it, while
another will see it as weak and repulsive. By not
understanding people’s values on this level, or by
projecting your own, you will misread their reactions and
create unnecessary conflicts.
Your goal, then, is to gather as much as you can about
the early years of the people you are studying and their
relationship to their parents and siblings. Keep in mind
that their current relationship to family will also speak
volumes about the past. Try to get a read on their
reactions to authority figures. This will help you see to
what extent they have a rebellious or submissive streak.
Their taste in partners will also say a lot.
If people seem reluctant to talk, try asking open-
ended questions, or begin with a sincere admission of
your own to establish trust. In general people love to talk
about themselves and their past, and it is usually quite
easy to get them to open up. Look for trigger points (see
chapter 1) that indicate points of extreme sensitivity. If
they come from another culture, it is all the more
important to understand this culture from within their
experience. Your goal in general is to find out what
makes them unique. You are looking precisely for what is
different from yourself and the other people you know.
 The empathic skill: Becoming empathetic involves
a process, like anything. In order to make sure that you
are really making progress and improving your ability to
understand people on a deeper level, you need feedback.
This can come in one of two forms: direct and indirect.
In the direct form, you ask people about their thoughts
and feelings to get a sense of whether you have guessed
correctly. This must be discreet and based on a level of
trust, but it can be a very accurate gauge of your skill.
Then there is the indirect form—you sense a greater
rapport and how certain techniques have worked for you.
To work on this skill, keep several things in mind: The
more people you interact with in the flesh, the better you
will get at this. And the greater the variety of people you
meet, the more versatile your skill will become. Also,
keep a sense of flow. Your ideas about people never quite
settle into a judgment. In an encounter, keep your
attention active to see how the other person changes over
the course of a conversation and the effect you are having
on them. Be alive to the moment. Try to see people as
they interact with others besides you—people are often
very different depending on the person they are involved
with. Try to focus not on categories but on the feeling
tone and mood that people evoke in you, which is
continually shifting. As you get better at this, you will
discover more and more cues that people give as to their
psychology. You will notice more. Continually mix the
visceral with the analytic.
Seeing improvement in your skill level will excite you
greatly and motivate you to go deeper. In general you
will notice a smoother ride through life, as you avoid
unnecessary conflicts and misunderstandings.
The deepest principle of Human Nature is the craving to be
appreciated.
—William James
 Four Examples of Narcissistic Types
1. The Complete Control Narcissist. Whenmost people first
met Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) in the early part of his
reign as premier of the Soviet Union, they found him
surprisingly charming. Although older than most of his
lieutenants, he encouraged them all to address him with
the familiar “you” form in Russian. He made himself
completely accessible even to junior officials. When he
listened to you, it was with such intensity and interest,
his eyes boring into you. He seemed to pick up your
deepest thoughts and doubts. But his greatest trait was
to make you feel important and part of the inner circle of
revolutionaries. He would put his arm around you as he
accompanied you out of his office, always ending the
meeting on an intimate note. As one young man later
wrote, people who saw him were “anxious to see him
again,” because “he created a sense that there was now a
bond that linked them forever.” Sometimes he would
turn slightly aloof, and it would drive his courtiers crazy.
Then the mood would pass, and they would bask again in
his affection.
Part of his charm lay in the fact that he epitomized the
revolution. He was a man of the people, rough and a bit
rude but someone an average Russian could identify
with. And more than anything, Joseph Stalin could be
quite entertaining. He loved to sing and to tell earthy
jokes. With these qualities it was no wonder that he
slowly amassed power and assumed complete control of
the Soviet machinery. But as the years wore on and his
power grew, another side to his character slowly leaked
out. The apparent friendliness was not as simple as it
had seemed. Perhaps the first significant sign of this
among his inner circle was the fate of Sergey Kirov, a
powerful member of the Politburo and, since the suicide
of Stalin’s wife in 1932, his closest friend and confidant.
Kirov was an enthusiastic, somewhat simple man who
made friends easily and had a way of comforting Stalin.
But Kirov was starting to become a little too popular. In
1934, several regional leaders approached him with an
offer: they were tired of Stalin’s brutal treatment of the
peasantry; they were going to instigate a coup and
wanted to make Kirov the new premier. Kirov remained
loyal—he revealed the plot to Stalin, who thanked him
profusely. But something changed in his manner toward
Kirov from then on, a coldness that had never been there
before.
Kirov understood the predicament he had created—he
had revealed to Stalin that he was not as popular as he
had thought, and that one person in particular was more
liked than him. He felt the danger he was now in. He
tried everything he could to assuage Stalin’s insecurities.
In public appearances he mentioned Stalin’s name more
than ever; his expressions of praise became more
fulsome. This only seemed to make Stalin even more
suspicious, as if Kirov were trying too hard to cover up
the truth. Now Kirov remembered the many rough jokes
he had made at Stalin’s expense. At the time, it had been
an expression of their closeness that Kirov dared to laugh
at him, but now Stalin would certainly see these jokes in
a different light. Kirov felt trapped and helpless.
In December 1934, a lone gunman assassinated Kirov
outside his office. Although no one could directly
implicate Stalin, it seemed almost certain that the killing
had his tacit approval. In the years after the
assassination, one close friend of Stalin after another was
arrested, all of this leading to the great purge within the
party during the late 1930s, in which hundreds of
thousands lost their lives. Almost all of his top
lieutenants caught up in the purge were tortured for a
confession, and afterward Stalin would listen eagerly as
those who had conducted the torture would tell him of
the desperate behavior of his once-brave friends. He
laughed at the accounts of how some got down on their
knees and, weeping, begged for an audience with Stalin
to ask for forgiveness of their sins and to be allowed to
live. He seemed to relish their humiliation.
What had happened to him? What had changed this
once so congenial man? With his closest friends he could
still show unadulterated affection, but in an instant he
could turn against them and send them to their deaths.
Other odd traits became apparent. Outwardly Stalin was
extremely modest. He was the proletariat incarnate. If
someone suggested that he be paid some public tribute,
he would react angrily—one man should not be the
center of so much attention, he would proclaim. But
slowly his name and image began to appear everywhere.
The newspaper Pravda ran stories on his every move,
almost deifying him. At a military parade, planes would
fly overhead in a formation spelling the name Stalin. He
denied having any involvement in this growing cult
around him, but he did nothing to stop it.
He increasingly spoke of himself in the third person,
as if he had become an impersonal revolutionary force,
and as such he was infallible. If he happened to
mispronounce a word in a speech, every subsequent
speaker from then on would have to pronounce it that
way. “If I’d said it right,” confessed one of his top
lieutenants, “Stalin would have felt I was correcting
him.” And that could prove suicidal.
As it seemed certain that Hitler was preparing to
invade the Soviet Union, Stalin began to oversee every
detail of the war effort. He continually berated his
lieutenants for slackening their efforts: “I am the only
one dealing with all these problems. . . . I am out there by
myself,” he once complained. Soon many of his generals
felt like they were in a double bind: if they spoke their
mind he could be terribly insulted, but if they deferred to
his opinion he would fly into a rage. “What’s the point of
talking to you?” he once shouted to a group of generals.
“Whatever I say, you reply, ‘Yes Comrade Stalin; of
course, Comrade Stalin . . . wise decision, Comrade
Stalin.’” In his fury at feeling alone in the war effort, he
fired his most competent and experienced generals. He
now oversaw every detail of the war effort, down to the
size and shape of bayonets.
It soon became a matter of life or death for his
lieutenants to accurately read his moods and whims. It
was critical to never make him anxious, which made him
dangerously unpredictable. You had to look him in the
eye so that it did not seem like you were hiding
something, but if you looked for too long, he became
nervous and self-conscious, a very risky blend. You were
supposed to take notes when he talked but not write
down everything, or you would seem suspicious. Some
who were blunt with him did well, while others ended up
in prison. Perhaps the answer was to know when to mix
in a touch of bluntness but to largely defer. Figuring him
out became an arcane science that they would discuss
with one another.
The worst fate of all was to be invited to dinner and a
late-night movie at his house. It was impossible to refuse
such an invitation, and they became more and more
frequent after the war. Outwardly it was just like before—
a warm, intimate fraternity of revolutionaries. But
inwardly it was sheer terror. Here, during all-night
drinking bouts (his own drinks were heavily diluted), he
would keep a watchful eye on all of his top lieutenants.
He forced them to drink more and more so they would
lose their self-control. He secretly delighted in their
struggles to not say or do anything that would
incriminate them.
The worst was toward the end of the evening, when he
would pull out the gramophone, play some music, and
order the men to dance. He would make Nikita
Khrushchev, the future premier, do the gopak, a highly
strenuous dance that included much squatting and
kicking. It would often make Khrushchev sick to his
stomach. The others he would have slow dance together
while he smiled and laughed uproariously at the sight of
grown men dancing as a couple. It was the ultimate form
of control: the puppet master choreographing their every
move.

• • •
Interpretation: The great riddle that Joseph Stalin and
his type present is how people who are so deeply
narcissistic can also be so charming and, through their
charm, gain influence. How can they possibly connect
with others when they are so clearly self-obsessed? How
are they able to mesmerize? The answer lies in the early
part of their careers, before they turn paranoid and
vicious.
These types generally have more ambition and energy
than the average deep narcissist. They also tend to have
even greater insecurities. The only way they can mollify
these insecurities and satisfy their ambition is by gaining
from others more than the usual share of attention and
validation, which can really only come through securing
social power in either politics or business. Early on in
life, these types stumble upon the best means for doing
so. As with most deep narcissists, they are hypersensitive
to any perceived slight. They have fine antennae attuned
to people to probe their feelings and thoughts—to suss
out if there is any hint of disrespect. But what they
discover at some point is that this sensitivity can be
tuned to others to probe their desires and insecurities.
Being so sensitive, they can listen to people with deep
attention. They can mimic empathy. The difference is
that from within, they are impelled not by the need to
connect but by the need to control people and
manipulate them. They listen and probe you in order to
discover weaknesses to play on.
Their attention is not all faked or it would have no
effect. In the moment, they can feel camaraderie as they
put their arm around your shoulder, but afterward they
control and stifle its blossoming into anything real or
deeper. If they did not do so, they would risk losing
control of their emotions and opening themselves up to
being hurt. They pull you in with a display of attention
and affection, then lure you in deeper with the inevitable
coldness that follows. Did you do or say something
wrong? How can you regain their favor? It can be subtle
—it can register in a glance that lasts a second or two—
but it has its effect. It is the classic push and pull of the
coquette that makes you want to reexperience the
warmth you once felt. Combined with the unusually high
levels of confidence displayed by this type, this can have
a devastatingly seductive effect on people and attract
followers. Complete control narcissists stimulate your
desire to get closer to them but keep you at arm’s
distance.
All of this is about control. They control their
emotions, and they control your reactions. At some
point, as they get more secure in their power, they will
resent the fact that they had to play the charm game.
Why should they have to pay attention to others when it
should be the other way around? So they will inevitably
turn against former friends, revealing the envy and
hatred that was always just below the surface. They
control who is in and who is out, who lives and who dies.
By creating double binds in which nothing you say or do
will please them, or by making it seem arbitrary, they
terrorize you with this insecurity. They now control your
emotions.
At some point, they will become total micromanagers
—whom can they trust anymore? People have turned into
automatons, incapable of making decisions, so they must
oversee everything. If they reach such extremes, these
types will end up destroying themselves, because it is
actually impossible to rid the human animal of free will.
People rebel, even the most cowed. In Stalin’s last days
he suffered a stroke, but none of his lieutenants dared to
help him or call for a doctor. He died from their neglect,
as they had come to both fear and loathe him.
You will almost inevitably encounter this type in your
life, because through their ambition they tend to become
bosses and CEOs, political figures, cult leaders. The
danger they represent to you is in the beginning, when
they first apply their charm. You can see through them
by employing your visceral empathy. Their show of
interest in you is never deep, never lasts too long, and is
inevitably followed by a coquettish pullback. If you stop
being distracted by the outward attempt at charm, you
can sense this coldness and the degree to which the
attention inevitably flows to them.
Look at their past. You will notice that they do not
have one single deep and intimate relationship in which
they exposed any vulnerability. Look for signs of a
troubled childhood. Stalin himself had a father who beat
him mercilessly and a rather cold and unloving mother.
Listen to people who have seen their true nature and
have tried to warn others. Indeed, Stalin’s predecessor,
Vladimir Lenin, had understood his lethal nature, and on
his deathbed he tried to signal this to others, but his
warnings went unheeded. Notice the terrified
expressions of those who serve such types on a daily
basis. If you suspect you are dealing with this type, you
must keep your distance. They are like tigers—once you
are too close, you cannot get away, and they will devour
you.
2. The Theatrical Narcissist. In
1627, the prioress of the
Ursuline nuns in Loudun, France, welcomed into the
house a new sister, Jeanne de Belciel (1602–1665).
Jeanne was a strange creature. Rather dwarfish in size,
she had a pretty, angelic face but a malicious glint in her
eye. In her previous house she had made a lot of enemies
with her continual sarcasm. But to the prioress’s
surprise, transferred to this new house, Jeanne seemed
to undergo a transformation. She now acted like a
complete angel, offering to help the prioress in all of her
daily tasks. Moreover, given some books to read on Saint
Teresa and mysticism, Jeanne became engrossed in the
subject. She spent long hours discussing spiritual
questions with the prioress. Within months she had
become the house expert on mystical theology. She could
be seen meditating and praying for hours, more than any
other sister. Later that same year the prioress was
transferred to another house. Deeply impressed by
Jeanne’s behavior and ignoring the advice of others who
did not think so highly of her, the prioress recommended
Jeanne as her replacement. Suddenly, at the very young
age of twenty-five, Jeanne now found herself the head of
the Ursuline nuns in Loudun.
Several months later, the sisters at Loudun began to
hear some very strange stories from Jeanne. She had had
a series of dreams, in which a local parish priest, Urbain
Grandier, had visited and physically assaulted her. The
dreams became increasingly erotic and violent. What
was strange was that before these dreams, Jeanne had
invited Grandier to become the director of the Ursuline
house, but he had politely declined. In Loudun, locals
considered Grandier a gallant seducer of young ladies.
Was Jeanne merely indulging in her own fantasies? She
was so pious that it was hard to believe she was making it
all up, and the dreams seemed very real and unusually
graphic. Soon after she began telling them to others,
several sisters reported having similar dreams. One day
the house confessor, Canon Mignon, heard a sister
recount such a dream. Mignon, like many others, had
long despised Grandier, and he saw in these dreams an
opportunity to finally do him in. He called in some
exorcists to work on the nuns, and soon almost all of the
sisters were reporting nightly visits from Grandier. To
the exorcists it was clear—these nuns were possessed by
devils under the control of Grandier.
 For the edification of the citizenry, Mignon and his
allies opened the exorcisms up to the public, who now
flocked from far and wide to witness a most entertaining
scene. The nuns would roll on the ground, writhing,
showing their legs, screaming endless obscenities. And of
all the sisters, Jeanne seemed the most possessed. Her
contortions were more violent, and the demons that
spoke through her were more strident in their satanic
oaths. It was one of the strongest possessions they had
ever seen, and the public clamored to witness her
exorcisms above all the others. It now seemed apparent
to the exorcists that Grandier, despite never having set
foot in the house or having met Jeanne, had somehow
bewitched and debauched the good sisters of Loudun. He
was soon arrested and charged with sorcery.
Based on the evidence, Grandier was condemned to
death. After much torture, he was burned at the stake on
August 18, 1634, before an enormous crowd. Soon the
whole business quieted down. The nuns were suddenly
cleared of demons—all except Jeanne. The demons were
not only refusing to leave her but were gaining a stronger
hold on her. The Jesuits, hearing of this notorious
possession, decided to take charge of the affair and sent
father Jean-Joseph Surin to exorcise her once and for all.
Surin found her a fascinating subject. She was
completely versed in matters concerning demonology
and was clearly despondent at her fate. And yet she did
not seem to resist strongly enough the demons who
inhabited her. Perhaps she had succumbed to their
influence.
One thing was certain: she had taken an unusual
liking to Surin and kept him in the house for hours for
spiritual discussions. She started to pray and meditate
with more energy. She got rid of all possible luxuries: she
slept on the hard floor and had vomit-inducing potions
of wormwood poured over her food. She reported to
Surin her progress and confessed to him “that she had
come so near to God that she had received . . . a kiss from
his mouth.”
With Surin’s help, one demon after another fled her
body. And then came her first miracle: the name Joseph
could be read quite clearly in the palm of her left hand.
When this faded away after several days, it was replaced
by the name of Jesus, and then Mary, and then other
names. It was a stigmata, a sign of true grace from God.
After this Jeanne fell deeply ill and seemed close to
death. She reported being visited by a beautiful young
angel with long, flowing blond hair. Then Saint Joseph
himself came to her and touched her side, where she felt
the greatest pain, and anointed her with a fragrant oil.
She recovered, and the oil left a mark on her chemise in
the form of five clear drops. The demons were now gone,
to Surin’s enormous relief. The story was over, but
Jeanne surprised him with a strange request: she wanted
to go on a tour of Europe, displaying these miracles to
one and all. She felt it was her duty to do so. It seemed
oddly contradictory to her modest character and ever so
slightly worldly, but Surin agreed to accompany her.
In Paris, enormous crowds filled the streets outside
her hotel, wanting to catch a glimpse of her. She met
Cardinal Richelieu, who seemed quite moved and kissed
the fragrant chemise, now a saintly relic. She showed her
stigmata to the King and Queen of France. The tour
moved on. She met the greatest aristocrats and
luminaries of her era. In one town, every day crowds of
seven thousand people would enter the convent where
she was staying. The demand to hear her story was so
intense that she decided to issue a printed booklet in
which she described in great detail her possession, her
most intimate thoughts, and the miracle that had
occurred.
At her death in 1665, the head of Jeanne des Anges, as
she was now known, was decapitated, mummified, and
placed in a silver-gilt box with crystal windows. It was
displayed next to the anointed chemise for those who
wanted to see it, at the Ursuline house in Loudun, until
its disappearance during the French Revolution.

• • •
Interpretation: In her earliest years, Jeanne de Belciel
displayed an insatiable appetite for attention. She
wearied her parents, who finally got rid of her by sending
her to a convent in Poitiers. There she proceeded to drive
the nuns insane with her sarcasm and incredible air of
superiority. Sent off to Loudun, it seemed she decided to
try a different approach to gaining the recognition she so
desperately needed. Given books on spirituality, she
determined she would excel all others in her knowledge
and pious behavior. She made a complete show of both
and gained the good favor of the prioress. But as head of
the house, she felt bored, and the attention she now
received inadequate. Her dreams of Grandier were a mix
of fabrication and autosuggestion. Soon after the
exorcists arrived, she was given a book on demonology,
which she devoured, and knowing the various ins and
outs of devil inhabitation, she proceeded to give herself
all of the most dramatic traits, which would be picked up
by the exorcists as sure signs of possession. She became
the star of the public spectacle. While possessed, she
went further than all others in her degradation and lewd
behavior.
After Grandier’s gruesome execution, which
profoundly affected the other nuns, who certainly felt
guilt at the part they had played in the death of an
innocent man, Jeanne alone felt the sudden lack of
attention as unbearable and so she upped the ante by
refusing to let go of the demons. She had become a
master at sensing the weaknesses and hidden desires of
those around her—first the prioress, and then the
exorcists, and now Father Surin. He wanted so badly to
be the one to redeem her that he would fall for the
simplest of miracles. As for the stigmata, some later
speculated that she had etched these names with acid, or
traced them through colored starch. It seemed odd that
they appeared only on her left hand, where it would be
easy for her to write them out. It is known that in
extreme hysteria the skin becomes particularly sensitive,
and a fingernail can do the trick. As someone who had
long experimented in concocting herbal remedies, it was
easy for her to apply fragrant drops. Once people
believed in the stigmata, it would be hard for them to
doubt the anointment.
Even Surin found the need for a tour dubious. At this
point, she could no longer disguise her true appetite for
attention. Years later, Jeanne wrote an autobiography in
which she admitted to a completely theatrical side to her
personality. She was continually playing a part, although
she maintained that the final miracle was sincere and
real. Many of the sisters who dealt with her on a daily
basis saw through the façade and described her as a
consummate actress addicted to attention and fame.
One of the strange paradoxes about deep narcissism is
that it often goes unnoticed by others, until the behavior
becomes too extreme to ignore. The reason for this is
simple: deep narcissists can be masters of disguise. They
sense early on that if they revealed their true selves to
others—their need for constant attention and to feel
superior—they would repel people. They use their lack of
a coherent self as an advantage. They can play many
parts. They can disguise their need for attention through
various dramatic devices. They can go further than
anyone in seeming moral and altruistic. They never just
give or support the right cause—they make a show of it.
Who wants to doubt the sincerity of this display of
morality? Or they go in the opposite direction, reveling
in their status as a victim, as someone suffering at the
hands of others or neglected by the world. It is easy to
get caught up in the drama of the moment, only to suffer
later as they consume you with their needs or use you for
their purposes. They play on your empathy.
Your only solution is to see through the trick.
Recognize this type by the fact that the focus always
seems to be on them. Notice how they are always
superior in supposed goodness or suffering or squalor.
See the continual drama and the theatrical quality of
their gestures. Everything they do or say is for public
consumption. Do not let yourself become collateral
damage in their drama.
3. The Narcissistic Couple. In
1862, several days before
thirty-two-year-old Leo Tolstoy was to wed Sonya Behrs,
only eighteen years old at the time, he suddenly decided
that there should be no secrets between them. As part of
that, he brought her his diaries, and to his surprise, what
she read made her weep and get quite angry as well. In
these pages he had written about his many previous love
affairs, including his ongoing infatuation with a nearby
peasant woman with whom he had had a child. He also
wrote about the brothels he frequented, the gonorrhea he
had caught, and his endless gambling. She felt intense
jealousy and disgust at the same time. Why make her
read this? She accused him of having second thoughts, of
not really loving her. Taken aback by this reaction, he
accused her of the same. He wanted to share with her his
old ways, so that she would understand he was happily
forsaking them for a new life, with her. Why should she
rebuke his attempt at honesty? She clearly did not love
him as much as he had thought. Why was it so painful for
her to say good-bye to her family before the wedding?
Did she love them more than him? They managed to
reconcile and the wedding took place, but a pattern was
set that would continue for forty-eight years.
For Sonya, despite their frequent arguments, the
marriage eventually settled into a relatively comfortable
rhythm. She had become his most trusted assistant.
Besides bearing eight children in twelve years, five of
whom survived, she carefully copied out his books for
him, including War and Peace and Anna Karenina, and
managed much of the business side of publishing his
books. Everything seemed to be going along well enough
—he was a rich man, from both the family estates he had
inherited and the sales of his books. He had a large
family who doted on him. He was famous. But suddenly,
at the age of fifty, he felt immensely unhappy and
ashamed of the books he had written. He no longer knew
who he was. He was undergoing a deep spiritual crisis,
and he found the Orthodox Church too strict and
dogmatic to help him. His life had to change. He would
write no more novels, and henceforth he would live like a
common peasant. He would give up his property and
renounce all copyrights on his books. And he asked his
family to join him in this new life devoted to helping
others and to spiritual matters.
To his dismay the family, Sonya leading the way,
reacted angrily. He was asking them to give up their style
of living, their comforts, and the children’s future
inheritance. Sonya did not feel the need for any drastic
change in their lifestyle, and she resented his accusations
that she was somehow evil and materialistic for resisting.
They fought and fought, and neither budged. Now when
Tolstoy looked at his wife, all he could see was someone
who was using him for his fame and his money. That was
clearly why she had married him. And when she looked
at him, all she could see was a rank hypocrite. Although
he had given up his property rights, he continued living
like a lord and asking her for money for his habits. He
dressed like a peasant, but if he fell ill he would travel to
the South in a luxury private railway coach to a villa in
which he could convalesce. And despite his new vow of
celibacy, he kept making her pregnant.
Tolstoy craved a simple, spiritual life, and she was
now the main stumbling block to this. He found her
presence in the house oppressive. He wrote her a letter in
which he finished by saying, “You attribute what has
happened to everything except the one thing, that you
are the unwitting, unintentional cause of my sufferings.
A struggle to the death is going on between us.” Out of
his increasing bitterness at her materialistic ways, he
wrote the novella The Kreutzer Sonata, clearly based on
their marriage and painting her in the worst light. For
Sonya, the effect of all this was that she felt like she was
losing her mind. Finally, in 1894, she snapped. Imitating
one of the characters in a Tolstoy story, she decided to
commit suicide by walking out into the snow and
freezing herself to death. A family member caught up
with her and dragged her back to the house. She
repeated the attempt twice more, with no better effect.
Now the pattern became sharper and more violent.
Tolstoy would push her buttons; she would do something
desperate; Tolstoy would feel remorse for his coldness
and beg for her forgiveness. He would give in to her on
some issues, for instance, allowing the family to retain
the copyrights on his earlier books. Then some new
behavior on her part would make him regret this. She
constantly tried to pit the children against him. She had
to read everything he wrote in his diaries, and if he hid
them, she would somehow find them and read them on
the sly. She watched his every move. He would berate her
wildly for her meddling, sometimes falling ill in the
process, which made her regret her actions. What was
holding them together? Each one craved the acceptance
and love of the other, but it seemed impossible to expect
that anymore.
After years of suffering through this, in late October of
1910, Tolstoy finally had had enough: in the middle of
the night he stole away from the house with a doctor
friend accompanying him, determined to finally leave
Sonya. He was trembling all the way, in terror of being
surprised and overtaken by his wife, but finally he
boarded a train and got away from her. When she got the
news, Sonya attempted suicide yet again, throwing
herself in the nearby pond, only to be rescued just in
time. She wrote Tolstoy a letter, begging him to come
back. Yes, she would change her ways. She would
renounce all luxuries. She would become spiritual. She
would love him unconditionally. She could not live
without him.
For Tolstoy, his taste of freedom was short-lived. The
newspapers were now full of accounts of his running
away from his wife. Everywhere the train stopped,
reporters, devoted fans, and the curious mobbed him. He
could not take anymore the packed and freezing
conditions on the train. Soon he fell deathly ill and had
to be carried to a stationmaster’s cottage near the railway
tracks in some out-of-the-way village. In bed, it was clear
now he was dying. He heard that Sonya had arrived in
town but could not bear the thought of seeing her now.
The family kept her outside, where she continued to peer
through the window at him as he lay dying. Finally, when
he was unconscious, she was allowed in. She knelt beside
him, kissed him continually on the forehead, and
whispered into his ear, “Forgive me. Please forgive me.”
He died shortly thereafter. A month later, a visitor to the
Tolstoy house reported the following words from Sonya:
“What happened to me? What came over me? How could
I have done it? . . . You know I killed him.”

• • •
Interpretation: Leo Tolstoy displayed all of the signs
of the deep narcissist. His mother had died when he was
two and left a giant hole in him that he could never fill,
although he tried to do so with his numerous affairs. He
behaved recklessly in his youth, as if this could somehow
make him feel alive and whole. He felt continually
disgusted with himself and could not figure out who
exactly he was. He poured this uncertainty into his
novels, assuming different roles in the characters he
created. And by the age of fifty, he finally fell into a deep
crisis over his fragmented self. Sonya herself rated high
on the self-absorption scale. But in looking at people we
tend to overemphasize their individual traits and not
look at the more complex picture of how each side in a
relationship continually shapes the other. A relationship
has a life and personality all its own. And a relationship
can also be deeply narcissistic, accentuating or even
bringing out the narcissistic tendencies of both sides.
What generally makes a relationship narcissistic is the
lack of empathy that makes the partners retreat deeper
and deeper into their own defensive positions. In the
case of the Tolstoys this started right away, with the
reading of his diary. Each side had their divergent values
through which they viewed the other. To Sonya, raised in
a conventional household, this was the act of a man who
clearly regretted his marriage proposal; to Tolstoy, the
iconoclastic artist, her reaction meant she was incapable
of seeing into his soul, of trying to understand his desire
for a new married life. They each misunderstood the
other and fell into hardened positions that lasted for
forty-eight years.
Tolstoy’s spiritual crisis epitomized this narcissistic
dynamic. If only in that moment they each could have
attempted to see this action through the eyes of the
other. Tolstoy could have clearly foreseen her reaction.
She had lived her whole life in relative comfort, which
had helped her manage the frequent pregnancies and
upbringing of so many children. She had never been
deeply spiritual. Their connection had always been more
physical. Why should he expect her to suddenly change?
His demands were almost sadistic. He could have simply
explained his own side without demanding that she
follow him, even expressing his understanding of her
own position and needs. That would have revealed true
spirituality on his part. And she, instead of focusing only
on his hypocrisy, could have seen a man who was clearly
unhappy with himself, someone who had never felt loved
enough since early childhood and who was undergoing a
very real personal crisis. She could have offered her love
and support for his new life while gently declining to
follow him all the way.
Such use of empathy has the opposite effect of mutual
narcissism. Coming from one side, it tends to soften the
other one up and invite his or her empathy as well. It is
hard to stay in one’s defensive position when the other
person is seeing and expressing your side and entering
your spirit. It beckons you to do the same. Secretly
people yearn to let go of their resistance. It is exhausting
to continually be so defensive and suspicious.
The key to employing empathy within a relationship is
to understand the value system of the other person,
which inevitably is different from yours. What they
interpret as signs of love or attention or generosity tends
to diverge from your way of thinking. These value
systems are largely formed in early childhood and are
not consciously created by people. Keeping in mind their
value system will allow you to enter their spirit and
perspective precisely in the moment you would normally
turn defensive. Even deep narcissists can be pulled out of
their shell in this way, because such attention is so rare.
Measure all of your relationships on the narcissism
spectrum. It is not one person or the other but the
dynamic itself that must be altered.
4. The Healthy Narcissist—the Mood Reader. InOctober of
1915, the great English explorer Sir Ernest Henry
Shackleton (1874–1922) ordered the abandonment of the
ship Endurance, which had been trapped in an ice floe in
Antarctica for over eight months and was beginning to
take on water. For Shackleton this meant he essentially
had to give up on his great dream of leading his men on
the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent. This
was to have been the culmination of his illustrious career
as an explorer, but now a much greater responsibility
weighed on his mind—to somehow get the twenty-seven
men of his crew safely back home. Their lives would
depend on his daily decisions.
To realize this goal, he faced many obstacles: the
harsh winter weather about to hit them, the drifting
currents that could pull the ice floe they were to camp on
in any direction, the coming days without any light, the
dwindling food supplies, the lack of any radio contact or
ship to transport them. But the greatest danger of all, the
one that filled him with the most dread, was the morale
of the men. All it would take was a few malcontents to
spread resentment and negativity; soon the men would
not work as hard; they would tune him out and lose faith
in his leadership. Once that happened, it could be every
man for himself, and in this climate that could easily
spell disaster and death. He would have to monitor their
group spirit even more closely than the changing
weather.
The first thing he had to do was get out ahead of the
problem and infect the crew with the proper spirit. It all
started from the leader. He would have to hide all of his
own doubts and fears. The first morning on the ice floe,
he got up earlier than anyone and prepared an extra-
large helping of hot tea. As he personally served it to the
men, he sensed they were looking to him for cues on how
to feel about their plight, so he kept the mood light,
mixing in some humor about their new home and the
coming darkness. It was not the right time to discuss his
ideas for getting out of this mess. That would make them
too anxious. He would not verbalize his optimism about
their chances but would let the men feel it in his manner
and body language, even if he had to fake it.
They all knew they were trapped there for the coming
winter. What they needed was distractions, something to
occupy their minds and keep their spirits up. For that
purpose, every day he drew up a duty roster outlining
who would be doing what. He tried to mix it up as much
as possible, shifting the men around in various groups
and making sure they never did the same task too often.
For each day there was a simple goal to accomplish—
some penguins or seals to hunt, some more stores from
the ship to bring to the tents, the construction of a better
campground. At the end of the day, they could sit around
the campfire feeling they had done something to make
their lives a little easier.
As the days wore on, he developed an increasingly
sharp attunement to the men’s shifting moods. Around
the campfire, he would walk up to each man and engage
him in a conversation. With the scientists he talked
science; with the more aesthetic types he talked of his
favorite poets and composers. He got into their
particular spirit and was especially attentive to any
problems they were experiencing. The cook seemed
particularly aggrieved that he would have to kill his pet
cat; they were out of food to feed it. Shackleton
volunteered to do it for him. It was clear that the
physicist on board was having a difficult time with the
hard labor; at night he ate slowly and sighed wearily.
When Shackleton talked to him, he could feel that his
spirit was lowering by the day. Without making him feel
like he was shirking, Shackleton changed the roster
around to give him lighter but equally important tasks.
He quickly recognized a few weak links in the group.
First there was Frank Hurley, the ship’s photographer.
He was good at his job and never complained about
doing other chores, but he was a man who needed to feel
important. He had a snobbish bent. So on those first
days on the ice, Shackleton made a point of asking
Hurley for his opinion on all significant matters, such as
food stores, and complimenting him on his ideas.
Furthermore he assigned Hurley to his own tent, which
both made Hurley feel more important than the others
and made it easier for Shackleton to keep an eye on him.
The navigator, Huberht Hudson, revealed himself to be
very self-centered and a terrible listener. He needed
constant attention. Shackleton talked with him more
than with any of the others and also brought him into his
tent. If there were other men he suspected of being latent
malcontents, he spread them around in different tents,
diluting their possible influence.
As the winter wore on, he doubled his attentiveness.
At certain moments, he could feel the boredom of the
men in how they carried themselves, in how they talked
less and less to one another. To combat this, he
organized sporting events on the ice during the sunless
days and entertainments at night—music, practical jokes,
storytelling. Every holiday was carefully observed, with a
large feast set out for the men. The endless days of
drifting somehow were filled with highlights, and soon
he began to notice something remarkable: the men were
decidedly cheery and even seemed to be enjoying the
challenges of life on a drifting ice floe.
At one point the floe they were on had become
dangerously small, and so he ordered the men into the
three small lifeboats they had salvaged from the
Endurance. They needed to head for land. He kept the
boats together and, braving the rough waters, they
managed to land on the nearby Elephant Island, on a
narrow patch of beach. As he surveyed the island that
day, it was clear the conditions on it were in some ways
worse than the ice floe. Time was against them. That
same day, Shackleton ordered one boat to be prepared
for an extremely risky attempt to reach the most
accessible and inhabited patch of land in the area—South
Georgia Island, some eight hundred miles to the
northeast. The chances of making it were slim, but the
men could not survive long on Elephant Island, with its
exposure to the sea and the paucity of animals to kill.
Shackleton had to choose carefully the five other men,
besides himself, for this voyage. One man he selected,
Harry McNeish, was a very odd choice. He was the ship’s
carpenter and the oldest member of the crew at fifty-
seven. He could be grumpy and did not take well to hard
labor. Even though it would be an extremely rough
journey in their small boat, Shackleton was too afraid to
leave him behind. He put him in charge of fitting out the
boat for the trip. With this task, he would feel personally
responsible for the boat’s safety, and on the journey his
mind would be continually occupied with keeping track
of the boat’s seaworthiness.
At one point during the voyage, he noticed McNeish’s
spirits sinking, and suddenly the man stopped rowing.
Shackleton sensed the danger here—if he yelled at
McNeish or ordered him to row, he would probably
become even more rebellious, and with so few men
crowded together for so many weeks with so little food,
this could turn ugly. Improvising in the moment, he
stopped the boat and ordered the boiling of hot milk for
everyone. He said they were all getting tired, including
himself, and they needed their spirits lifted. McNeish
was spared the embarrassment of being singled out, and
for the rest of journey, Shackleton repeated this ploy as
often as necessary.
A few miles from their destination, a sudden storm
pushed them back. As they desperately looked for a new
approach to the island, a small bird kept hovering over
them, trying to land on their boat. Shackleton struggled
to maintain his usual composure, but suddenly he lost it,
standing and swinging wildly at the bird while swearing.
Almost immediately he felt embarrassed and sat back
down. For fifteen months he had kept all of his
frustrations in check for the sake of the men and to
maintain morale. He had set the tone. Now was not the
time to go back on this. Minutes later, he made a joke at
his own expense and vowed to himself never to repeat
such a display, no matter the pressure.
After a journey over some of the worst ocean
conditions in the world, the tiny boat finally managed to
land at South Georgia Island, and several months later,
with the help of the whalers who worked there, all of the
remaining men on Elephant Island were rescued.
Considering the odds against them, the climate, the
impossible terrain, the tiny boats, and their meager
resources, it was one of the most remarkable survival
stories in history. Slowly word spread of the role that
Shackleton’s leadership had played in this. As the
explorer Sir Edmund Hillary later summed it up: “For
scientific leadership give me Scott; for swift, efficient
travel, Amundsen; but when you are in a hopeless
situation, when there seems no way out, get down on
your knees and pray for Shackleton.”

• • •
Interpretation: When Shackleton found himself
responsible for the lives of so many men in such
desperate circumstances, he understood what would
spell the difference between life or death: the men’s
attitude. This is not something visible. It is rarely
discussed or analyzed in books. There are no training
manuals on the subject. And yet it was the most
important factor of all. A slight dip in their spirit, some
cracks in their unity, and it would become too difficult to
make the right decisions under such duress. One attempt
at getting free of the floe, taken out of the impatience and
pressure from a few, would certainly lead to death. In
essence, Shackleton was thrown back into the most
elemental and primal condition of the human animal—a
group in danger, dependent on one another for survival.
It was in just such circumstances that our most distant
ancestors evolved superior social skills, the uncanny
human ability to read the moods and minds of others,
and to cooperate. And in the sunless months on the ice
floe, Shackleton himself would rediscover these ancient
empathic skills that lie dormant in us all, because he had
to.
How Shackleton went about this task should serve as
the model for all of us. First, he understood the primary
role that his own attitude would play in this. The leader
infects the group with his mind-set. Much of this occurs
on the nonverbal level, as people pick up on the leader’s
body language and tone of voice. Shackleton imbued
himself with an air of complete confidence and optimism
and watched how this infected the men’s spirit.
Second, he had to divide his attention almost equally
between individuals and the group. With the group he
monitored levels of chattiness at mealtimes, the amount
of swearing he heard during work, how quickly the mood
elevated when some entertainment had begun. With
individuals he read their emotional states in their tone of
voice, how quickly they ate their food, how slowly they
rose out of bed. If he noticed a particular mood of theirs
that day, he would try to anticipate what they might do
by putting himself in a similar mood. He looked for any
signs of frustration or insecurity in their words and
gestures. He had to treat each person differently,
depending on his particular psychology. He also had to
constantly adjust his readings, as people’s moods shifted
quickly.
Third, in detecting any dips in spirit or negativity, he
had to be gentle. Scolding would only make people feel
ashamed and singled out, which would lead to
contagious effects down the road. Better to engage them
in talk, to enter their spirit, and to find indirect ways to
either elevate their mood or isolate them without making
them realize what he was doing. As Shackleton practiced
this, he noticed how much better he became at it. In one
quick glance in the morning, he could almost anticipate
how the men would act during the entire day. Some
fellow crew members thought he was psychic.
Understand: What makes us develop these
empathic powers is necessity. If we feel our survival
depends on how well we gauge the moods and minds of
others, then we will find the requisite focus and tap into
the powers. Normally we do not feel the need for this.
We imagine that we understand quite well the people we
deal with. Life can be harsh and we have too many other
tasks to attend to. We are lazy and prefer to rely upon
predigested judgments. But in fact it is a matter of life
and death and our success does depend on the
development of these skills. We simply are not aware of
this because we do not see the connection between
problems in our lives and our constant misreading of
people’s moods and intentions and the endless missed
opportunities that accrue from this.
The first step, then, is the most important: to realize
you have a remarkable social tool that you are not
cultivating. The best way to see this is to try it out. Stop
your incessant interior monologue and pay deeper
attention to people. Attune yourself to the shifting moods
of individuals and the group. Get a read on each person’s
particular psychology and what motivates them. Try to
take their perspective, enter their world and value
system. You will suddenly become aware of an entire
world of nonverbal behavior you never knew existed, as
if your eyes could now suddenly see ultraviolet light.
Once you sense this power, you will feel its importance
and awaken to new social possibilities.
I do not ask the wounded person how he feels. . . . I myself
become the wounded person.
—Walt Whitman
 3

See Through People’s

Masks

The Law of Role-playing

P eople tend to wear the mask that shows them off in the
best possible light—humble, confident, diligent. They
say the right things, smile, and seem interested in our
ideas. They learn to conceal their insecurities and envy. If
we take this appearance for reality, we never really know
their true feelings, and on occasion we are blindsided by
their sudden resistance, hostility, and manipulative
actions. Fortunately, the mask has cracks in it. People
continually leak out their true feelings and unconscious
desires in the nonverbal cues they cannot completely
control—facial expressions, vocal inflections, tension in the
body, and nervous gestures. You must master this
language by transforming yourself into a superior reader
of men and women. Armed with this knowledge, you can
take the proper defensive measures. On the other hand,
since appearances are what people judge you by, you must
learn how to present the best front and play your role to
maximum effect.

The Second Language

One morning in August 1919 seventeen-year-old Milton
Erickson, future pioneer in hypnotherapy and one of the
most influential psychologists of the twentieth century,
awoke to discover parts of his body suddenly paralyzed.
Over the next few days the paralysis spread. He was soon
diagnosed with polio, a near epidemic at the time. As he lay
in bed, he heard his mother in another room discussing his
case with two specialists the family had called in. Assuming
Erickson was asleep, one of the doctors told her, “The boy
will be dead by morning.” His mother came into his room,
clearly trying to disguise her grief, unaware that her son
had overhead the conversation. Erickson kept asking her to
move the chest of drawers near his bed over here, over
there. She thought he was delusional, but he had his
reasons: he wanted to distract her from her anguish, and he
wanted the mirror on the chest positioned just right. If he
began to lose consciousness, he could focus on the sunset in
the reflected mirror, holding on to this image as long as he
could. The sun always returned; maybe he would as well,
proving the doctors wrong. Within hours he fell into a
coma.
Erickson regained consciousness three days later.
Somehow he had cheated death, but now the paralysis had
spread to his entire body. Even his lips were paralyzed. He
could not move or gesture, nor communicate to others in
any way. The only body parts he could move were his
eyeballs, allowing him to scan the narrow space of his room.
Quarantined in the house on the farm in rural Wisconsin
where he grew up, his only company was his seven sisters,
his one brother, his parents, and a private nurse. For
someone with such an active mind, the boredom was
excruciating. But one day as he listened to his sisters talking
among themselves, he became aware of something he had
never noticed before. As they talked, their faces made all
kinds of movements, and the tone of their voices seemed to
have a life of its own. One sister said to another, “Yes, that’s
a good idea,” but she said this in a monotone and with a
noticeable smirk, all of which seemed to say, “I actually
don’t think it’s a good idea at all.” Somehow a yes could
really mean no.
Now he paid attention to this. It was a stimulating game.
In the course of the next day he counted sixteen different
forms of no that he heard, indicating various degrees of
hardness, all accompanied by different facial expressions.
At one point he noticed one sister saying yes to something
while actually shaking her head no. It was very subtle, but
he saw it. If people said yes but really felt no, it appeared to
show up in their grimaces and body language. On another
occasion he watched closely from the corner of his eye as
one sister offered another an apple, but the tension in her
face and tightness in her arms indicated she was just being
polite and clearly wanted to keep it for herself. This signal
was not picked up, and yet it seemed so clear to him.
Unable to participate in conversations, he found his
mind completely absorbed in observing people’s hand
gestures, their raised eyebrows, the pitch of their voices,
and the sudden folding of their arms. He noticed, for
instance, how often the veins in his sisters’ necks would
begin to pulsate when they stood over him, indicating the
nervousness they felt in his presence. Their breathing
patterns as they spoke fascinated him, and he discovered
that certain rhythms indicated boredom and were generally
followed by a yawn. Hair seemed to play an important role
with his sisters. A very deliberate brushing back of strands
of hair would indicate impatience—“I’ve heard enough; now
please shut up.” But a quicker, more unconscious stroke
could indicate rapt attention.
Trapped in bed, his hearing became more acute. He
could now pick up conversations in the other room, where
people were not trying to put on a pleasant show in front of
him. And soon he noticed a peculiar pattern—in a
conversation people were rarely direct. A sister could spend
minutes beating around the bush, leaving hints to others
about what she really wanted—such as to borrow an article
of clothing or hear an apology from someone. Her hidden
desire was clearly indicated by her tone of voice, which gave
emphasis to certain words. Her hope was that the others
would pick this up and offer what she desired, but often the
hints were ignored and she would be forced to come out
and say what she wanted. Conversation after conversation
fell into this recurring pattern. Soon it became a game for
him to guess within as few seconds as possible what the
sister was hinting at.
 It was as if in his paralysis he had suddenly become
aware of a second channel of human communication, a
second language in which people expressed something from
deep within themselves, sometimes without being aware of
it. What would happen if he could somehow master the
intricacies of this language? How would it alter his
perception of people? Could he extend his reading powers
to the nearly invisible gestures people made with their lips,
their breath, the level of tension in their hands?
One day several months later, as he sat near a window in
a special reclining chair his family had designed for him, he
listened to his brother and sisters playing outside. (He had
regained movement in his lips and could speak, but his
body remained paralyzed.) He wanted so desperately to join
them. As if momentarily forgetting his paralysis, in his
mind he began to stand up, and for a brief second he
experienced the twitching of a muscle in his leg, the first
time he had felt any movement in his body at all. The
doctors had told his mother he would never walk again, but
they had been wrong before. Based on this simple twitch, he
decided to try an experiment. He would focus deeply on a
particular muscle in his leg, remembering the sensation he
had before his paralysis, wanting badly to move it, and
imagining it functioning again. His nurse would massage
that area, and slowly, with intermittent success, he would
feel a twitch and then the slightest bit of movement
returning to the muscle. Through this excruciatingly slow
process he taught himself to stand, then take a few steps,
then walk around his room, then walk outside, increasing
the distances.
Somehow, by drawing upon his willpower and
imagination, he was able to alter his physical condition and
regain complete movement. Clearly, he realized, the mind
and the body operate together, in ways we are hardly aware
of. Wanting to explore this further, he decided to pursue a
career in medicine and psychology, and in the late 1920s he
began to practice psychiatry in various hospitals. Quickly he
developed a method that was completely his own and
diametrically opposed to others trained in the field. Almost
all practicing psychiatrists focused largely on words. They
would get patients to talk, particularly going over their early
childhood. In this way they hoped to gain access to their
patients’ unconscious. Erickson instead focused mostly on
people’s physical presence as an entrée into their mental
life and unconscious. Words are often used as a cover-up, a
way to conceal what is really going on. Making his patients
completely comfortable, he would detect signs of hidden
tension and unmet desires that came through in their face,
voice, and posture. As he did this, he explored in greater
depth the world of nonverbal communication.
His motto was “observe, observe, observe.” For this
purpose he kept a notebook, writing down all of his
observations. One element that particularly fascinated him
was the walking styles of people, perhaps a reflection of his
own difficulties in relearning how to use his legs. He would
watch people walking in every part of the city. He paid
attention to the heaviness of the step—there was the
emphatic walk of those who were persistent and full of
resolve; the light step of those who seemed more indecisive;
the loping, fluid walk of those who seemed rather lazy; the
meandering walk of the person lost in thought. He observed
closely the extra swaying of the hips or the strut that
seemed to elevate the head, indicating high levels of
confidence in a person. There was the walk that people put
on to cover up some weakness or insecurity—the
exaggerated masculine stride, the nonchalant shuffle of the
rebellious teenager. He took note of the sudden changes in
people’s walk as they became excited or nervous. All of this
supplied him endless information about people’s moods
and self-confidence.
In his office, he placed his desk at the far end of the
room, making his patients walk toward him. He would
notice changes in the walk from before to after the session.
He would scrutinize their way of sitting down, the level of
tension in their hands as they grasped the arms of the chair,
the degree to which they would face him as they talked, and
in a matter of a few seconds, without words being
exchanged, he had a profound read on their insecurities and
rigidities, as mapped clearly in their body language.
At one point in his career, Erickson worked in a ward for
the mentally disturbed. In one instance the psychologists
there were perplexed by the case of a particular patient—a
former businessman who had made a fortune and then lost
everything because of the Depression. All the man could do
was cry and continually move his hands back and forth,
straight out from his chest. Nobody could figure out the
source of this tic or how to help him. Getting him to talk
was not easy and it led nowhere. To Erickson, however, the
moment he saw the man he understood the nature of the
problem—through this gesture he was literally expressing
the futile efforts in his life to get ahead and the despair this
had brought him. Erickson went up to him and said, “Your
life has had many ups and downs,” and as he did so, he
shifted the motion of the arms to up and down. The man
seemed interested in this new motion and it now became
his tic.
Working with an occupational therapist on site, Erickson
placed blocks of sandpaper in each of the man’s hands and
put a rough piece of lumber in front of him. Soon the man
became enthralled with the sanding of the wood and the
smell of it as he polished it. He stopped crying and took
woodworking classes, carving elaborate chess sets and
selling them. By focusing exclusively on his body language
and altering his physical motion, Erickson could alter the
locked position of his mind and cure him.
One category that fascinated him was the difference in
nonverbal communication between men and women and
how this reflected a different way of thinking. He was
particularly sensitive to the mannerisms of women, perhaps
a reflection of the months he had spent closely observing
his sisters. He could dissect every nuance of their body
language. One time, a beautiful young woman came to see
him, saying she had seen various psychiatrists but none of
them were quite right. Could Erickson possibly be the right
one? As she talked some more, never discussing the nature
of her problem, Erickson watched her pick some lint off her
sleeve. He listened and nodded, then posed some rather
uninteresting questions.
Suddenly, out of the blue, he said in a very confident
tone that he was the right, in fact the only psychiatrist for
her. Taken aback by his conceited attitude, she asked him
why he felt that way. He said he needed to ask her one more
question in order to prove it.
“How long,” he asked, “have you been wearing women’s
clothes?”
“How did you know?” the man asked in astonishment.
Erickson explained that he had noticed the way he had
picked off the lint, without making a naturally wide detour
around the breast area. He had seen that motion too many
times to be fooled by anything else. In addition, his
assertive way of discussing his need to test Erickson first,
all expressed in a very staccato vocal rhythm, was decidedly
masculine. All of the other psychiatrists had been taken in
by the young man’s extremely feminine appearance and the
voice he had worked on so carefully, but the body does not
lie.
On another occasion Erickson entered his office to see a
new female patient waiting for him. She explained that she
had sought him out because she had a phobia of flying.
Erickson interrupted her. Without explaining why, he asked
her to leave the office and reenter. She seemed annoyed but
complied, and he studied her walk closely, as well as her
posture as she settled into the chair. He then asked her to
explain her problem.
“My husband is taking me a-broad in September and I
have a deathly fear of being on an airplane.”
“Madam,” Erickson said, “when a patient comes to a
psychiatrist there can be no withholding of information. I
know something about you. I am going to ask you an
unpleasant question. . . . Does your husband know about
your love affair?”
“No,” she said with astonishment, “but how did you?”
 “Your body language told me.” He explained how her
legs were crossed in a very tight position, with one foot
completely tucked around the ankle. In his experience,
every married woman having an affair locks her body up in
a similar way. And she had clearly said “a-broad” instead of
“abroad,” in a hesitant tone, as if she were ashamed of
herself. And her walk indicated a woman who felt trapped
in complicated relationships. In subsequent sessions she
brought in her lover, who was also married. Erickson asked
to see the wife of the lover, and when she came, she sat in
the exact same locked position, with the foot under the
ankle.
“So you’re having an affair,” he told her.
“Yes, did my husband tell you?”
“No, I got it from your body language. Now I know why
your husband suffers from chronic headaches.” Soon he
was treating them all and helping them out of their locked
and painful positions.
Over the years, his observation powers extended to
elements of nonverbal communication that were nearly
imperceptible. He could determine people’s states of mind
by their breathing patterns, and by mirroring these patterns
himself he could lead the patient into a hypnotic trance and
create a feeling of deep rapport. He could read subliminal
and subvocal speech as people would mouth a word or
name in a barely visible manner. This was how fortune-
tellers, psychics, and some magicians would make a living.
He could tell when his secretary was menstruating by the
heaviness of her typing. He could guess the career
backgrounds of people by the quality of their hands, the
heaviness of their step, the way they tilted their heads, and
their vocal inflections. To patients and friends it seemed as
if Erickson possessed psychic powers, but they were simply
unaware of how long and hard he had studied this, gaining
mastery of the second language.

• • •
Interpretation: For Milton Erickson, his sudden paralysis
opened his eyes to not only a different form of
communication but also a completely different way of
relating to people. When he listened to his sisters and
picked up new information from their faces and voices, he
not only registered this with his senses but also felt himself
experiencing some of what was going on in their minds. He
had to imagine why they said yes but really meant no, and
in doing so he had to momentarily feel some of their
contrary desires. He had to see the tension in their necks
and register it physically as tension within himself to
understand why they were suddenly uncomfortable in his
presence. What he discovered is that nonverbal
communication cannot be experienced simply through
thinking and translating thoughts into words but must be
felt physically as one engages with the facial expressions or
locked positions of other people. It is a different form of
knowledge, one that connects with the animal part of our
nature and involves our mirror neurons.
To master this language, he had to relax and control the
continual need to interpret with words or categorize what
he was seeing. He had to tamp down his ego—thinking less
of what he wanted to say and instead directing his attention
outward into the other person, attuning himself to their
changing moods as reflected in their body language. As he
discovered, such attention changed him. It made him more
alive to the signs people continually emit and transformed
him into a superior social actor, capable of connecting to
others’ inner lives and developing greater rapport.
As Erickson progressed in this self-transformation, he
noticed that most people go in the opposite direction—
becoming more self-absorbed and unobservant with each
passing year. He liked to accumulate anecdotes from his
work that demonstrated this. For instance, he once asked a
group of interns in the hospital where he worked to silently
observe an elderly woman lying under the covers in a
hospital bed until they saw something that would indicate a
possible diagnosis for her bedridden condition. They
watched her for three hours to no avail, none of them taking
notice of the obvious fact that both her legs had been
amputated. Or there were the people who attended his
public lectures; many of them would ask why he never used
that strange-looking pointer he carried in his hand as part
of his presentation. They had failed to observe his rather
noticeable limp and need for a cane. As Erickson saw it, the
harshness of life makes most people turn inward. They have
no mental space left over for simple observations, and the
second language largely passes them by.
Understand: We are the preeminent social animal on
the planet, depending on our ability to communicate with
others for our survival and success. It is estimated that over
65 percent of all human communication is nonverbal but
that people pick up and internalize only about 5 percent of
this information. Instead, almost all of our social attention
is absorbed by what people say, which more often than not
actually serves to conceal what they are really thinking and
feeling. Nonverbal cues tell us what people are trying to
emphasize with their words and the subtext of their
message, the nuances of communication. These cues tell us
what they are actively hiding, their real desires. They reflect
in an immediate way people’s emotions and moods. To miss
this information is to operate blindly, to invite
misunderstanding, and to lose endless opportunities to
influence people by not noticing the signs of what they
really want or need.
Your task is simple: First you must recognize your state
of self-absorption and how little you actually observe. With
this understanding you will be motivated to develop
observation skills. Second you must understand, as
Erickson did, the different nature of this form of
communication. It requires opening up your senses and
relating to people more on the physical level, absorbing
their physical energy and not just their words. You do not
simply observe their facial expression, but you register it
from within, so that the impression stays with you and
communicates. As you gain greater vocabulary in this
language, you will be able to correlate a gesture with a
possible emotion. As your sensitivity increases, you will
begin to notice more and more of what you have been
missing. And equally important, you will discover a new
and deeper way of relating to people, with the increased
social powers this will bring you.
You will always be the prey or the plaything of the devils and
fools in this world, if you expect to see them going about with
horns or jangling their bells. And it should be borne in mind
that, in their intercourse with others, people are like the moon:
they show you only one of their sides. Every man has an innate
talent for . . . making a mask out of his physiognomy, so that he
can always look as if he really were what he pretends to be . . .
and its effect is extremely deceptive. He dons his mask
whenever his object is to flatter himself into some one’s good
opinion; and you may pay just as much attention to it as if it
were made of wax or cardboard.
—Arthur Schopenhauer

Keys to Human Nature

We humans are consummate actors. We learn at an early
age how to get what we want from our parents by putting
on certain looks that will elicit sympathy or affection. We
learn how to conceal from our parents or siblings exactly
what we’re thinking or feeling, to protect ourselves in
vulnerable moments. We become good at flattering those
whom it is important to win over—popular peers or
teachers. We learn how to fit into the group by wearing the
same clothes and speaking the same language. As we get
older and strive to carve out a career, we learn how to create
the proper front in order to be hired and to fit into a group
culture. If we become an executive or a professor or a
bartender, we must act the part.
Imagine a person who never develops these acting skills,
whose face instantly grimaces when he dislikes what you
say or cannot suppress a yawn when you fail to entertain
him, who always speaks his mind, who completely goes his
own way in his ideas and style, who acts the same whether
he’s talking to his boss or to a child, and you have imagined
a person who would be shunned, ridiculed, and despised.
We are all such good actors that we’re not even aware of
this as it happens. We imagine we are almost always being
sincere in our social encounters, which any good actor will
tell you is the secret behind really believable acting. We take
these skills for granted, but to see them in action, try to look
at yourself as you interact with different members of your
family and with your boss and colleagues at work. You will
see yourself subtly changing what you say, your tone of
voice, your mannerisms, your whole body language, to suit
each individual and situation. For people you are trying to
impress, you wear a much different face than with those
with whom you are familiar and can let down your guard.
You do this almost without thinking.
Over the centuries various writers and thinkers, looking
at humans from an outside perspective, have been struck by
the theatrical quality of social life. The most famous quote
expressing this comes from Shakespeare: “All the world’s a
stage, / And all the men and women merely players; / They
have their exits and their entrances, / And one man in his
time plays many parts.” If the theater and actors were
traditionally represented by the image of masks, writers
such as Shakespeare are implying that all of us are
constantly wearing masks. Some people are better actors
than others. Villainous types such as Iago in the play
Othello are able to conceal their hostile intentions behind a
friendly, benign smile. Others are able to act with more
confidence and bravado—they often become leaders. People
with consummate acting skills can better navigate our
complex social environments and get ahead.
Although we are all expert actors, at the same time we
secretly experience this need to act and play a part as a
burden. We are the most successful social animal on the
planet. For hundreds of thousands of years our hunter-
gatherer ancestors could survive only by constantly
communicating with one another through nonverbal cues.
Developed over so much time, before the invention of
language, that is how the human face became so expressive,
and gestures so elaborate. This is bred deep within us. We
have a continual desire to communicate our feelings and yet
at the same time the need to conceal them for proper social
functioning. With these counterforces battling inside us, we
cannot completely control what we communicate. Our real
feelings continually leak out in the form of gestures, tones
of voice, facial expressions, and posture. We are not
trained, however, to pay attention to people’s nonverbal
cues. By sheer habit, we fixate on the words people say,
while also thinking about what we’ll say next. What this
means is that we are using only a small percentage of the
potential social skills we all possess.
Imagine, for instance, conversations with people you’ve
recently met. By paying extra-close attention to the
nonverbal cues they emit, you can pick up their moods and
mirror these moods back to them, getting them to
unconsciously relax in your presence. As the conversation
progresses, you can pick up signs that they are responding
to your gestures and mirroring, which gives you license to
go further and deepen the spell. In this way, you can build
up rapport and win over a valuable ally. Conversely,
imagine people who almost immediately reveal signs of
hostility toward you. You are able to see through their fake,
tight smiles, to pick up the flashes of irritation that cross
their face and the signs of subtle discomfort in your
presence. Registering all this as it happens, you can then
politely disengage from the interaction and remain wary of
them, looking for further signs of hostile intentions. You
have probably saved yourself from an unnecessary battle or
an ugly act of sabotage.
Your task as a student of human nature is twofold: First,
you must understand and accept the theatrical quality of
life. You do not moralize and rail against the role-playing
and the wearing of masks so essential to smooth social
functioning. In fact, your goal is to play your part on the
stage of life with consummate skill, attracting attention,
dominating the limelight, and making yourself into a
sympathetic hero or heroine. Second, you must not be naive
and mistake people’s appearances for reality. You are not
blinded by people’s acting skills. You transform yourself
into a master decoder of their true feelings, working on
your observation skills and practicing them as much as you
can in daily life.
 And so, for these purposes, there are three aspects to
this particular law: understanding how to observe people;
learning some basic keys for decoding nonverbal
communication; and mastering the art of what is known as
impression management, playing your role to maximum
effect.

Observational Skills
When we were children, we were almost all great observers
of people. Because we were small and weak, our survival
depended on decoding people’s smiles and tones of voice.
We were often struck by the peculiar walking styles of
adults, their exaggerated smiles and affected mannerisms.
We would imitate them for fun. We could sense that an
individual was threatening from something in his or her
body language. This is why children are the bane of
inveterate liars, con artists, magicians, and people who
pretend to be something they are not. Children quickly see
through their front. Slowly, from the age of five onward,
this sensitivity is lost as we start to turn inward and become
more concerned with how others see us.
You must realize that it is not a matter of acquiring skills
you do not possess but rather of rediscovering those you
once had in your earliest years. This means slowly reversing
the process of self-absorption and regaining that outward-
directed view and curiosity you had as a child.
As with any skill, this will require patience. What you are
doing is slowly rewiring your brain through practice,
mapping new neuronal connections. You do not want to
overload yourself in the beginning with too much
information. You need to take baby steps, to see small but
daily progress. In a casual conversation with someone, give
yourself the goal of observing one or two facial expressions
that seem to go against what the person is saying or
indicate some additional information. Be attentive to
microexpressions, quick flashes on the face of tension, or
forced smiles (see the next section for more on this). Once
you succeed in this simple exercise with one person, try it
with someone else, always focusing on the face. Once you
find it easier to notice cues from the face, attempt to make a
similar observation about an individual’s voice, noting any
changes in pitch or the pace of talking. The voice says a lot
about people’s level of confidence and their contentment.
Later on graduate to elements of body language—such as
posture, hand gestures, positioning of legs. Keep these
exercises simple, having simple goals. Write down any
observations, particularly any patterns you notice.
As you practice these exercises, you must be relaxed and
open to what you see, not champing at the bit to interpret
your observations with words. You must be engaged in the
conversation while talking less and trying to get them to
talk more. Try to mirror them, making comments that play
off something they have said and reveal you are listening to
them. This will have the effect of making them relax and
want to talk more, which will make them leak out more
nonverbal cues. But your observing of people must never be
obvious. Feeling scrutinized, people will freeze up and try to
control their expressions. Too much direct eye contact will
betray you. You must appear natural and attentive, using
only quick peripheral glances to notice any changes in the
face, voice, or body.
In observing any particular individual over time, you
need to establish their baseline expression and mood. Some
people are naturally quiet and reserved, their facial
expression revealing this. Some are more animated and
energetic, while still others continually wear an anxious
look. Aware of a person’s usual demeanor, you can pay
greater attention to any deviations—for instance, sudden
animation in someone who is generally reserved, or a
relaxed look from the habitually nervous. Once you know a
person’s baseline, it will be much easier to see signs of
dissimulation or distress in them. The ancient Roman Mark
Antony was naturally a jovial person, always smiling,
laughing, and poking fun at people. It was when he
suddenly turned silent and sullen in their meetings after the
assassination of Julius Caesar that Antony’s rival Octavius
(later Augustus) understood that Antony was up to
something and had hostile intentions.
Related to the baseline expression, try to observe the
same person in different settings, noticing how their
nonverbal cues change if they are talking to a spouse, a
boss, an employee.
For another exercise, observe people who are about to do
something exciting—a trip to some alluring place, a date
with someone they’ve been pursuing, or any event for which
they have high expectations. Note the looks of anticipation,
how the eyes open wider and stay there, the face flushed
and generally animated, a slight smile on the lips as they
think of what’s about to come. Contrast this with the
tension exhibited by a person about to take a test or go on a
job interview. You are increasing your vocabulary when it
comes to correlating emotions and facial expressions.
Pay great attention to any mixed signals you pick up: a
person professes to love your idea, but their face shows
tension and their tone of voice is strained; or they
congratulate you on your promotion, but the smile is forced
and the expression seems sad. Such mixed signals are very
common. They can also involve different parts of the body.
In the novel The Ambassadors by Henry James, the
narrator notices that a woman who has visited him smiles
at him during most of the conversation but holds her
parasol with a great deal of tension. Only by noticing this
can he sense her real mood—discomfort. With mixed
signals, you need to be aware that a greater part of
nonverbal communication involves the leakage of negative
emotions, and you need to give greater weight to the
negative cue as indicative of the person’s true feelings. At
some point, you can then ask yourself why they might feel
sadness or antipathy.
To take your practice further, try a different exercise. Sit
in a café or some public space, and without the burden of
having to be involved in a conversation, observe the people
around you. Listen in on their conversations for vocal cues.
Take note of walking styles and overall body language. If
possible, take notes. As you get better at this, you can try to
guess people’s profession by the cues you pick up, or
something about their personality from their body
language. It should be a pleasurable game.
As you progress, you will be able to split your attention
more easily—listening attentively to what people have to
say, but also taking careful note of nonverbal cues. You will
also become aware of signals you had not noticed before,
continually expanding your vocabulary. Remember that
everything people do is a sign of some sort; there is no such
thing as a gesture that does not communicate. You will pay
attention to people’s silences, the clothes they wear, the
arrangement of objects on their desk, their breathing
patterns, the tension in certain muscles (particularly in the
neck), the subtext in their conversations—what is not said
or what is implied. All of these discoveries should excite
and impel you to go further.
In practicing this skill you must be aware of some
common errors you can fall into. Words express direct
information. We can argue about what people mean when
they say something, but the interpretations are fairly
limited. Nonverbal cues are much more ambiguous and
indirect. There is no dictionary to tell you what this or that
means. It depends on the individual and the context. If you
are not careful, you will glean signs but quickly interpret
them to fit your own emotional biases about people, which
will make your observations not only useless but also
dangerous. If you are observing someone you naturally
dislike, or who reminds you of someone unpleasant in your
past, you will tend to see almost any cue as unfriendly or
hostile. You will do the opposite for people you like. In
these exercises you must strive to subtract your personal
preferences and prejudices about people.
Related to this is what is known as Othello’s error. In the
play Othello by Shakespeare, the main character, Othello,
assumes that his wife, Desdemona, is guilty of adultery
based on her nervous response when questioned about
some evidence. In truth Desdemona is innocent, but the
aggressive, paranoid nature of Othello and his intimidating
questions make her nervous, which he interprets as a sign
of guilt. What happens in such cases is that we pick up
certain emotional cues from the other person—
nervousness, for instance—and we assume they come from
a certain source. We rush to the first explanation that fits
what we want to see. But the nervousness could have
several explanations, could be a temporary reaction to our
questioning or the overall circumstances. The error is not in
the observing but in the decoding.
In 1894 Alfred Dreyfus, a French military officer, was
wrongly arrested for passing along secrets to the Germans.
Dreyfus was a Jew, and many French at the time had anti-
Semitic feelings. When first appearing before the public for
questioning, Dreyfus answered in a calm, efficient tone that
was part of his training as a bureaucrat and was also a
result of his trying to contain his nervousness. Most of the
public assumed that an innocent man would protest loudly.
His demeanor was seen as a sign of his guilt.
Keep in mind that people from different cultures will
consider different forms of behavior acceptable. These are
known as display rules. In some cultures people are
conditioned to smile less or touch more. Or their language
involves greater emphasis on vocal pitch. Always consider
the cultural background of people, and interpret their cues
accordingly.
As part of your practice, try to observe yourself as well.
Notice how often and when you tend to put on a fake smile,
or how your body registers nervousness—in your voice, the
drumming of your fingers, the twiddling with your hair, the
quivering of your lips, and so on. Becoming acutely aware of
your own nonverbal behavior will make you more sensitive
and alert to the signals of others. You will be better able to
imagine the emotions that go with the cue. And you will
also gain greater control of your nonverbal behavior,
something very valuable for playing the right social role
(see the last section of this chapter).
Finally, in developing these observational skills you will
notice a physical change in yourself and in your relation to
people. You will become increasingly sensitive to people’s
shifting moods and even anticipate them as you feel inside
something of what they’re feeling. Taken far enough, such
powers can make you seem almost psychic, as they did with
Milton Erickson.

Decoding Keys
Remember that people are generally trying to present the
best possible front to the world. This means concealing
their possible antagonistic feelings, their desires for power
or superiority, their attempts at ingratiation, and their
insecurities. They will use words to hide their feelings and
distract you from the reality, playing on people’s verbal
fixation. They will also use certain facial expressions that
are easy to put on and that people assume mean
friendliness. Your task is to look past the distractions and
become aware of those signs that leak out automatically,
revealing something of the true emotion beneath the mask.
The three categories of the most important cues to observe
and identify are dislike/like, dominance/submission, and
deception.
Imagine the following scenario:
Dislike/like cues:
Someone in a group dislikes you, whether out of envy or
mistrust, but in the group environment they cannot express
this overtly or they will look bad—not a team player. And so
they smile at you, engage you in conversation, and even
seem to support your ideas. At times you might feel
something is not quite right, but the signs are subtle and
you forget them as you pay attention to the front they
present. Then suddenly, as if out of the blue, they obstruct
you or display an ugly attitude. The mask has come off. The
price you pay is not only difficulties in your work or
personal life, but also the emotional toll, which can have a
lingering effect.
Understand: People’s hostile or resistant actions never
come out of the blue. There are always signs before they
take any action. It is too much of a strain for them to
completely suppress such strong emotions. The problem is
not only that we are not paying attention but also that we
inherently do not like the thought of conflict or
disagreement. We prefer to avoid thinking about it and to
assume that people are on our side, or at least neutral. Most
often, we feel something is not quite right with the other
person but ignore the feeling. We must learn to trust such
intuitive responses and to look for those signs that should
trigger a closer examination of the evidence.
People give out clear indications in their body language
of active dislike or hostility. These include the sudden
squinting of the eyes at something you have said, the glare,
the pursing of the lips until they nearly disappear, the stiff
neck, the torso or feet that turn away from you while you
are still engaged in a conversation, the folding of the arms
as you try to make a point, and an overall tenseness in the
body. The problem is that you will not usually see such
signs unless a person’s displeasure has become too strong
to conceal at all. Instead, you must train yourself to look for
the microexpressions and the other more subtle signs that
people give out.
The microexpression is a recent discovery among
psychologists who have been able to document its existence
through film. It lasts less than a second. There are two
varieties of this: The first comes when people are aware of a
negative feeling and try to suppress it, but it leaks out in a
fraction of a second. The other comes when we are unaware
of their hostility and yet it shows itself in quick flashes on
the face or in the body. These expressions will be a
momentary glare, tensing of the facial muscles, pursing of
the lips, the beginnings of a frown or sneer or look of
contempt, with the eyes looking down. Aware of this
phenomenon, we can look for these expressions. You will be
surprised at how often they occur, because it is nearly
impossible to completely control the facial muscles and
repress the signs in time. You must be relaxed and
attentive, not obviously looking for them but catching them
out of the corner of your eye. Once you begin to notice such
expressions, you will find it easier to catch them.
 Equally eloquent are those signs that are subtle but can
last for several seconds, revealing tension and coldness. For
instance, when you first approach someone who harbors
negative thoughts toward you, if you surprise them by
coming up on them from an angle, you will clearly see signs
of displeasure at your approach before they have had time
to fit on their affable mask. They are not so happy to see
you and it shows for a second or two. Or you are expressing
a strong opinion and their eyes begin to roll, which they try
to quickly cover up with a smile.
Sudden silence can say a lot. You have said something
that triggers a twinge of envy or dislike, and they cannot
help but lapse into silence and brood. They may try to hide
this with a smile as they inwardly fume. As opposed to
simple shyness or having nothing to say, you will detect
definite signs of irritation. In this case, it is best to notice
this a few times before coming to any conclusions.
People will often give themselves away with the mixed
signal—a positive comment to distract you but some clearly
negative body language. This offers them relief from the
tension of always having to be pleasant. They are betting on
the fact that you will tend to focus on the words and gloss
over the grimace or lopsided smile. Pay attention as well to
the opposite configuration—someone says something
sarcastic and pointed, directed at you, but they do this with
a smile and a jokey tone of voice, as if to signal it is all in
good humor. It would be impolite to not take it in this vein.
But in fact, particularly if this occurs a few times, you
should pay attention to the words and not the body
language. It is their repressed way of expressing their
hostility. Take notice of people who praise or flatter you
without their eyes lighting up. This could be a sign of
hidden envy.
In the novel The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal,
Count Mosca receives an anonymous letter designed to stir
up jealous feelings about his mistress, whom he is
desperately in love with. In thinking over who could have
sent it, he recalls a conversation earlier that day with the
Prince of Parma. The prince was talking about how the
pleasures of power pale in comparison with the pleasures
afforded by love, and as he said this, the count detected a
particularly malicious glint in his eye, accompanied by an
ambiguous smile. The words were about love in general but
the look was directed at him. From that he correctly
deduces that the prince had sent the letter; he could not
completely contain his venomous glee at what he had done,
and it had leaked out. This is a variation on the mixed
signal. People say something relatively strong about a
general topic, but with subtle looks they point at you.
An excellent gauge for decoding antagonism is to
compare people’s body language toward you and toward
others. You might detect that they are noticeably friendlier
and warmer toward other people and then put on a polite
mask with you. In a conversation they cannot help showing
brief flashes of impatience and irritation in their eyes, but
only when you talk. Also keep in mind that people will tend
to leak out more of their true feelings, and certainly hostile
ones, when they are drunk, sleepy, frustrated, angry, or
under stress. They will later tend to excuse this, as if they
weren’t themselves for the moment, but in fact they were
actually being more themselves than ever.
In looking for these signs, one of the best methods is to
set up tests, even traps for people. King Louis XIV was a
master of this. He stood at the top of a court in Versailles
filled with members of the nobility seething with hostility
and resentment toward him and the absolute authority he
was trying to impose. But in the civilized realm of Versailles
they all had to be consummate actors and hide their
feelings, particularly toward the king. Louis had his ways,
however, of testing them. He would suddenly appear in
their presence, without warning, and look for the
immediate expressions on their faces. He would request a
nobleman to move himself and his family to the palace of
Versailles, knowing that this was costly and unpleasant. He
carefully observed any signs of annoyance in the face or
voice. He would say something negative about another
courtier, an ally of theirs, and notice their immediate
reaction. Enough signs of discomfort indicated secret
hostility.
If you suspect someone of feeling envy, talk about the
latest good news for you without appearing to brag. Look
for microexpressions of disappointment on their face. Use
similar tests to probe for hidden anger and resentments,
eliciting the responses that people cannot suppress so
quickly. In general, people will want to see more of you,
want to see less of you, or be rather indifferent. They may
fluctuate among the three states, but they will tend to veer
toward one. They will reveal this in how quickly they
respond to your emails or texts, their body language on first
seeing you, and the overall tone they take in your presence.
The value in detecting possible hostility or negative
feelings early on is that it increases your strategic options
and room to maneuver. You can lay a trap for people,
intentionally stirring their hostility and goading them into
some aggressive action that will embarrass them in the long
run. Or you can work doubly hard to neutralize their dislike
of you and even win them over through a charm offensive.
Or you can simply create distance—not hiring them, firing
them, refusing to interact with them. In the end, you will
make your path much smoother by avoiding surprise
battles and acts of sabotage.
On the other side of the coin, we generally have less of a
need to hide positive emotions from others, but nonetheless
we often do not like to emit obvious signs of joy and
attraction, especially in work situations, or even in
courtship. People often prefer to display a cool social front.
So there is great value in being able to detect the signs that
people are falling under your spell.
According to research studies on facial cues by
psychologists such as Paul Ekman, E. H. Hess, and others,
people who feel positive emotions for you will display
noticeable signs of relaxation in the facial muscles,
particularly in the lines of the forehead and the area around
the mouth; their lips will appear more fully exposed and the
whole area around their eyes will widen. These are all
involuntary expressions of comfort and openness. If the
feelings are more intense, such as falling in love, blood
rushes to the face, animating all of the features. As part of
this excited state the pupils will dilate, an automatic
response in which the eyes let in more light. It is a sure sign
that a person is comfortable and likes what they are seeing.
Along with the dilation the eyebrows will rise, making the
eyes look even bigger. We do not usually pay attention to
eye pupils because looking intently into another’s eyes has
an overtly sexual connotation. We must train ourselves to
glance quickly at the pupils when we notice any widening of
the eyes.
In developing your skills in this arena, you must learn to
distinguish between the fake and the genuine smile. In
trying to hide our negative feelings, we most often resort to
the fake smile, because it is easy and people generally do
not pay attention to the subtleties of smiles. Because the
genuine variety is less common, you must know how to
recognize it. The genuine smile will affect the muscles
around the eyes and widen them, often revealing crow’s-
feet on the sides of the eyes. It will also tend to pull the
cheeks upward. There is no genuine smile without a definite
change in the eyes and cheeks. Some people will try to
create the impression of the genuine variety by putting on a
very broad smile, which will partially alter the eyes as well.
So in addition to the physical signs, you must look at the
context. The genuine smile usually comes from some action
or words that suddenly elicit the response; it is
spontaneous. Is the smile in this case somewhat unrelated
to the circumstances, not warranted by what was said? Is it
a situation in which a person is straining to impress or has
strategic goals in mind? Is the timing of the smile slightly
off?
Perhaps the most telling indication of positive emotions
comes from the voice. It is much easier for us to control the
face; we can look in a mirror for such purposes. But unless
we are professional actors, the voice is very difficult to
consciously modulate. When people are engaged and
excited to talk to you, the pitch of their voice rises,
indicating emotional arousal. Even if people are nervous,
the tone of the voice will be warm and natural, as opposed
to the simulated warmth of a salesman. You can detect an
almost purring quality to the voice, which some have
likened to a vocal smile. You will notice also an absence of
tension and hesitation. In the course of a conversation there
is an equal level of banter, with the pace quickening,
indicating increasing rapport. A voice that is animated and
happy tends to infect us with the mood and elicit a similar
response. We know it when we feel it, but often we ignore
these feelings and instead concentrate on the friendly words
or sales pitch.
Finally, monitoring nonverbal cues is essential in your
attempts at influencing and seducing people. It is the best
way to gauge the degree to which a person is falling under
your spell. When people start to feel comfortable in your
presence, they will stand closer to you or lean in, their arms
not folded or revealing any tension. If you are giving a talk
or telling a story, frequent head nods, attentive gazes, and
genuine smiles will indicate that people agree with what
you are saying and are losing their resistance. They
exchange more looks. Perhaps the best and most exciting
sign of all is synchrony, the other person unconsciously
mirroring you. Their legs cross in the same direction, the
head tilts in a similar manner, one smile inducing another.
At the deepest level of synchrony, as Milton Erickson
discovered, you will find breathing patterns falling into the
same rhythm, which can sometimes end in the complete
synchrony of a kiss.
You can also train yourself to not only monitor these
changes that show your influence but induce them as well
by displaying positive cues yourself. You begin to slowly
stand or lean closer, revealing subtle signs of openness. You
nod and smile as others talk. You mirror their behavior and
their breathing patterns. As you do so, you watch for signs
of emotional infection, going further only when you detect
the slow crumbling of resistance.
With expert seducers who use all of the positive cues to
mimic the appearance that they are falling in love only to
bring you more deeply under their control, keep in mind
that very few people naturally reveal so much emotion so
early on. If your supposed effect on them seems a bit too
rushed and perhaps contrived, tell them to slow down and
monitor their face for microexpressions of frustration.
Dominance/submission cues: As the most complex social
animal on the planet, we humans form elaborate
hierarchies based on position, money, and power. We are
aware of these hierarchies, but we do not like talking
explicitly about relative power positions, and we are
generally uncomfortable when others talk about their
superior rank. Instead, signs of dominance or weakness are
more often expressed in nonverbal communication. We
have inherited this communication style from other
primates, notably chimpanzees, who have elaborate signals
to denote an individual chimp’s place in the social rank.
Keep in mind that the feeling of being in a superior social
position gives people a confidence that will radiate outward
in their body language. Some feel this confidence before
they attain a position of power, and it becomes a self-
fulfilling prophecy as others are drawn to them. Some who
are ambitious might try to simulate these cues, but it has to
be done well. Fake confidence can be quite off-putting.
Confidence usually comes with a greater feeling of
relaxation that is clearly reflected in the face, and with a
greater freedom of movement. Those who are powerful will
feel allowed to look around more at others, choosing to
make eye contact with whomever they please. Their eyelids
are more closed, a sign of seriousness and competence. If
they feel bored or annoyed, they show it more freely and
openly. They often smile less, frequent smiling being a sign
of overall insecurity. They feel more entitled to touch
people, such as with friendly pats on the back or on the
arm. In a meeting, they will tend to take up more space and
create more distance around themselves. They stand taller,
and their gestures are relaxed and comfortable. Most
important, others feel compelled to imitate their style and
mannerisms. The leader will tend to impose a form of
nonverbal communication on the group in very subtle ways.
You will notice people mimicking not only their ideas but
also their calm or more frenetic energy.
Alpha males like to signal their superior position in the
rank in several ways: They speak faster than others and feel
entitled to interrupt and control the flow of the
conversation. Their handshake is extra vigorous, almost
crushing. When they walk in the office, you will see them
assume a taller stance and a purposeful stride, generally
making inferiors walk behind them. Watch chimpanzees in
a zoo and you will notice similar behavior on the part of the
alpha chimp.
For women in leadership positions, what often works
best is a calm, confident expression, warm yet businesslike.
Perhaps the best example of this would be current German
chancellor Angela Merkel. Her smiles are even less frequent
than the average male politician, but when they occur they
are especially meaningful. They never seem fake. She listens
to others with looks of complete absorption, her face
remarkably still. She has a way of getting others to do most
of the talking while always seeming to be in control of the
course of the conversation. She does not need to interrupt
to assert herself. When she wants to attack someone, it is
with looks of boredom, iciness, or contempt, never with
blustery words. When Russian president Vladimir Putin
tried to intimidate her by bringing his pet dog into a
meeting, knowing Merkel had once been bitten and had a
fear of dogs, she visibly tensed, then quickly composed
herself and looked him calmly in the eye. She put herself in
the one-up position in relation to Putin by not making
anything of his ploy. He seemed rather childish and petty in
comparison. Her style does not include all of the alpha male
body posturing. It is quieter and yet extremely powerful in
its own way.
As women come to attain more leadership positions, this
less obtrusive style of authority might begin to alter our
perception of some of the dominance cues so long
associated with power.
 It is worth observing those in positions of power in your
group for signs of dominance cues and for their absence.
Leaders who display tension and hesitation in their
nonverbal cues are generally insecure in their power and
feel it threatened. Signs of such anxiety and insecurity are
generally easy to spot. They will talk in a more halting
manner, with long pauses. Their voice will rise in pitch and
stay there. They will tend to avert their gaze and control
their eye movements, although they will often blink more.
They will put on more forced smiles and emit nervous
laughs. As opposed to feeling entitled to touch others, they
will tend to touch themselves in what is known as pacifying
behavior. They will touch their hair, their neck, their
forehead, all in an attempt to soothe their nerves. People
trying to hide their insecurities will assert themselves a
little too loudly in a conversation, their voices rising. As
they do this, they look around nervously, eyes wide open.
Or as they talk in an animated way, their hands and bodies
are unusually still, always a sign of anxiety. They will
inevitably give off mixed signals, and you must pay greater
attention to those that signal underlying insecurity.
Nicolas Sarkozy, president of France (2007–2012), was
someone who liked to assert his presence through body
language. He would pat people on the back, be the one to
direct them where to stand, fix them with his stare,
interrupt what they were saying, and generally try to
dominate the room. During one meeting with him in the
midst of the euro crisis, Chancellor Merkel saw his usual
domineering act but could not help but notice his foot
nervously jiggling the entire time. The extra assertive style
was perhaps his way of distracting others from his
insecurities. This was valuable information Merkel could
put to use.
People’s actions will often contain dominance and
submission cues. For instance, people will often show up
late to indicate their superiority, real or imagined. They are
not obligated to be on time. Also, conversation patterns
reveal the relative position people feel they occupy. For
instance, those who feel dominant will tend to talk more
and interrupt frequently, as a means of asserting
themselves. When there’s an argument that turns personal,
they will resort to what is known as punctuation—they will
find an action on the other side that started it all, even
though clearly it is part of the relationship pattern. They
assert their interpretation of who is to blame through their
tone of voice and piercing looks. If you observe a couple
from the outside, you will frequently notice one person who
is in the dominant position. If you converse with them, the
dominant one will make eye contact with you but not with
his or her partner, and will appear to only half listen to
what the partner says. Smiles can also be a subtle cue for
indicating superiority, especially through what we shall call
the tight smile. This usually comes in response to
something someone said, and it is a smile that tightens the
facial muscles and indicates irony and contempt for the
person they see as inferior but gives them the cover of
appearing friendly.
One final but very subtle nonverbal means of asserting
dominance in a relationship comes through the symptom.
One partner suddenly develops headaches or some other
illness, or starts drinking, or generally falls into a negative
pattern of behavior. This forces the other side to play by
their rules, to tend to their weaknesses. It is the willful use
of sympathy to gain power and it is extremely effective.
Finally, use the knowledge you glean from these cues as
a valuable means of gauging the levels of confidence in
people and acting appropriately. With leaders who are
riddled with insecurities that poke through nonverbally,
you can play to their insecurities and gain power through
this, but often it is best to avoid attaching yourself too
closely to such types, as they tend to do poorly over time
and can drag you down with them. With those who are not
leaders but are trying to assert themselves as if they were,
your response should depend on their personality type. If
they are rising stars, full of self-belief and a sense of
destiny, it might be wise to try to rise with them. You will
notice such types by the positive energy that surrounds
them. On the other hand, if they are simply arrogant and
petty despots, these are precisely the types you should
always strive to avoid, as they are masters at making others
pay lip service to them without giving anything in return.
Deception cues: We humans are by nature quite gullible.
We want to believe in certain things—that we can get
something for nothing; that we can easily regain or
rejuvenate our health thanks to some new trick, perhaps
even cheat death; that most people are essentially good and
can be trusted. This propensity is what deceivers and
manipulators thrive on. It would be immensely beneficial
for the future of our species if we were all less gullible, but
we cannot change human nature. Instead, the best we can
do is to learn to recognize certain telltale signs of an
attempt at deception and maintain our skepticism as we
examine the evidence further.
The most clear and common sign comes when people
assume an extra-animated front. When they smile a lot,
seem more than friendly, and even are quite entertaining, it
is hard for us to not be drawn in and lower ever so slightly
our resistance to their influence. When Lyndon Johnson
was trying to pull the wool over the eyes of a fellow senator,
he would go an extra mile with his physical presence,
cornering them in the cloakroom, telling some off-color
jokes, touching them on the arm, looking extra sincere, and
cracking the biggest smiles he could muster. Similarly, if
people are trying to cover something up, they tend to
become extra vehement, righteous, and chatty. They are
playing on the conviction bias (see chapter 1)—if I deny or
say something with so much gusto, with an air of being a
victim, it is hard to doubt me. We tend to take extra
conviction for truth. In fact, when people try to explain
their ideas with so much exaggerated energy, or defend
themselves with an intense level of denial, that is precisely
when you should raise your antennae.
In both cases—the cover-up and the soft sell—the
deceiver is striving to distract you from the truth. Although
an animated face and gestures might come from sheer
exuberance and genuine friendliness, when they come from
someone you don’t know well, or from someone who just
might have something to hide, you must be on your guard.
Now you are looking for nonverbal signs to confirm your
suspicions.
With such deceivers you will often notice that one part of
the face or the body is more expressive to attract your
attention. This will often be the area around the mouth,
with large smiles and changing expressions. This is the
easiest area of the body for people to manipulate and create
an animated effect. But it could also be exaggerated
gestures with the hands and arms. The key is that you will
detect tension and anxiety in other parts of the body,
because it is impossible for them to control all of the
muscles. When they flash a big smile, the eyes are tense
with little movement or the rest of the body is unusually
still, or if the eyes are trying to fool you with looks to garner
your sympathy, the mouth quivers slightly. These are signs
of contrived behavior, of trying too hard to control one part
of the body.
Sometimes really clever deceivers will attempt to create
the opposite impression. If they are covering up a misdeed,
they will hide their guilt behind an extremely serious and
competent exterior, the face becoming unusually still.
Instead of loud denials, they will offer a highly plausible
explanation of the chain of events, even going through the
“evidence” that confirms this. Their picture of reality is
nearly seamless. If they are trying to gain your money or
support, they will pose as the highly competent
professional, to the point of being somewhat boring, even
hitting you with a lot of numbers and statistics. Con artists
often employ this front. The great con artist Victor Lustig
would lull his victims to sleep with a professional patter,
making himself come off as a bureaucrat or the dull expert
in bonds and securities. Bernie Madoff seemed so bland
nobody could possibly suspect him of such an audacious
con game as the one he pulled off.
This form of deception is harder to see through because
there is less to notice. But once again you are looking for
contrived impressions. Reality is never so pat and seamless.
Real events involve sudden random intrusions and
accidents. Reality is messy and the pieces rarely fit so
perfectly. That was what was wrong with the Watergate
cover-up and raised suspicions. When the explanation or
the come-on is just a little too slick or professional, that is
what should trigger your skepticism. Looking at this from
the other side, as a character in Dostoyevsky’s novel The
Idiot advised, “When you are lying, if you skillfully put in
something not quite ordinary, something eccentric,
something, you know, that never has happened, or very
rarely, it makes the lie sound much more probable.”
In general, the best thing to do when you suspect people
of trying to distract you from the truth is not to actively
confront them in the beginning, but in fact to encourage
them to continue by showing interest in what they are
saying or doing. You want them to talk more, to reveal more
signs of tension and contrivance. At the right moment you
must surprise them with a question or remark that is
designed to make them uncomfortable, revealing you are
onto them. Pay attention to the microexpressions and body
language they emit at such moments. If they are really
deceiving, they will often have a freeze response as they
take this in, and then quickly try to mask the underlying
anxiety. This was the favorite strategy of detective Columbo
in the television series of the same name—facing criminals
who had tried to reverse engineer the evidence to make it
look like someone else had done it, Columbo would pretend
to be perfectly friendly and harmless but then would
suddenly ask an uncomfortable question and then pay extra
attention to the face and body.
Even with the most practiced deceivers, one of the best
ways to unmask them is to notice how they give emphasis to
their words through nonverbal cues. It is very difficult for
humans to fake this. Emphasis comes through raised vocal
pitch and assertive tone, forceful hand gestures, the raising
of eyebrows and the widening of eyes. We might also lean
forward or rise up on the balls of our feet. We engage in
such behavior when we are filled with emotion and trying to
add an exclamation point to what we are saying. It is hard
for deceivers to mimic this. The emphasis they place with
their voice or body is not exactly correlated to what they are
saying, does not quite fit the context of the moment, or
comes a little too late. When they pound the table with their
fist, it is not at the moment they should be feeling the
emotion, but a little earlier, as if on cue, as if to create an
effect. These are all cracks in the veneer of the realness they
are trying to project.
Finally, with deception keep in mind that there is always
a scale involved. At the bottom of the scale we find the most
harmless varieties, little white lies. These could include all
forms of flattery in daily life: “You look great today”; “I
loved your screenplay.” They could include not revealing to
people exactly what you did that day or withholding bits of
information because it is annoying to be completely
transparent and have no privacy. These small forms of
deception can be detected if we pay attention, such as by
noticing the genuineness of a smile. But in fact it is best to
simply ignore this lower end. Polite, civilized society
depends on the ability to say things that are not always
sincere. It would be too damaging socially to become
constantly aware of this subrealm of deception. Save your
alertness for those situations in which the stakes are higher
and people might be angling to get something valuable out
of you.

The Art of Impression Management

In general the word role-playing has negative connotations.
We contrast it with authenticity. A person who is truly
authentic doesn’t need to play a role in life, we think, but
can simply be him- or herself. This concept has value in
friendships and in our intimate relationships, where,
hopefully, we can drop the masks we wear and feel
comfortable in displaying our unique qualities. But in our
professional life it is much more complicated. When it
comes to a specific job or role to play in society, we have
expectations about what is professional. We would be made
to feel uncomfortable if our airplane pilot suddenly started
to act like a car salesman, or a mechanic like a therapist, or
a professor like a rock musician. If such people acted
completely like themselves, dropping their masks and
refusing to play their roles, we would question their
competence.
A politician or public figure whom we see as more
authentic than others is generally better at projecting such a
quality. They know that appearing humble, or discussing
their private life, or telling an anecdote that reveals some
vulnerability will have the “authentic” effect. We are not
seeing them as they are in the privacy of their home. Life in
the public sphere means wearing a mask, and sometimes
some people wear the mask of “authenticity.” Even the
hipster or the rebel is playing a role, with prescribed poses
and tattoos. They do not have the freedom to suddenly wear
a business suit, because others in their circle would begin to
question their sincerity, which depends on displaying the
right appearance. People have more freedom to bring more
of their personal qualities into the role they play once they
have established themselves and their competence is no
longer in question. But this is always within limits.
Consciously or unconsciously most of us adhere to what
is expected of our role because we realize our social success
depends on this. Some may refuse to play this game, but in
the end they are marginalized and forced to play the
outsider role, with limited options and decreasing freedom
as they get older. In general, it is best to simply accept this
dynamic and derive some pleasure from it. You are not only
aware of the proper appearances you must present but
know how to shape them for maximum effect. You can then
transform yourself into a superior actor on the stage of life
and enjoy your moment in the limelight.
The following are some basics in the art of impression
management.
Master the nonverbal cues. In
certain settings, when people
want to get a fix on who we are, they pay greater attention
to the nonverbal cues we emit. This could be in a job
interview, a group meeting, or a public appearance. Aware
of this, smart social performers will know how to control
these cues to some degree and consciously emit the signs
that are suitable and positive. They know how to seem
likable, flash genuine smiles, use welcoming body language,
and mirror the people they deal with. They know the
dominance cues and how to radiate confidence. They know
that certain looks are more expressive than words in
conveying disdain or attraction. In general, you want to be
aware of your nonverbal style so you can consciously alter
certain aspects for better effect.
Be a method actor.In method acting you train yourself to
be able to display the proper emotions on command. You
feel sad when your part calls for it by recalling your own
experiences that caused such emotions, or if necessary by
simply imagining such experiences. The point is that you
have control. In real life it is not possible to train ourselves
to such a degree, but if you have no control, if you are
continually emoting whatever comes to you in the moment,
you will subtly signal weakness and an overall lack of self-
mastery. Learn how to consciously put yourself in the right
emotional mood by imagining how and why you should feel
the emotion suitable to the occasion or performance you are
about to give. Surrender to the feeling for the moment so
that the face and body are naturally animated. Sometimes
by actually making yourself smile or frown, you will
experience some of the emotions that go with these
expressions. Just as important, train yourself to return to a
more neutral expression at a natural moment, careful to not
go too far with your emoting.
Adapt to your audience.Although you conform to certain
parameters set by the role you play, you must be flexible. A
master performer like Bill Clinton never lost sight of the
fact that as president he had to project confidence and
power, but if he was speaking to a group of autoworkers he
would adjust his accent and his words to fit the audience,
and he would do the same for a group of executives. Know
your audience and shape your nonverbal cues to their style
and taste.
It has been demonstrated
Create the proper first impression.
how much people tend to judge based on first impressions
and the difficulties they have in reassessing these
judgments. Knowing this, you must give extra attention to
your first appearance before an individual or group. In
general it is best to tone down your nonverbal cues and
present a more neutral front. Too much excitement will
signal insecurity and might make people suspicious. A
relaxed smile, however, and looking people in the eye in
these first encounters can do wonders for lowering their
natural resistance.
Use dramatic effects. This
mostly involves mastering the
art of presence/absence. If you are too present, if people see
you too often or can predict exactly what you will do next,
they will quickly grow bored with you. You must know how
to selectively absent yourself, to regulate how often and
when you appear before others, making them want to see
more of you, not less. Cloak yourself in some mystery,
displaying some subtly contradictory qualities. People don’t
need to know everything about you. Learn to withhold
information. In general, make your appearances and your
behavior less predictable.
Project saintly qualities. No
matter what historical period
we are living through, there are certain traits that are
always seen as positive and that you must know how to
display. For instance, the appearance of saintliness never
goes out of fashion. Appearing saintly today is certainly
different in content from the sixteenth century, but the
essence is the same—you embody what is considered good
and above reproach. In the modern world, this means
showing yourself as progressive, supremely tolerant, and
open-minded. You will want to be seen giving generously to
certain causes and supporting them on social media.
Projecting sincerity and honesty always plays well. A few
public confessions of your weaknesses and vulnerabilities
will do the trick. For some reason people see signs of
humility as authentic, even though people might very well
be simulating them. Learn how to occasionally lower your
head and appear humble. If dirty work must be done, get
others to do it. Your hands are clean. Never overtly play the
Machiavellian leader—that only works well on television.
Use the appropriate dominance cues to make people think
you are powerful, even before you reach the heights. You
want to seem like you were destined for success, a mystical
effect that always works.
The master of this game has to be Emperor Augustus (63
BC–AD 14) of ancient Rome. Augustus understood the
value of having a good enemy, a villain with whom he could
contrast himself. For this purpose he used Mark Antony, his
early rival for power, as the perfect foil. Augustus
personally allied himself with everything traditional in
Roman society, even placing his home near the spot where
the city had supposedly been founded. While Antony was
off in Egypt, dallying with Queen Cleopatra and giving in to
a life of luxury, Augustus could continually point to their
differences, showing himself off as the embodiment of
Roman values, which Antony had betrayed. Once he
became the supreme leader of Rome, Augustus made a
public show of humility, of giving back powers to the Senate
and to the people. He spoke a more vernacular Latin and
lived simply, like a man of the people. And for all this he
was revered. It was, of course, all a show. In fact he spent
most of his time in a luxurious villa outside Rome. He had
many mistresses, who came from places as exotic as Egypt.
And while seeming to give away power, he held on tightly to
the real reins of control, the military. Obsessed with the
theater, Augustus was a master showman and wearer of
masks. He must have realized this, for these were the last
words he spoke on his deathbed: “Have I played my part in
the farce of life well enough?”
Realize the following: The word personality comes from
the Latin persona, which means “mask.” In the public we
all wear masks, and this has a positive function. If we
displayed exactly who we are and spoke our minds
truthfully, we would offend almost everyone and reveal
qualities that are best concealed. Having a persona, playing
a role well, actually protects us from people looking too
closely at us, with all of the insecurities that would churn
up. In fact, the better you play your role, the more power
you will accrue, and with power you will have the freedom
to express more of your peculiarities. If you take this far
enough, the persona you present will match many of your
unique characteristics, but always heightened for effect.
“You appeared to read a good deal upon her which was quite
invisible to me.” “Not invisible but unnoticed, Watson. You did
not know where to look, and so you missed all that was
important. I can never bring you to realize the importance of
sleeves, the suggestiveness of thumbnails, or the great issues
that may hang from a boot-lace.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, “A Case of Identity”
 4

Determine the Strength of

People’s Character

The Law of Compulsive

Behavior

W hen choosing people to work and associate with, do

not be mesmerized by their reputation or taken in
by the surface image they try to project. Instead, train
yourself to look deep within them and see their character.
People’s character is formed in their earliest years and
by their daily habits. It is what compels them to repeat
certain actions in their lives and fall into negative
patterns. Look closely at such patterns and remember
that people never do something just once. They will
inevitably repeat their behavior. Gauge the relative
strength of their character by how well they handle
adversity, their ability to adapt and work with other
people, their patience and ability to learn. Always
gravitate toward those who display signs of strength,
and avoid the many toxic types out there. Know
thoroughly your own character so you can break your
compulsive patterns and take control of your destiny.

The Pattern
To his aunts, uncles, and grandparents who watched him
grow up in Houston, Texas, Howard Hughes Jr. (1905–
1976) was a rather shy and awkward boy. His mother had
nearly died giving birth to him and consequently could not
have other children, so she completely doted on her son.
Continually anxious that he might catch some illness, she
watched his every move and did all she could to protect
him. The boy seemed in awe of his father, Howard Sr.,
who in 1909 had started the Sharp-Hughes Tool
Company, which would soon make the family a fortune.
His father was not home much, always traveling for
business, so Howard spent a great deal of time with his
mother. To the relatives he could seem nervous and
hypersensitive, but as he got older he became a
remarkably polite, soft-spoken young man, completely
devoted to his parents.
Then in 1922 his mother, at the age of thirty-nine,
suddenly died. His father never quite recovered from her
early death and passed away two years later. Now, at the
age of nineteen, young Howard was alone in the world,
having lost the two people who had been his closest
companions and who had directed every phase of his life.
His relatives decided they would have to fill the void and
give the young man the guidance he needed. But in the
months after the death of his father, they suddenly had to
confront a Howard Hughes Jr. they had never seen before
or suspected. The soft-spoken young man suddenly
became rather abusive. The obedient boy was now the
complete rebel. He would not continue college as they
advised. He would not follow any of their
recommendations. The more they insisted, the more
belligerent he became.
Inheriting the family wealth, young Howard could now
become completely independent, and he meant to take
this as far as he could. He immediately went to work to
buy out all of the shares in the Sharp-Hughes Tool
Company that his relatives possessed and to gain
complete control of the highly lucrative business. Under
Texas law he could petition the courts to declare him an
adult, if he could prove himself competent enough to
assume the role. Hughes befriended a local judge and
soon got the declaration he wanted. Now he could run his
own life and the tool company with no interference. His
relatives were shocked by all of this, and soon both sides
would cut off almost all contact with each other for the
rest of their lives. What had changed the sweet boy they
had known into this hyperaggressive, rebellious young
man? It was a mystery they would never solve.
Shortly after declaring his independence, Howard
settled in Los Angeles, where he was determined to follow
his two newest passions—filmmaking and piloting
airplanes. He had the money to indulge himself in both of
these interests, and in 1927 he decided to combine them,
producing an epic, high-budget film about airmen during
World War I, to be called Hell’s Angels. He hired a
director and a team of writers to come up with the script,
but he had a falling-out with the director and fired him.
He then hired another director, Luther Reed, a man who
was also an aviation buff and could relate better to the
project, but soon he quit, tired of Hughes’s constant
interfering in the project. His last words to Hughes were
“If you know so much, why don’t you direct it yourself?”
Hughes followed his advice and named himself the
director.
The budget began to soar as he strove for the utmost in
realism. Month after month, year after year went by as
Hughes ran through hundreds of crewmembers and stunt
pilots, three of whom died in fiery accidents. After endless
battles, he ended up firing almost every head of a
department and running things himself. He fussed over
every shot, every angle, every storyboard. Finally Hell’s
Angels premiered in 1930 and it was a smash hit. The
story was a mess, but the flying and action sequences
thrilled audiences. Now the legend of Howard Hughes was
born. He was the dashing young maverick who had
bucked the system and created a hit. He was the rugged
individualist who did everything himself.
The film had cost a whopping $3.8 million to make and
had lost close to $2 million, but nobody paid attention to
this. Hughes himself was humble and claimed to have
learned his lesson on the production: “Making Hell’s
Angels by myself was my biggest mistake. . . . Trying to do
the work of twelve men was just dumbness on my part. I
learned by bitter experience that no one man can know
everything.”
During the 1930s the Hughes legend only seemed to
grow as he piloted planes to several world records in
speed, courting death on several occasions. Hughes had
spun off from his father’s company a new business
venture called Hughes Aircraft, which he hoped to
transform into the biggest manufacturer of airplanes in
the world. At the time, this required procuring large
military contracts for planes, and as the U.S. entered
World War II Hughes made a big play for such a contract.
In 1942 various officials in the Defense Department,
impressed by his aviation feats, the meticulous attention
to detail he revealed in his interviews, and his tireless
lobbying efforts, decided to award Hughes Aircraft an $18
million grant to produce three enormous transport planes,
called the Hercules, which would be used to ferry soldiers
and supplies to various fronts in the war. The planes were
called flying boats and were to have wingspans longer
than a football field and stand over three stories high at
the hull. If the company did a good job on this, bringing
the planes in on time and on budget, they would order
many more and Hughes could corner the market in
transport planes.
Less than a year later, there was more good news.
Impressed with the beautiful and sleek design of his
smaller D-2 plane, the air force put in an order for one
hundred photo-reconnaissance planes for $43 million, to
be reconfigured along the lines of the D-2. But soon word
began to spread of trouble at Hughes Aircraft. The
company had started as a sort of hobby for Hughes. He
had placed various Hollywood friends and aviation
buddies in high-level positions. As the company grew, so
did the number of departments, but there was little
communication among them. Everything had to flow
through Hughes himself. He had to be consulted on the
smallest decision. Frustrated by all of his interference in
their work, several top-notch engineers had already quit.
Hughes saw the problem and hired a general manager
to help with the Hercules project and straighten the
company out, but the general manager quit after two
months. Hughes had promised him carte blanche in
restructuring the company, but only several days into the
job he began vetoing his decisions and undermining his
authority. By the late summer of 1943, $6 million of the
$9 million set aside for the production of the first
Hercules plane had already been spent, but the plane was
nowhere near completion. Those in the Defense
Department who had endorsed Hughes for the job began
to panic. The photo-reconnaissance order was a critical
one for the war effort. Did the internal chaos and delays
with the Hercules bode problems with the more important
reconnaissance order? Had Hughes duped them with his
charm and his publicity campaign?
By early 1944, the order for the reconnaissance planes
had fallen hopelessly behind schedule. The military now
insisted he hire a new general manager to salvage
something from the order. Fortunately one of the best
men for the job was available at the time: Charles Perelle,
the “boy wonder” of aircraft production. Perelle did not
want the job. He knew, like everyone in the business, of
the chaos within Hughes Aircraft. Now Hughes himself,
feeling desperate, went on a charm offensive. He insisted
he had realized the error of his ways. He needed Perelle’s
expertise. He was not what Perelle had expected—he was
completely humble and made it seem as if he were the
victim of unscrupulous executives within the company. He
knew all the technical details of producing a plane, which
impressed Perelle. He promised to give Perelle the
authority he needed. Against his better judgment, Perelle
took the job.
 After only a few weeks, however, Perelle regretted his
decision. The planes were further behind schedule than he
had been led to believe. Everything he saw reeked of a lack
of professionalism, down to the shoddy drawings of the
planes. He went to work, cutting wasteful spending and
streamlining departments, but nobody respected his
authority. Everybody knew who really ran the company,
as Hughes kept undermining Perelle’s reforms. As the
order fell further behind and the pressure mounted,
Hughes disappeared from the scene, apparently having a
nervous breakdown. By the end of the war, not a single
reconnaissance plane had been produced, and the air
force canceled the contract. Perelle himself, broken by the
experience, quit his job in December of that year.
Hughes, trying to salvage something from the war
years, could point to the completion of one of the flying
boats, later known as the Spruce Goose. It was a marvel,
he claimed, a brilliant piece of engineering on a massive
scale. To prove the doubters wrong, he decided to test-fly
the plane himself. As he flew over the ocean, however, it
became painfully clear that the plane did not have nearly
enough power for its enormous weight, and after a mile he
gently set it down on the water and had it towed back. The
plane would never fly again and would be dry-docked in a
hangar at a cost of $1 million per year, Hughes refusing to
take it apart for scrap.
By 1948 the owner of RKO Pictures, Floyd Odlum, was
looking to sell. RKO was one of Hollywood’s most
profitable and prestigious studios, and Hughes was
itching to get back in the limelight by establishing himself
in the film business. He bought Odlum’s shares and
gained a controlling interest. Within RKO there was panic.
Executives there knew of his reputation for meddling. The
company had just brought in a new regime, headed by
Dore Schary, that was going to transform RKO into the
hottest studio for young directors. Schary decided to quit
before being humiliated, but he agreed to first meet
Hughes, mostly out of curiosity.
 Hughes was all charm. He took hold of Schary’s hand,
looked him straight in the eye, and said, “I want no part of
running the studio. You’ll be left alone.” Schary, surprised
by his sincerity and agreement with Schary’s proposed
transformation of the studio, relented, and for the first
few weeks all was as Hughes had promised. But then the
phone calls began. Hughes wanted Schary to replace an
actress on the latest film in production. Realizing his
mistake, Schary immediately resigned, taking with him
many of his own staff.
Hughes began filling positions with men who followed
his orders, hiring exactly the actors and actresses that he
himself liked. He bought a screenplay called Jet Pilot and
planned on making it the 1949 version of Hell’s Angels. It
was to star John Wayne, and the great Josef von
Sternberg was to direct. After a few weeks Sternberg could
not endure one more phone call and quit. Hughes took
over. In a complete repeat of the production of Hell’s
Angels, it took nearly three years to finish, mostly because
of the aerial photography, and the budget soared to $4
million. Hughes had shot so much footage he could not
decide how to cut it down. It took six years before it was
ready, and by then the jet scenes were completely out of
date and Wayne looked considerably older. The film
subsequently fell into complete obscurity. Soon the once-
bustling studio was losing substantial sums, and in 1955,
with stockholders furious at his mismanagement, Hughes
sold RKO to the General Tire Company.
In the 1950s and early ’60s, the U.S. military decided to
adapt some of its fighting philosophy to the times. To
wage war in places like Vietnam it needed helicopters,
including a light observation helicopter to help in
reconnaissance. The army searched out potential
manufacturers and in 1961 selected two of them that had
submitted the best proposals, rejecting the design of
Hughes’s second aircraft company, which he had spun off
from Hughes Tool (the original version of Hughes Aircraft
was now run completely independently from Hughes
himself). Hughes refused to accept this setback. His
publicity team went on a massive lobbying campaign,
wining and dining army brass, much as they had done
some twenty years earlier with the photo-reconnaissance
planes, spending money lavishly. The campaign was a
success and the Hughes entry was now in the running
along with the other two. The army decided that the
company that came in with the best price would win.
The price Hughes submitted surprised the military—it
was so low it seemed impossible for the company to make
any money on the manufacture of the helicopters. It
seemed clear that his strategy was to lose money on the
initial production in order to win the auction, get the
contract, and then raise the price on subsequent orders. In
1965 the army finally awarded the contract to Hughes, an
incredible coup for a company that had had so little
success in airplane production. If they were made well and
on time, the army could potentially order thousands of
helicopters, and Hughes could use this as a springboard
into the production of commercial helicopters, an
expanding business.
As the Vietnam War heated up, the army was certain to
increase its order and Hughes would reap the bonanza,
but as they waited for the delivery of the first helicopters,
those who had awarded the contract to Hughes began to
panic: the company was falling way behind the schedule
they had agreed upon, and so they launched an
investigation to find out what was going on. To their
horror, there seemed to be no organized production line.
The plant was too small to handle such an order. The
details were all wrong—the drawings were unprofessional,
the tools inadequate, and there were too few skilled
workers on site. It was as if the company had no
experience in designing planes and was trying to figure it
out as it went. It was the exact same predicament as with
the photo-reconnaissance planes, which only a few in the
military could remember. It was clear that Hughes had
not learned a single lesson from the earlier fiasco.
 As they now could predict, the helicopters only trickled
in. Feeling desperate, army brass decided to conduct a
new auction for the much larger order of the 2,200
helicopters they now needed, hoping a more experienced
company would come in with a lower price and force out
Hughes. Hughes went into panic mode. To lose this
follow-on bid would spell ruin. The company was counting
on raising its price for this new order to recoup the
enormous losses it had incurred with the initial
production. That was the bet Hughes had placed. If he
tried to come in with a low price for the additional
helicopters, he could not return a profit, and yet if his bid
was not low enough, he would be underbid, which was
what eventually happened. The loss to Hughes in the end
for the helicopters he produced was an astronomical $90
million and had a devastating effect on the company.
In 1976 Howard Hughes died in an airplane en route
from Acapulco to Houston, and as the autopsy was
performed on his body, the public finally became aware of
what had happened to him in the last decade of his life.
For years he had been addicted to pain pills and narcotics.
He had lived in tightly sealed hotel rooms, deathly afraid
of the slightest possible contamination by germs. At the
time of his death he weighed a mere ninety-three pounds.
He had lived in near-total isolation, attended to by a few
assistants, desperately trying to keep all of this out of the
public eye. It was the ultimate irony that the man who
feared more than anything the slightest loss of control had
ended up in his last years at the complete mercy of a
handful of assistants and executives, who oversaw his slow
death by drugs and wrested essential control of the
company from him.

• • •
Interpretation: The pattern of Howard Hughes’s life
was set from very early on. His mother had an anxious
nature, and after learning she could have no more
children, she directed a great deal of her anxiety toward
her only son. She smothered him with constant attention;
she became his closest companion, almost never letting
him out of sight. The father placed tremendous
expectations on his son to carry on the family name. His
parents determined everything he did—what he wore,
what he ate, and who his friends were (although they were
few). They shuttled him from school to school looking for
the perfect environment for their son, who had shown
himself to be hypersensitive and not easy to get along
with. He was completely dependent on them for
everything, and out of a tremendous fear of disappointing
them, he became supremely polite and obedient.
The truth, however, was that he bitterly resented his
total dependence. Once his parents died, his true
character could finally emerge from beneath the smiles
and obedience. He felt no love toward his relatives. He
would rather face the future alone than have the slightest
bit of authority above him. He had to have complete
control, even at the age of nineteen, over his fate; anything
less would stir up the old anxieties from childhood. And
with the money he inherited, he had the power to realize
his dream of total independence. His love of flying
reflected this character trait. Only in the air, alone and at
the helm, could he really experience the exhilaration of
control and release from his anxieties. He could soar high
above the masses, whom he secretly despised. He could
brave death, which he did many times, because it would
be a death under his own power.
His character came out even more clearly in the
leadership style that he evolved in Hollywood and his
other business ventures. If writers, directors, or executives
came forward with their own ideas, he could only see this
as a personal challenge to his authority. This would stir up
his old anxieties about being helpless and dependent on
others. To combat this anxiety he would have to keep
control of all aspects of the business, overseeing even the
spelling and grammar of the smallest publicity notice. He
would have to create a very loose structure within his
companies, making all of the executives fight among
themselves for his attention. Better to have some internal
chaos as long as everything flowed through him.
The paradox of this was that by trying to gain such total
control he tended to lose it; one man could not possibly
keep on top of everything, and so all kinds of unforeseen
problems would arise. And when projects fell apart and
the heat became intense, he would disappear from the
scene or conveniently fall ill. His need to control
everything around him even extended to the women he
dated—he scrutinized their every action, had them
followed by private investigators.
The problem that Howard Hughes presented to all
those who chose to work with him in some capacity was
that he carefully constructed a public image that
concealed the glaring weaknesses in his character. Instead
of the irrational micromanager, he could present himself
as the rugged individualist and the consummate American
maverick. Most damaging of all was his ability to portray
himself as a successful businessman leading a billion-
dollar empire. In truth, he had inherited a highly
profitable tool business from his father. Over the years,
the only parts of his empire that ran substantial profits
were the tool company and an earlier version of Hughes
Aircraft that he had spun out of the tool company. For
various reasons, both of these businesses were run
completely independently of Hughes; he had no input on
their operations. The many other businesses he personally
ran—his later aircraft division, his film ventures, his
hotels and real estate in Las Vegas—all lost substantial
amounts that were fortunately covered by the other two.
In fact, Hughes was a terrible businessman, and the
pattern of failures that revealed this was plain for
everyone to see. But this is the blind spot in human
nature: we are poorly equipped to gauge the character of
the people we deal with. Their public image, the
reputation that precedes them, easily mesmerizes us. We
are captivated by appearances. If they surround
themselves with some alluring myth, as Hughes did, we
want to believe in it. Instead of determining people’s
character—their ability to work with others, to keep to
their promises, to remain strong in adverse circumstances
—we choose to work with or hire people based on their
glittering résumé, their intelligence, and their charm. But
even a positive trait such as intelligence is worthless if the
person also happens to be of weak or dubious character.
And so, because of our blind spot, we suffer under the
irresolute leader, the micromanaging boss, the conniving
partner. This is the source of endless tragedies in history,
our pattern as a species.
At all costs, you must alter your perspective. Train
yourself to ignore the front that people display, the myth
that surrounds them, and instead plumb their depths for
signs of their character. This can be seen in the patterns
they reveal from their past, the quality of their decisions,
how they have chosen to solve problems, how they
delegate authority and work with others, and countless
other signs. A person of strong character is like gold—rare
but invaluable. They can adapt, learn, and improve
themselves. Since your success depends on the people you
work with and for, make their character the primary
object of your attention. You will spare yourself the misery
of discovering their character when it is too late.
Character is destiny.
—Heraclitus

Keys to Human Nature

For thousands of years, we humans believed in fate: some
kind of force—spirits, gods, or God—compelled us to act in
a certain way. At birth our entire lives were laid out in
advance; we were fated to succeed or fail. We see the
world much differently now. We believe that we are
largely in control of what happens to us, that we create our
own destiny. Upon occasion, however, we might have a
fleeting sensation that approximates what our ancestors
must have felt. Perhaps a personal relationship goes bad
or our career path hits a snag, and these difficulties are
uncannily similar to something that happened to us in the
past. Or we realize that our way of working on a project
needs some improvement; we could do things better. We
try to alter our methods, only to find ourselves doing
things in exactly the same way, with nearly the same
results. We might feel for a moment that some kind of
malignant force in the world, some curse, compels us to
relive the same situations.
We can often notice this phenomenon more clearly in
the actions of others, particularly those closest to us. For
instance, we see friends continually fall for exactly the
wrong person or unconsciously push away the right
person. We cringe at some foolish behavior of theirs, such
as an ill-considered investment or career choice, only to
see them repeat the foolishness a few years later, once
they have forgotten the lesson. Or we know someone who
always manages to offend the wrong person at the wrong
time, creating hostility wherever he or she goes. Or they
crumble under pressure, always in the same way, but
blaming others or bad luck for what happens. And of
course we know the addicts who get out of their addiction,
only to fall back in or find some other form of addiction.
We see these patterns and they don’t, because nobody
likes to believe that they are operating under some kind of
compulsion beyond their control. It is too disturbing a
thought.
If we are honest with ourselves, we must admit there is
some truth to the concept of fate. We are prone to repeat
the same decisions and methods of dealing with problems.
There is a pattern to our life, particularly visible in our
mistakes and failures. But there is a different way of
looking at this concept: it is not spirits or gods that control
us but rather our character. The etymology of the word
character, from the ancient Greek, refers to an engraving
or stamping instrument. Character, then, is something
that is so deeply ingrained or stamped within us that it
compels us to act in certain ways, beyond our awareness
and control. We can conceive of this character as having
three essential components, each layered on top of the
other, giving this character depth.
The earliest and deepest layer comes from genetics,
from the particular way our brains are wired, which
predisposes us toward certain moods and preferences.
This genetic component can make some people prone to
depression, for instance. It makes some people introverts
and others extroverts. It might even incline some toward
becoming especially greedy—for attention or privilege or
possessions. The psychoanalyst Melanie Klein, who
studied infants, believed that the greedy and grasping type
of child came into the world predisposed toward this
character trait. There might be other genetic factors as
well that predispose us toward hostility or anxiety or
openness.
The second layer, which forms above this, comes from
our earliest years and from the particular type of
attachments we formed with our mother and caregivers.
In these first three or four years our brains are especially
malleable. We experience emotions much more intensely,
creating memory traces that are much deeper than
anything that will follow. In this period of life we are at
our most susceptible to the influence of others, and the
stamp from these years is profound.
John Bowlby, an anthropologist and psychoanalyst,
studied patterns of attachment between mothers and
children and came up with four basic schemas:
free/autonomous, dismissing, enmeshed-ambivalent, and
disorganized. The free/autonomous stamp comes from
mothers who give their children freedom to discover
themselves and are continually sensitive to their needs but
also protect them. Dismissing mothers are often distant,
even sometimes hostile and rejecting. Such children are
stamped with a feeling of abandonment and the idea that
they must continually fend for themselves. The enmeshed-
ambivalent mothers are not consistent with their attention
—sometimes suffocating and overinvolved, other times
retreating because of their own problems or anxieties.
They can make their children feel as if they have to take
care of the person who should be taking care of them.
Disorganized mothers send highly conflicting signals to
their children, reflecting their own inner chaos and
perhaps early emotional traumas. Nothing their children
do is right, and such children can develop powerful
emotional problems.
There are, of course, many gradations within each type
and combinations of them, but in every case the quality of
attachment that we had in our earliest years will create
deep tendencies within us, in particular the way we use
relationships to handle or modulate our stress. For
instance, children of the dismissing parent will tend to
avoid any kind of negative emotional situation and to wall
themselves off from feelings of dependency. They might
find it harder to commit to a relationship or will
unconsciously push people away. The children of the
enmeshed variety will experience a great deal of anxiety in
relationships and will feel many conflicting emotions.
They will always be ambivalent toward people, and this
will set noticeable patterns in their life in which they
pursue people and then unconsciously retreat.
In general, from these earliest years people will display
a particular tone to their character—hostile and
aggressive, secure and confident, anxious and avoidant,
needy and enmeshing. These two layers are so deep that
we have no real conscious awareness of them and the
behavior they compel, unless we expend great effort in
examining ourselves.
Above this a third layer will form from our habits and
experiences as we get older. Based on the first two layers,
we will tend to rely on certain strategies for dealing with
stress, looking for pleasure, or handling people. These
strategies now become habits that are set in our youth.
There will be modifications to the particular nature of our
character depending on the people we deal with—friends,
teachers, romantic partners—and how they respond to us.
But in general these three layers will establish certain
noticeable patterns. We will make a particular decision.
This is engraved in our brains neurologically. We are
compelled to repeat this because the path is already laid.
It becomes a habit, and our character is formed out of
these thousands of habits, the earliest ones set well before
we could be conscious of them.
There is a fourth layer as well. It often is developed in
late childhood and adolescence as people become aware of
their character flaws. They do what they can to cover them
up. If they sense that deep inside they are an anxious,
timid type of person, they come to realize that this is not a
socially acceptable trait. They learn to disguise it with a
front. They compensate by trying to appear outgoing or
carefree or even domineering. This makes it all the more
difficult for us to determine the nature of their character.
Some character traits can be positive and reflect inner
strength. For instance, some people have a propensity
toward being generous and open, empathetic, and
resilient under pressure. But these stronger, more flexible
qualities often require awareness and practice to truly
become habits that can be relied upon. As we get older,
life tends to weaken us. Our empathy is harder to hold on
to (see chapter 2). If we are reflexively generous and open
to everyone we meet, we can end up in a lot of trouble.
Confidence without self-awareness and control can
become grandiosity. Without conscious effort, these
strengths will tend to wear down or turn into weaknesses.
What this means is that the weakest parts of our character
are the ones that create habits and compulsive behavior,
because they do not require effort or practice to maintain.
Finally, we can develop conflicting character traits,
perhaps stemming from a difference between our genetic
predispositions and our earliest influences, or from
parents who stamp in us different values. We might feel
both idealistic and materialistic, the two parts fighting
within us. The law remains the same. The conflicted
character, which is developed in the earliest years, will
merely reveal a different kind of pattern, with decisions
that tend to reflect a person’s ambivalence, or that swing
back and forth.
As a student of human nature your task is twofold:
First you must come to understand your own character,
examining as best you can the elements in your past that
have gone into forming it, and the patterns, mostly
negative, that you can see recurring in your life. It is
impossible to get rid of this stamp that constitutes your
character. It is too deep. But through awareness, you can
learn to mitigate or stop certain negative patterns. You
can work to transform the negative and weak aspects of
your character into actual strengths. You can try to create
new habits and patterns that go with them through
practice, actively shaping your character and the destiny
that goes with it. (For more on this, see the last section of
this chapter.)
Second, you must develop your skill in reading the
character of the people you deal with. To do so, you must
consider character as a primary value when it comes to
choosing a person to work for or with or an intimate
partner. This means giving it more value than their charm,
intelligence, or reputation. The ability to observe people’s
character—as seen in their actions and patterns—is an
absolutely critical social skill. It can help you avoid
precisely those kinds of decisions that can spell years of
misery—choosing an incompetent leader, a shady partner,
a scheming assistant, or the kind of incompatible spouse
who can poison your life. But it is a skill you must
consciously develop, because we humans are generally
inept when it comes to such assessments.
The general source of our ineptness is that we tend to
base our judgments of people on what is most apparent.
But as stated earlier, people often try to cover up their
weaknesses by presenting them as something positive. We
see them brimming with self-confidence, only to later
discover that they are actually arrogant and incapable of
listening. They seem frank and sincere, but over time we
realize that they are actually boorish and unable to
consider the feelings of others. Or they seem prudent and
thoughtful, but eventually we see that they are in fact
timid at their core and afraid of the slightest criticism.
People can be quite adept at creating these optical
illusions, and we fall for them. Similarly, people will
charm and flatter us and, blinded by our desire to like
them, we fail to look deeper and see the character flaws.
Related to this, when we look at people we often are
really seeing only their reputation, the myth that
surrounds them, the position they occupy, and not the
individual. We come to believe that a person who has
success must by nature be generous, intelligent, and good,
and that they deserve everything they have gotten. But
successful people come in all shapes. Some are good at
using others to get where they have gotten, masking their
own incompetence. Some are completely manipulative.
Successful people have just as many character flaws as
anyone else. Also, we tend to believe that someone who
adheres to a particular religion or political belief system or
moral code must have the character to go with this. But
people bring the character they have to the position they
occupy or to the religion they practice. A person can be a
progressive liberal or a loving Christian and still be an
intolerant tyrant at heart.
The first step, then, in studying character is to be aware
of these illusions and façades and to train ourselves to
look through them. We must scrutinize everybody for
signs of their character, no matter the appearance they
present or the position they occupy. With this firmly in
mind, we can then work on several key components to the
skill: recognizing certain signs that people emit in certain
situations and that clearly reveal their character;
understanding some general categories that people fit into
(strong versus weak character, for instance), and finally
being aware of certain types of characters that often are
the most toxic and should be avoided if possible.
 Character Signs
The most significant indicator of people’s character comes
through their actions over time. Despite what people say
about the lessons they have learned (see Howard Hughes),
and how they have changed over the years, you will
inevitably notice the same actions and decisions repeating
in the course of their life. In these decisions they reveal
their character. You must take notice of any salient forms
of behavior—disappearing when there is too much stress,
not completing an important piece of work, turning
suddenly belligerent when challenged, or, conversely,
suddenly rising to the occasion when given responsibility.
With this fixed in your mind, you do some research into
their past. You look at other actions you have observed
that fit into this pattern, now in retrospect. You pay close
attention to what they do in the present. You see their
actions not as isolated incidents but as parts of a
compulsive pattern. If you ignore the pattern it is your
own fault.
You must always keep in mind the primary corollary of
this law: people never do something just once. They might
try to excuse themselves, to say they lost their heads in the
moment, but you can be sure they will repeat whatever
foolishness they did on another occasion, compelled by
their character and habits. In fact, they will often repeat
actions when it is completely against their self-interest,
revealing the compulsive nature of their weaknesses.
Cassius Severus was an infamous lawyer-orator who
flourished in the time of the Roman Emperor Augustus.
He first gained attention with his fiery speeches that
attacked high-ranking Romans for their extravagant
lifestyles. He gained a following. His style was bombastic
but full of humor that pleased the public. Encouraged by
the attention he received, he began to insult other
officials, always raising the tone of his attacks. The
authorities warned him to stop. The novelty wore off and
the crowds grew thinner, but this only made Severus try
harder.
 Finally the authorities had had enough—in AD 7 they
ordered his books to be burned and him to be banished to
the island of Crete. To the dismay of the Roman
authorities, on Crete he simply continued his obnoxious
campaign, sending copies to Rome of his latest diatribes.
They warned him yet again. He not only ignored this, but
he began to harangue and insult local Cretan officials, who
wanted him put to death. In AD 24 the Senate wisely
banished him to the unpopulated rock of Serifos in the
middle of the Aegean Sea. There he would spend the last
eight years of his life, and we can imagine him still
concocting more insulting speeches that no one would
hear.
It is hard for us to believe that people cannot control
tendencies that are so self-destructive, and we want to
give them the benefit of the doubt, as the Romans did. But
we must remember the wise words in the Bible: “Like a
dog that returns to his vomit is a fool that repeats his
folly.”
You can see eloquent signs of people’s character in how
they handle everyday affairs. If they are late in finishing
simple assignments, they will be late with larger projects.
If they become irritated by little inconveniences, they will
tend to crumble under larger ones. If they are forgetful on
small matters and inattentive to details, they will be so on
more important ones. Look at how they treat employees in
everyday settings and notice if there are discrepancies
between the persona they present and their attitude
toward underlings.
In 1969 Jeb Magruder came to San Clemente for a job
interview in the Nixon administration. The man giving the
interview was Bob Haldeman, chief of staff. Haldeman
was very earnest, completely devoted to the Nixon cause,
and impressed Magruder with his honesty, sharpness, and
intelligence. But as they left the interview to get in a golf
cart for a tour of San Clemente, Haldeman suddenly
became frantic—there were no carts available. He railed at
those in charge of the carts, and his manner was insulting
and harsh. He was almost hysterical. Magruder should
have seen this incident as a sign that Haldeman was not
what he appeared, that he had control issues and a vicious
streak, but charmed by the aura of power at San Clemente
and wanting the job, he chose to ignore this, much to his
later dismay.
In everyday life people can often do well at disguising
their character flaws, but in times of stress or crisis these
flaws can suddenly become very apparent. People under
stress lose their normal self-control. They reveal their
insecurities about their reputation, their fear of failure
and lack of inner resilience. On the other hand, some
people rise to the occasion and reveal strength under fire.
There’s no way to tell until the heat is on, but you must
pay extra attention to such moments.
Similarly, how people handle power and responsibility
will tell you a lot about them. As Lincoln said, “If you want
to test a man’s character, give him power.” On the way to
gaining power, people will tend to play the courtier, to
seem deferential, to follow the party line, to do what it
takes to make it to the top. Once at the top, there are fewer
restraints and they will often reveal something about
themselves you had not noticed before. Some people stay
true to the values they had before attaining a high position
—they remain respectful and empathetic. On the other
hand, far more people suddenly feel entitled to treat
others differently now that they have the power.
That is what happened to Lyndon Johnson once he
attained a position of ultimate security in the Senate, as
Senate majority leader. Tired of the years he had to spend
playing the perfect courtier, he now relished the power he
had to upset or humiliate those who had crossed him in
the past. Now he would go up to such a senator and make
a point of talking only to his assistant. Or he would get up
and leave the floor when a senator he did not like was
giving an important speech, making other senators follow
him. In general there are always signs of these character
traits in the past if you look closely enough (Johnson had
revealed such nasty signs in the earliest parts of his
political career), but, more important, you need to take
notice of what people reveal once they are in power. So
often we think that power has changed people, when in
fact it simply reveals more of who they are.
People’s choice of spouse or partner says a lot about
them. Some look for a partner they can dominate and
control, perhaps someone younger, less intelligent or
successful. Some choose a partner they can rescue from a
bad situation, playing the savior role, another form of
control. Yet others look for someone to fill the mommy or
daddy role. They want more pampering. These choices are
rarely intellectual; they reflect people’s earliest years and
attachment schemas. They are sometimes surprising, as
when people select someone who seems very different and
outwardly incompatible, but there is always an internal
logic to such choices. For instance, a person has a
tremendous fear of being abandoned by the one they love,
reflecting anxieties from infancy, and so they select a
person who is noticeably inferior in looks or intelligence,
knowing that person will cling to them no matter what.
Another realm to examine is how people behave in
moments away from work. In a game or sport they might
reveal a competitive nature that they cannot turn off. They
have a fear of being overtaken in anything, even when
they are driving. They must be ahead, out in front. This
can be channeled functionally into their work, but in off
hours it reveals deep layers of insecurities. Look at how
people lose in games. Can they do so graciously? Their
body language will say a lot on that front. Do they try
whatever they can to circumvent the rules or bend them?
Are they looking to escape and relax from work or to
assert themselves even in such moments?
In general, people can be divided into introverts and
extroverts, and this will play a large role in the character
they develop. Extroverts are largely governed by external
criteria. The question that dominates them is “What do
others think of me?” They will tend to like what other
people like, and the groups they belong to frequently
determine the opinions they hold. They are open to
suggestion and new ideas, but only if they are popular in
the culture or asserted by some authority they respect.
Extroverts value external things—good clothes, great
meals, concrete enjoyment shared with others. They are in
search of new and novel sensations and have a nose for
trends. They are not only comfortable with noise and
bustle but actively search it out. If they are bold, they love
physical adventure. If they are not so bold, they love
creature comforts. In any event, they crave stimulation
and attention from others.
Introverts are more sensitive and easily exhausted by
too much outward activity. They like to conserve their
energy, to spend time alone or with one or two close
friends. As opposed to extroverts, who are fascinated by
facts and statistics for their own sake, introverts are
interested in their own opinions and feelings. They love to
theorize and come up with their own ideas. If they
produce something, they do not like to promote it; they
find the effort distasteful. What they make should sell
itself. They like to keep a part of their life separate from
others, to have secrets. Their opinions do not come from
what others think or from any authority but from their
inner criteria, or at least they think so. The bigger the
crowd, the more lost and lonely they feel. They can seem
awkward and mistrustful, uncomfortable with attention.
They also tend to be more pessimistic and worried than
the average extrovert. Their boldness will be expressed by
the novel ideas they come up with and their creativity.
You might notice tendencies in both directions in
individuals or yourself, but in general people trend in one
or the other direction. It is important to gauge this in
others for a simple reason: introverts and extroverts do
not naturally understand each other. To the extrovert, the
introvert has no fun, is stubborn, even antisocial. To the
introvert, the extrovert is shallow, flighty, and overly
concerned with what people think. Being one or the other
is generally something genetic and will make two people
see the same thing in a totally different light. Once you
understand you are dealing with someone of the other
variety than yourself, you must reassess their character
and not foist your own preferences on them. Also,
sometimes introverts and extroverts can work well
together, particularly if people have a mix of both qualities
and they complement each other, but more often than not
they do not get along and are prone to constant
misunderstandings. Keep in mind that there are generally
more extroverts than introverts in the world.
Finally, it is critical that you measure the relative
strength of people’s character. Think of it in this way: such
strength comes from deep within the core of the person. It
could stem from a mixture of certain factors—genetics,
secure parenting, good mentors along the way, and
constant improvement (see the final section of this
chapter). Whatever the cause, this strength is not
something displayed on the outside in the form of bluster
or aggression but manifests itself in overall resilience and
adaptability. Strong character has a tensile quality like a
good piece of metal—it can give and bend but still retains
its overall shape and never breaks.
The strength emanates from a feeling of personal
security and self-worth. This allows such people to take
criticism and learn from their experiences. This means
they do not give up so easily, since they want to learn how
to get better. They are rigorously persistent. People of
strong character are open to new ideas and ways of doing
things without compromising the basic principles they
adhere to. In adversity they can retain their presence of
mind. They can handle chaos and the unpredictable
without succumbing to anxiety. They keep their word.
They have patience, can organize a lot of material, and
complete what they start. Not continually insecure about
their status, they can also subsume their personal
interests to the good of the group, knowing that what
works best for the team will in the end make their life
easier and better.
People of weak character begin from the opposite
position. They are easily overwhelmed by circumstances,
making them hard to rely upon. They are slippery and
evasive. Worst of all, they cannot be taught because
learning from others implies criticism. This means you
will continually hit a wall in dealing with them. They may
appear to listen to your instructions, but they will simply
revert to what they think is best.
We are all a mix of strong and weak qualities, but some
people clearly veer in one or the other direction. As much
as you can, you want to work and associate with strong
characters and avoid weak ones. This has been the basis
for almost all of Warren Buffett’s investment decisions.
He looks beyond the numbers to the CEOs he will be
dealing with, and what he wants to gauge above all else is
their resilience, their dependability, and their self-
reliance. If only we used such measurements in those we
hired, the partners we take in, and even the politicians we
choose.
Although in intimate relationships there are certainly
other factors that will guide our choices, strength of
character should also be considered. This was largely what
led Franklin Roosevelt to choose Eleanor as his wife. As a
handsome young man of wealth, he could have chosen
many other more beautiful young women, but he admired
Eleanor’s openness to new experiences and her
remarkable determination. Looking far into the future, he
could see the value of her character mattering more than
anything else. And it ended up being a very wise choice.
In gauging strength or weakness, look at how people
handle stressful moments and responsibility. Look at their
patterns: what have they actually completed or
accomplished? You can also test people. For instance, a
good-natured joke at their expense can be quite revealing.
Do they respond graciously to this, not so easily caught up
in their insecurities, or do their eyes flash resentment or
even anger? To gauge their trustworthiness as a team
player, give them strategic information or share with them
some rumor—do they quickly pass along the information
to others? Are they quick to take one of your ideas and
package it as their own? Criticize them in a direct manner.
Do they take this to heart and try to learn and improve, or
do they show overt signs of resentment? Give them an
open-ended assignment with less direction than usual and
monitor how they organize their thoughts and their time.
Challenge them with a difficult assignment or some novel
way of doing something, and see how they respond, how
they handle their anxiety.
Remember: weak character will neutralize all of the
other possible good qualities a person might possess. For
instance, people of high intelligence but weak character
may come up with good ideas and even do a job well, but
they will crumble under pressure, or they will not take to
kindly to criticism, or they will think first and foremost of
their own agenda, or their arrogance and annoying
qualities will cause others around them to quit, harming
the general environment. There are hidden costs to
working with them or hiring them. Someone less
charming and intelligent but of strong character will prove
more reliable and productive over the long run. People of
real strength are as rare as gold, and if you find them, you
should respond as if you had a discovered a treasure.

Toxic Types
Although each person’s character is as unique as a
fingerprint, we can notice throughout history certain types
that keep recurring and that can be particularly pernicious
to deal with. As opposed to the more obviously evil or
manipulative characters that you can spot a mile away,
these types are trickier. They often lure you in with an
appearance that presents their weaknesses as something
positive. Only over time do you see the toxic nature
beneath the appearance, often when it is too late. Your
best defense is to be armed with knowledge of these types,
to notice the signs earlier on, and to not get involved or to
disengage from them as quickly as possible.
The Hyperperfectionist: You are lured into their circle by
how hard they work, how dedicated they are to making the
best of whatever it is they produce. They put in longer
hours than even the lowliest employee. Yes, they might
explode and yell at people below them for not doing the
job right, but that is because they want to maintain the
highest standards, and that should be a good thing. But if
you have the misfortune of agreeing to work with or for
such a type, you will slowly discover the reality. They
cannot delegate tasks; they have to oversee everything. It
is less about high standards and dedication to the group
than about power and control.
Such people often have dependency issues stemming
from their family background, similar to Howard Hughes.
Any feeling that they might have to depend on someone
for something opens up old wounds and anxieties. They
can’t trust anyone. Once their back is turned, they imagine
everyone slacking off. Their compulsive need to
micromanage leads to people feeling resentful and secretly
resistant, which is precisely what they fear the most. You
will notice that the group they lead is not very well
organized, since everything must flow through them. This
leads to chaos and political infighting as the courtiers
struggle to get closer to the king, who controls everything.
Hyperperfectionists will often have health problems, as
they work themselves to the bone. They like to blame
others for everything that goes wrong—nobody is working
hard enough. They have patterns of initial success
followed by burnout and spectacular failures. It is best to
recognize the type before getting enmeshed on any level.
They cannot be satisfied by anything you do and will chew
you up slowly with their anxieties, abusiveness, and desire
to control.
 The Relentless Rebel: At first glance such people can seem
quite exciting. They hate authority and love the underdog.
Almost all of us are secretly attracted to such an attitude;
it appeals to the adolescent within us, the desire to snub
our nose at the teacher. They don’t recognize rules or
precedents. Following conventions is for those who are
weak and stodgy. These types will often have a biting
sense of humor, which they might turn on you, but that is
part of their authenticity, their need to deflate everyone,
or so you think. But if you happen to associate with this
type more closely, you will see that it is something they
cannot control; it is a compulsion to feel superior, not
some higher moral quality.
In their childhood a parent or father figure probably
disappointed them. They came to mistrust and hate all
those in power. In the end, they cannot accept any
criticism from others because that reeks of authority. They
cannot ever be told what to do. Everything must be on
their terms. If you cross them in some way, you will be
painted as the oppressor and be the brunt of their vicious
humor. They gain attention with this rebel pose and soon
become addicted to the attention. In the end it is all about
power—no one shall be above them, and anyone who
dares will pay the price. Look at their past history—they
will tend to split with people on very bad terms, made
worse by their insults. Do not be lured in by the hipness of
their rebel pose. Such types are eternally locked in
adolescence, and to try work with them will prove as
productive as trying to lock horns with a sullen teenager.
The Personalizer: These people seem so sensitive and
thoughtful, a rare and nice quality. They might seem a
little sad, but sensitive people can have it rough in life.
You are often drawn in by this air of theirs, and want to
help. Also, they can appear quite intelligent, considerate,
and good to work with. What you come to realize later on
is that their sensitivity really only goes in one direction—
inward. They are prone to take everything that people say
or do as personal. They tend to brood over things for days,
long after you have forgotten some innocuous comment
that they have taken personally. As children, they had a
gnawing feeling that they never got enough from their
parents—love, attention, material possessions. As they get
older, everything tends to remind them of what they didn’t
get. They go through life resenting this and wanting others
to give them things without their having to ask. They are
constantly on guard—are you paying them attention, do
you respect them, are you giving them what they paid for?
Being somewhat irritable and touchy, they inevitably push
people away, which makes them even more sensitive. At
some point they start to have a look of perpetual
disappointment.
You will see in their life a pattern of many falling-outs
with people, but they will always see themselves as the
wronged party. Do not ever inadvertently insult such a
type. They have a long memory and can spend years
getting back at you. If you can recognize the type early
enough, it’s better to avoid them, as they will inevitably
make you feel guilty for something.
The Drama Magnet: They will draw you in with their
exciting presence. They have unusual energy and stories
to tell. Their features are animated and they can be quite
witty. They are fun to be around, until the drama turns
ugly. As children, they learned that the only way to get
love and attention that lasted was to enmesh their parents
in their troubles and problems, which had to be large
enough to engage the parents emotionally over time. This
became a habit, their way of feeling alive and wanted.
Most people shrink from any kind of confrontation, but
they seem to live for it. As you get to know them better,
you hear more stories of bickering and battles in their life,
but they manage to always position themselves as the
victim.
You must realize that their greatest need is to get their
hooks into you by any means possible. They will embroil
you in their drama to the point that you will feel guilty for
disengaging. It is best to recognize them as early as
possible, before you become enmeshed and dragged
down. Examine their past for evidence of the pattern and
run for the hills if you suspect you are dealing with such a
type.
The Big Talker: You are impressed by their ideas, the
projects that they are thinking about. They need help, they
need backers, and you are sympathetic, but step back for a
moment and examine their record for signs of past
achievements or anything tangible. You might be dealing
with a type that is not overtly dangerous but can prove
maddening and waste your valuable time. In essence,
these people are ambivalent. On the one hand they are
secretly afraid of the effort and responsibility that go with
translating their ideas into action. On the other hand, they
crave attention and power. The two sides go to war within
them, but the anxious part inevitably wins out and they
slip away at the last moment. They come up with some
reason for getting out of it, after you have committed to
them. They themselves never finish anything. In the end,
they tend to blame others for not realizing their visions—
society, nebulous antagonistic forces, or bad luck. Or they
try to find a sucker who will do all of the hard work in
bringing to life their vague idea but who will take the
blame if it all goes wrong.
Often such people had parents who were inconsistent,
would turn on them suddenly for the smallest misdeed.
Consequently their goal in life is to avoid situations in
which they might open themselves up to criticism and
judgment. They handle this by learning to talk well and
impressing people with stories but running away when
called to account, always with an excuse. Look carefully at
their past for signs of this, and if they seem the type, be
amused by their stories but take it no further.
The Sexualizer: They seem charged with sexual energy,
in a way that is refreshingly unrepressed. They have a
tendency to mix work with pleasure, to blur the usual
boundaries for when it is appropriate to use this energy,
and you might imagine that this is healthy and natural.
But in truth it is compulsive and comes from a dark place.
In their earliest years such people probably suffered
sexual abuse in some way. This could have been directly
physical or something more psychological, which the
parent expressed through looks and touching that was
subtle but inappropriate.
A pattern is deeply set from within and cannot be
controlled—they will tend to see every relationship as
potentially sexual. Sex becomes a means of self-validation,
and when they are young, such types can lead an exciting,
promiscuous life, as they will tend to find people to fall
under their spell. But as they get older, any long periods
without this validation can lead to depression and suicide,
so they become more desperate. If they occupy positions
of leadership, they will use their power to get what they
want, all under the guise of being natural and
unrepressed. The older they get, the more pathetic and
frightening this becomes. You cannot help or save them
from their compulsion, only save yourself from
entanglement with them on any level.
The Pampered Prince/Princess: They will draw you in with
their regal air. They are calm and ever so slightly imbued
with a feeling of superiority. It is pleasant to meet people
who appear confident and destined to wear a crown.
Slowly you might find yourself doing favors for them,
working extra hard for no pay, and not really
understanding how or why. Somehow they express the
need to be taken care of, and they are masters at getting
others to pamper them. In childhood, their parents
indulged them in their slightest whim and protected them
from any kind of harsh intrusion from the outside world.
There are also some children who incite this behavior in
their parents by acting especially helpless. Whatever the
cause, as adults their greatest desire is to replicate this
early pampering. It remains their lost paradise. You will
notice often that when they don’t get what they want, they
display baby-like behavior, pouting, or even tantrums.
 This is certainly the pattern for all of their intimate
relationships, and unless you have a deep need to pamper
others, you will find the relationship maddening, always
on their terms. They are not equipped to handle the harsh
aspects of adult life and either manipulate a person into
the pampering role or resort to drinking and drugs to
soothe themselves. If you feel guilty for not helping them,
it means you are hooked and should look to take care of
yourself instead.
The Pleaser: You have never met anyone so nice and
considerate. You almost can’t believe how accommodating
and charming they are. Then slowly you begin to have
some doubts, but nothing you can put your finger on.
Perhaps they don’t show up as promised or don’t do a job
so well. It is subtle. The further this goes, however, the
more it seems like they are sabotaging you or talking
behind your back. These types are consummate courtiers,
and they have developed their niceness not out of a
genuine affection for their fellow humans but as a defense
mechanism. Perhaps they had harsh and punishing
parents who scrutinized their every action. Smiling and a
deferential front was their way of deflecting any form of
hostility, and it becomes their pattern for life. They also
probably resorted to lying to their parents, and they are
generally practiced and expert liars.
Just as when they were children, behind the smiles and
flattery is a great deal of resentment at the role they have
to play. They secretly yearn to harm or steal from the
person they serve or defer to. You must be on your guard
with people who actively exert so much charm and
politeness, past the point of what is natural. They can turn
out to be quite passive-aggressive, particularly hitting you
when your guard is down.
The Savior:You cannot believe your good luck—you
have met someone who will save you from your difficulties
and troubles. Somehow they recognized your need for
help and here they are with books to read, strategies to
employ, the right foods to eat. In the beginning it is all
quite seductive, but your doubts begin the moment you
want to assert your independence and do things on your
own.
In childhood, these types often had to become the
caregivers of their own mother, father, or siblings. The
mother, for instance, made her own needs the primary
concern of the family. Such children compensate for the
lack of care that they receive with the feeling of power that
they derive from the inverted relationship. This sets a
pattern: they gain their greatest satisfaction from rescuing
people, from being the caregiver and savior. They have a
nose for those in possible need of salvation. But you can
detect the compulsive aspect of this behavior by their need
to control you. If they are willing to let you stand on your
own two feet after some initial help, then they are truly
noble. If not, it is really about the power they can exercise.
In any event, it is always best to cultivate self-reliance and
tell saviors to save themselves.
The Easy Moralizer: They communicate a sense of
outrage at this bit of injustice or that, and they are quite
eloquent. With such conviction they find followers,
including you. But sometimes you detect cracks in their
righteous veneer. They don’t treat their employees so well;
they are condescending to their spouse; they may have a
secret life or vice you catch glimpses of. As children, they
were often made to feel guilty for their own strong
impulses and desires for pleasure. They were punished
and tried to repress these impulses. Because of this they
develop some self-loathing and are quick to project
negative qualities onto others or look enviously at people
who are not so repressed. They don’t like other people
enjoying themselves. Instead of expressing their envy,
they choose to judge and condemn. You will notice in the
adult version a complete lack of nuance. People are good
or evil, no middle ground. They are in fact at war with
human nature, incapable of coming to terms with our less-
than-perfect traits. Their morality is as easy and
compulsive as drinking or gambling, and it requires no
sacrifices on their part, just a lot of noble words. They
thrive in a culture of political correctness.
In truth they are secretly drawn toward what they
condemn, which is why they will inevitably have a secret
side. You will certainly be the target of their inquisition at
some point if you get too close to them. Notice their lack
of empathy early on and keep your distance.
(For more toxic types, see the chapters on envy, 10;
grandiosity, 11; and aggression, 16.)

The Superior Character

This law is simple and inexorable: you have a set
character. It was formed out of elements that predate your
conscious awareness. From deep within you, this
character compels you to repeat certain actions, strategies,
and decisions. The brain is structured to facilitate this:
once you think and take a particular action, a neural
pathway is formed that leads you to do it again and again.
And in relation to this law, you can go in one of two
directions, each one determining more or less the course
of your life.
The first direction is ignorance and denial. You don’t
take notice of the patterns in your life; you don’t accept
the idea that your earliest years left a deep and lasting
imprint that compels you to behave in certain ways. You
imagine that your character is completely plastic, and that
you can re-create yourself at will. You can follow the same
path to power and fame as someone else, even though
they come from very different circumstances. The concept
of a set character can seem like a prison, and many people
secretly want to be taken outside themselves, through
drugs, alcohol, or video games. The result of such denial is
simple: the compulsive behavior and the patterns become
even more set into place. You cannot move against the
grain of your character or wish it away. It is too powerful.
 This was precisely the problem for Howard Hughes. He
imagined himself a great businessman, establishing an
empire that would outdo his father’s. But by his nature, he
was not a good manager of people. His real strength was
more technical—he had a great feel for the design and
engineering aspects of airplane production. If he had
known and accepted this, he could have carved out a
brilliant career as the visionary behind his own aircraft
company and left the day-to-day operations to someone
truly capable. But he lived with an image of himself that
did not correlate with his character. This led to a pattern
of failures and a miserable life.
The other direction is harder to take, but it is the only
path that leads to true power and the formation of a
superior character. It works in the following manner: You
examine yourself as thoroughly as possible. You look at
the deepest layers of your character, determining whether
you are an introvert or extrovert, whether you tend to be
governed by high levels of anxiety and sensitivity, or
hostility and anger, or a profound need to engage with
people. You look at your primal inclinations—those
subjects and activities you are naturally drawn to. You
examine the quality of attachments you formed with your
parents, looking at your current relationships as the best
sign of this. You look with rigorous honesty at your own
mistakes and the patterns that continually hold you back.
You know your limitations—those situations in which you
do not do your best. You also become aware of the natural
strengths in your character that have survived past
adolescence.
Now, with this awareness, you are no longer the captive
of your character, compelled to endlessly repeat the same
strategies and mistakes. As you see yourself falling into
one of your usual patterns, you can catch yourself in time
and step back. You may not be able to completely
eliminate such patterns, but with practice you can
mitigate their effects. Knowing your limitations, you will
not try your hand at things for which you have no capacity
or inclination. Instead, you will choose career paths that
suit you and mesh with your character. In general, you
accept and embrace your character. Your desire is not to
become someone else but to be more thoroughly yourself,
realizing your true potential. You see your character as the
clay that you will work with, slowly transforming your
very weaknesses into strengths. You do not run away from
your flaws but rather see them as a true source of power.
Look at the career of the actress Joan Crawford (1908–
1977). Her earliest years would seem to mark her as
someone extremely unlikely to make it in life. She never
knew her father, who abandoned the family shortly after
her birth. She grew up in poverty. Her mother actively
disliked Joan and constantly beat her. As a child she
learned that the stepfather she adored was not really her
father, and shortly thereafter he too abandoned the
family. Her childhood was an endless series of
punishments, betrayals, and abandonments, which
scarred her for life. As she began her career as a film
actress at a very young age, she examined herself and her
flaws with ruthless objectivity: she was hypersensitive and
fragile; she had a lot of pain and sadness she could not get
rid of or disguise; she wanted desperately to be loved; she
had a continual need for a father figure.
Such insecurities could easily be the death of someone
in a place as ruthless as Hollywood. Instead, through
much introspection and work, she managed to transform
these very weaknesses into the pillars of her highly
successful career. She decided, for instance, to bring her
own feelings of sadness and betrayal into all of the
different roles she played, making women around the
world identify with her; she was unlike so many of the
other actresses, who were so falsely cheerful and
superficial. She directed her desperate need to be loved
toward the camera itself, and audiences could feel it. The
film directors became father figures whom she adored and
treated with extreme respect. And her most pronounced
quality, her hypersensitivity, she turned outward instead
of inward. She developed intensely fine antennae tuned to
the likes and dislikes of the directors she worked with.
Without looking at them or hearing a word they said, she
could sense their displeasure with her acting, ask the right
questions, and quickly incorporate their criticisms. She
was a director’s dream. She coupled all of this with her
fierce willpower, forging a career that spanned over forty
years, something unheard of for an actress in Hollywood.
This is the alchemy that you must use on yourself. If
you are a hyperperfectionist who likes to control
everything, you must redirect this energy into some
productive work instead of using it on people. Your
attention to detail and high standards are a positive, if you
channel them correctly. If you are a pleaser, you have
developed courtier skills and real charm. If you can see
the source of this trait, you can control the compulsive
and defensive aspect of it and use it as a genuine social
skill that can bring you great power. If you are highly
sensitive and prone to take things personally, you can
work to redirect this into active empathy (see chapter 2),
and transform this flaw into an asset to use for positive
social purposes. If you have a rebellious character, you
have a natural dislike of conventions and the usual ways of
doing things. Channel this into some kind of innovative
work, instead of compulsively insulting and alienating
people. For each weakness there is a corresponding
strength.
Finally, you need to also refine or cultivate those traits
that go into a strong character—resilience under pressure,
attention to detail, the ability to complete things, to work
with a team, to be tolerant of people’s differences. The
only way to do so is to work on your habits, which go into
the slow formation of your character. For instance, you
train yourself to not react in the moment by repeatedly
placing yourself in stressful or adverse situations in order
to get used to them. In boring everyday tasks, you
cultivate greater patience and attention to detail. You
deliberately take on tasks slightly above your level. In
completing them, you have to work harder, helping you
establish more discipline and better work habits. You
train yourself to continually think of what is best for the
team. You also search out others who display a strong
character and associate with them as much as possible. In
this way you can assimilate their energy and their habits.
And to develop some flexibility in your character, always a
sign of strength, you occasionally shake yourself up, trying
out some new strategy or way of thinking, doing the
opposite of what you would normally do.
With such work you will no longer be a slave to the
character created by your earliest years and the
compulsive behavior it leads to. Even further, you can now
actively shape your very character and the fate that goes
with it.
In anything, it is a mistake to think one can perform an action
or behave in a certain way once and no more. (The mistake of
those who say: “Let us slave away and save every penny till we
are thirty, then we will enjoy ourselves.” At thirty they will
have a bent for avarice and hard work, and will never enjoy
themselves any more . . . .) What one does, one will do again,
indeed has probably already done in the distant past. The
agonizing thing in life is that it is our own decisions that throw
us into this rut, under the wheels that crush us. (The truth is
that, even before making those decisions, we were going in
that direction.) A decision, an action, are infallible omens of
what we shall do another time, not for any vague, mystic,
astrological reason but because they result from an automatic
reaction that will repeat itself.
—Cesare Pavese
 5

Become an Elusive
Object of Desire

The Law of Covetousness

A bsence and presence have very primal effects upon

us. Too much presence suffocates; a degree of
absence spurs our interest. We are marked by the
continual desire to possess what we do not have—the
object projected by our fantasies. Learn to create some
mystery around you, to use strategic absence to make
people desire your return, to want to possess you.
Dangle in front of others what they are missing most in
life, what they are forbidden to have, and they will go
crazy with desire. The grass is always greener on the
other side of the fence. Overcome this weakness in
yourself by embracing your circumstances, your fate.

The Object of Desire

In 1895 eleven-year-old Gabrielle Chanel sat by her
mother’s bedside for several days and watched her slowly
die from tuberculosis at the age of thirty-three.
Gabrielle’s life had been hard, but now it could only get
worse. She and her siblings had grown up in poverty,
shuttled from one relative’s house to another. Their
father was an itinerant peddler of goods who hated any
kind of ties or responsibility and was rarely at home.
Their mother, who often accompanied her husband on
the road, was the only comforting force in their lives.
As Gabrielle had feared, a few days after the mother’s
death her father showed up and deposited Gabrielle and
her two sisters at a convent in central France. He
promised to return for them quite soon, but they would
never see him again. The nuns at the convent, housed in
a former medieval monastery, took in all sorts of girls to
care for, mostly orphans. They enforced strict discipline.
Within the somber walls of the monastery, which was
sparsely decorated, the girls were to live a life of austerity
and spiritual practice. They each had only two dresses
they could wear, both alike and formless. Luxuries were
forbidden. The only music was church music. The food
was exceptionally plain. In her first few months there,
Gabrielle tried to accommodate herself to this new
world, but she felt impossibly restless.
One day, she discovered a series of romance novels
that somehow had been smuggled into the convent, and
soon they became her only salvation. They were written
by Pierre Decourcelle, and almost all of them involved a
Cinderella-like story—a young girl growing up in poverty,
shunned and despised, suddenly finds herself whisked
into a world of wealth through some clever plot twist.
Gabrielle could completely identify with the
protagonists, and she particularly loved the endless
descriptions of the dresses that the heroines would wear.
The world of palaces and châteaux seemed so very far
away from her, but in those moments in which she
drifted through novel after novel she could feel herself
participating in the plot, and it gave her an
overwhelming desire to make it come to life, even though
it was forbidden for her to want such things and
seemingly impossible to ever have them.
At the age of eighteen she left the convent for a
boarding school, also run by nuns. There she was trained
for a career as a seamstress. The school was in a small
town, and as she explored it she quickly discovered a new
passion to pursue, the theater. She loved everything
about it—the costumes, the sets, the performers in
makeup. It was a world of transformation, where
somebody could become anybody. Now all she wanted
was to be an actress and make her name in the theater.
She took the stage name Coco and she tried everything—
acting, singing, and dancing. She had a lot of energy and
charisma, but she realized quickly enough that she
lacked the talent for the kind of success she desired.
Coming to terms with this, she soon hit upon a new
dream. Many of the actresses who could not make a
living from their work had become courtesans who were
supported by wealthy lovers. Such women had enormous
wardrobes, could go where they pleased, and, although
they were shunned by good society, they were not
shackled with some despotic husband. As luck would
have it, one of the young men who enjoyed her on the
stage, Etienne Balsan, invited her to stay in his nearby
château. He had inherited a family fortune and lived a
life of total leisure. Gabrielle, now known as Coco to one
and all, accepted the offer.
The château was filled with courtesans who floated in
and out from all over Europe. Some of them were
famous. They were all beautiful and worldly. It was a
relatively simple life that centered on riding horses in the
country, then lavish parties in the evening. The class
differences were noticeable. Whenever aristocrats or
important people came to the château, women like Coco
were to eat with the servants and make themselves
scarce.
With nothing to do and feeling restless yet again, she
began to analyze herself and the future ahead of her. Her
ambitions were great, but she was always searching for
something beyond her grasp, continually dreaming about
a future that was just not possible. At first it was the
palaces in the romance novels, then it was a grand life on
the stage, becoming another Sarah Bernhardt. Now her
latest dream was just as absurd. The great courtesans
were all voluptuous, beautiful women. Coco looked more
like a boy. She had no curves and was not a classic
beauty. It was more her presence and energy that
charmed men, but that would not last. She always
wanted what other people had, imagining it contained
some hidden treasure. Even when it came to other
women and their boyfriends or husbands, her greatest
desire was to steal the man away, which she had done on
several occasions. But whenever she got what she
wanted, including the boyfriend or the life in a château,
she inevitably felt disappointed by the reality. It was a
mystery what in the end could satisfy her.
Then one day, without thinking of what exactly she
was up to, she wandered into Balsan’s bedroom and
pilfered some of his clothes. She started to wear outfits
that were totally her own invention—his open-collared
shirts and tweed coats, paired with some of her own
clothes, all topped with a man’s straw boater hat. In
wearing the clothes she noticed two things: She felt an
incredible sense of freedom as she left behind the
corsets, constricting gowns, and fussy headpieces women
were wearing. And she reveled in the new kind of
attention she received. The other courtesans now
watched her with unconcealed envy. They were
captivated by this androgynous style. These new outfits
suited her figure well, and nobody had ever seen a
woman dressed quite in this manner. Balsan himself was
charmed. He introduced her to his tailor, and on her
instructions the tailor custom-made for her a boy’s riding
costume with jodhpurs. She taught herself to ride horses,
but not sidesaddle like the other women. She had always
had an athletic bent to her character and within months
had become an expert rider. Now she could be seen
everywhere in her strange riding costume.
 As she progressed with this new persona, it finally
became clear to her the nature of her vague longings:
what she wanted was the power and freedom that men
possessed, which was reflected in the less constricting
clothes that they wore. And she could sense that the
other courtesans and women at the château could
identify with this. It was something in the air, a
repressed desire she had tapped into. Within a few weeks
several of the courtesans began to visit her in her room
and try on the straw hats that she had decorated with
ribbons and feathers. Compared with the elaborate hats
that women had to pin on their heads, these were simple
and easy to wear. The courtesans now strode around
town with Chanel’s hats on their heads, and soon other
women in the area were asking where they could buy
them. Balsan offered her the use of his apartment in
Paris, where she could begin to make many more of her
hats and perhaps go into business. She happily took up
the offer.
Soon another man entered her life—a wealthy
Englishman named Arthur Capel, who was excited by the
novelty of her look and her great ambitions. They
became lovers. Capel started sending his aristocratic lady
friends to Coco’s studio, and soon her hats became a
craze. Along with the hats she began to sell some clothes
that she designed, all with the same androgynous look
that she had worn herself, made out of the cheapest
jersey fabric but seeming to offer a kind of freedom of
movement so different from the prevailing styles. Capel
encouraged her to open up a shop in the seaside town of
Deauville, where all the fashionable Parisians spent their
summers. It turned out to be the perfect idea: there in
the relatively small town, filled with people-watchers and
the most fashionable women of all, she could create a
sensation.
She shocked the locals by swimming in the ocean.
Women did not do such things, and swimming costumes
for women were almost nonexistent, so she created her
own out of the same jersey fabric. Within weeks women
were at her store clamoring to buy them. She sauntered
through Deauville wearing her own distinctive outfits—
androgynous, easy to move in, and ever so slightly
provocative as they hugged the body. She became the
talk of the town. Women were desperate to find out
where she got her wardrobe. She kept improvising with
men’s clothing to create new looks. She took one of
Capel’s sweaters and cut it open, added some buttons,
and created a modern version of the cardigan, for
women. This now became the rage. She cut her own hair
to a short length, knowing how it suited her face, and
suddenly this became the new trend. Sensing
momentum, she gave her clothes without charge to
beautiful and well-connected women, all sporting
hairstyles similar to her own. Attending the most sought-
after parties, these women, all looking like Chanel clones,
spread the desire for this new style well beyond
Deauville, to Paris itself.
By 1920 she had become one of the leading fashion
designers in the world, and the greatest trendsetter of
her time. Her clothes had come to represent a new kind
of woman—confident, provocative, and ever so slightly
rebellious. Although they were cheap to make and still
out of jersey material, she sold some of her dresses at
extremely high prices, and wealthy women were more
than willing to pay to share in the Chanel mystique. But
quickly her old restlessness returned. She wanted
something else, something larger, a faster way to reach
women of all classes. To realize this dream she decided
upon a most unusual strategy—she would create and
launch her own perfume.
At the time it was unusual for a fashion house to
market its own perfume, and unheard of to give it so
much emphasis. But Chanel had a plan. This perfume
would be as distinctive as her clothes yet more ethereal,
literally something in the air that would excite men and
women and infect them with the desire to possess it. To
accomplish this she would go in the opposite direction
from all the other perfumes out there, which were
associated with some natural, floral scent. Instead, she
wanted to create something that was not identifiable as a
particular flower. She wanted it to smell like “a bouquet
of abstract flowers,” something pleasant but completely
novel. More than any other perfume, it would smell
different on each woman. To take this further, she
decided to give it a most unusual name. Perfumes of the
time had very poetic, romantic titles. Instead, she would
name it after herself, attaching a simple number, Chanel
No. 5, as if it were a scientific concoction. She packaged
the perfume in a sleek modernist bottle and added to the
label her new logo of interlocking C’s. It looked like
nothing else out there.
To launch the perfume, she decided upon a subliminal
campaign. She began by spraying the scent everywhere
in her store in Paris. It filled the air. Women kept asking
what it was and she would feign ignorance. She would
then slip bottles of the perfume, without labels, into the
bags of her wealthiest and best-connected clients. Soon
women began to talk of this strange new scent, rather
haunting and impossible to identify as any known flower.
The word of yet another Chanel creation began to spread
like wildfire and women were soon showing up at her
store begging to buy the new scent, which she now began
to place discreetly on shelves. In the first few weeks they
could not stock enough. Nothing like this had ever
happened in the industry, and it would go on to become
the most successful perfume in history, making her a
fortune.
Over the next two decades the house of Chanel
reigned supreme in the fashion world, but during World
War II she flirted with Nazism, staying in Paris during
the Nazi occupation and visibly siding with the
occupiers. She had closed her store at the beginning of
the war, and by the end of the war she had been
thoroughly disgraced in the eyes of the French by her
political sympathies. Aware and perhaps ashamed, she
fled to Switzerland, where she would remain in self-
imposed exile. By 1953, however, she felt the need not
only for a comeback but for something even greater.
Although she was now seventy, she had become
disgusted at the latest trends in fashion, which she felt
had returned to the old constrictions and fussiness of
women’s clothing that she had sought to destroy.
Perhaps this also signaled a return to a more subservient
role for women. To Chanel it would be the ultimate
challenge—after some fourteen years out of business, she
was now largely forgotten. No one thought of her
anymore as a trendsetter. She would have to start almost
completely over.
Her first move was to encourage rumors that she was
planning a return, but she gave no interviews. She
wanted to stimulate talk and excitement but surround
herself with mystery. Her new show debuted in 1954,
and an enormous crowd filled her store to watch it,
mostly out of curiosity. Almost immediately there was a
sense of disappointment. The clothes were mostly a
rehash of her 1930s styles with a few new touches. The
models were all Chanel look-alikes and mimicked her
way of walking. To the audience, Chanel seemed a
woman hopelessly locked in a past that would never
return. The clothes seemed passé and the press pilloried
her, dredging up at the same time her Nazi associations
during the war.
For almost any designer this would have been a
devastating blow, but she appeared remarkably unfazed
by it all. As always, she had a plan and she knew better.
She had decided well before the debut in Paris that the
United States was to be the target of this new line of
clothes. American women reflected her sensibility best of
all—athletic, into ease of movement and unfussy
silhouettes, eminently practical. And they had more
money to spend than anyone else in the world. Sure
enough, the new line created a sensation in the States.
Soon the French began to tone down their criticisms.
Within a year of her return she had reestablished herself
as the most important designer in the world, and
fashions now returned to the simpler and more classical
shapes she had always promoted. When Jacqueline
Kennedy began to wear her suits in many of her public
appearances, it was the most apparent symbol of the
power Chanel had reclaimed.
As she resumed her place at the top, she revealed
another practice that was so against the times and the
industry. Piracy was a great problem in fashion, as
knockoffs of established designs would appear all over
the world after a show. Designers carefully guarded all of
their secrets and fought through the courts any form of
imitation. Chanel did the opposite. She welcomed all
sorts of people into her shows and allowed them to take
photographs. She knew this would only encourage the
many people who made a living out of creating cheap
versions of her clothes, but she wanted this. She even
invited wealthy women to bring along their seamstresses,
who would make sketches of the designs and then create
replicas of them. More than making money, what she
wanted most of all was to spread her fashions
everywhere, to feel herself and her work to be objects of
desire by women of all classes and nations. It would be
the ultimate revenge for the girl who had grown up
ignored, unloved, and shunned. She would clothe
millions of women; her look, her imprint would be seen
everywhere—as indeed it was a few years after her
comeback.

• • •
Interpretation: The moment Chanel tried on Etienne
Balsan’s clothes and elicited a new kind of attention,
something clicked in her brain that would forever change
the course of her life. Prior to this she was always
coveting something transgressive that stimulated her
fantasies. It was not socially acceptable for a lowly
orphan girl to aspire to mingle with the upper classes.
Actress and courtesan were not suitable roles to pursue,
especially for someone raised in a convent.
Now, as she rode around the château in her jodhpurs
and boater hat, she was suddenly the object that other
people coveted. And they were drawn to the
transgressive aspect of her clothing, the deliberate
flouting of gender roles. Instead of being locked in her
imaginary world full of dreams and fantasies, she could
be the one stimulating such fantasies in other people. All
that was required was to reverse her perspective—to
think of the audience first and to strategize how to play
on their imagination. The objects she had desired since
childhood were all somewhat vague, elusive, and taboo.
That was their allure. That is the nature of human desire.
She simply had to turn this around and incorporate such
elements into the objects she created.
This is how she performed such magic: First, she
surrounded herself and what she made with an aura of
mystery. She never talked about her impoverished
childhood. She made up countless contradictory stories
about her past. Nobody really knew anything concrete
about her. She carefully controlled the number of her
public appearances, and she knew the value of
disappearing for a while. She never revealed the recipe
for her perfume or her creative process in general. Her
oddly compelling logo was designed to stimulate
interpretations. All of this gave endless space for the
public to imagine and speculate about the Coco myth.
Second, she always associated her designs with
something vaguely transgressive. The clothes had a
distinct masculine edge but remained decidedly
feminine. They gave women the sense that they were
crossing some gender boundaries—physically and
psychologically loosening constrictions. The clothes also
conformed more to the body, combining freedom of
movement with sex. These were not your mother’s
clothes. To wear the overall Chanel look was to make a
statement about youth and modernity. Once this took
hold, it was hard for young women to resist the call.
Finally, from the beginning she made sure her clothes
were seen everywhere. Observing other women wearing
such clothes stimulated competitive desires to have the
same and not be left out. Coco remembered how deeply
she had desired men who were already taken. They were
desirable because someone else desired them. Such
competitive impulses are powerful in all of us, and
certainly among women.
In truth, the boater hats she originally designed were
nothing more than common objects anyone could buy in
a department store. The clothes she first designed were
made out of the cheapest materials. The perfume was a
mix of ordinary flowers, such as jasmine, and chemicals,
nothing exotic or special. It was pure psychological
magic that transformed them into objects that
stimulated such intense desires to possess them.
Understand: Just like Chanel, you need to reverse
your perspective. Instead of focusing on what you want
and covet in the world, you must train yourself to focus
on others, on their repressed desires and unmet
fantasies. You must train yourself to see how they
perceive you and the objects you make, as if you were
looking at yourself and your work from the outside. This
will give you the almost limitless power to shape people’s
perceptions about these objects and excite them. People
do not want truth and honesty, no matter how much we
hear such nonsense endlessly repeated. They want their
imaginations to be stimulated and to be taken beyond
their banal circumstances. They want fantasy and objects
of desire to covet and grope after. Create an air of
mystery around you and your work. Associate it with
something new, unfamiliar, exotic, progressive, and
taboo. Do not define your message but leave it vague.
Create an illusion of ubiquity—your object is seen
everywhere and desired by others. Then let the
covetousness so latent in all humans do the rest, setting
off a chain reaction of desire.
At last I have what I wanted. Am I happy? Not really. But
what’s missing? My soul no longer has that piquant activity
conferred by desire. . . . Oh, we shouldn’t delude ourselves—
pleasure isn’t in the fulfillment, but in the pursuit.
—Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais

Keys to Human Nature

By nature, we humans are not easily contented with our
circumstances. By some perverse force within us, the
moment we possess something or get what we want, our
minds begin to drift toward something new and
different, to imagine we can have better. The more
distant and unattainable this new object, the greater is
our desire to have it. We can call this the grass-is-
always-greener syndrome, the psychological equivalent
of an optical illusion—if we get too close to the grass, to
that new object, we see that is not really so green after
all.
This syndrome has very deep roots in our nature. The
earliest recorded example can be found in the Old
Testament, in the story of the exodus from Egypt.
Chosen by God to bring the Hebrews to the Promised
Land, Moses led them into the wilderness, where they
would wander for forty years. In Egypt the Hebrews had
served as slaves and their lives had been difficult. Once
they suffered hardships in the desert, however, they
suddenly grew nostalgic for their previous life. Facing
starvation, God provided them with manna from heaven,
but they could only compare it unfavorably to the
delicious melons and cucumbers and meats they had
known in Egypt. Not sufficiently excited by God’s other
miracles (the parting of the Red Sea, for example), they
decided to forge and worship a golden calf, but once
Moses punished them for this, they quickly dropped
their interest in this new idol.
All along the way they griped and complained, giving
Moses endless headaches. The men lusted after foreign
women; the people kept looking for some new cult to
follow. God himself was so irritated by their endless
discontent that he barred this entire generation,
including Moses, from ever entering the Promised Land.
But even after the next generation established itself in
the land of milk and honey, the grumbling continued
unabated. Whatever they had, they dreamed of
something better over the horizon.
Closer to home, we can see this syndrome at work in
our daily lives. We continually look at other people who
seem to have it better than us—their parents were more
loving, their careers more exciting, their lives easier. We
may be in a perfectly satisfying relationship, but our
minds continually wander toward a new person,
someone who doesn’t have the very real flaws of our
partner, or so we think. We dream of being taken out of
our boring life by traveling to some culture that is exotic
and where people are just happier than in the grimy city
where we live. The moment we have a job, we imagine
something better. On a political level, our government is
corrupt and we need some real change, perhaps a
revolution. In this revolution, we imagine a veritable
utopia that replaces the imperfect world we live in. We
don’t think of the vast majority of revolutions in history
in which the results were more of the same, or something
worse.
In all these cases, if we got closer to the people we
envy, to that supposed happy family, to the other man or
woman we covet, to the exotic natives in a culture we
wish to know, to that better job, to that utopia, we would
see through the illusion. And often when we act on these
desires, we realize this in our disappointment, but it
doesn’t change our behavior. The next object glittering in
the distance, the next exotic cult or get-rich-quick
scheme will inevitably seduce us.
One of the most striking examples of this syndrome is
the view we take of our childhood as it recedes into the
past. Most of us remember a golden time of play and
excitement. As we get older, it becomes even more
golden in our memory. Of course, we conveniently forget
the anxieties, insecurities, and hurts that plagued us in
childhood and more than likely consumed more of our
mental space than the fleeting pleasures we remember.
But because our youth is an object that grows more
distant as we age, we are able to idealize it and see it as
greener than green.
Such a syndrome can be explained by three qualities
of the human brain. The first is known as induction, how
something positive generates a contrasting negative
image in our mind. This is most obvious in our visual
system. When we see some color—red or black, for
instance—it tends to intensify our perception of the
opposite color around us, in this case green or white. As
we look at the red object, we often can see a green halo
forming around it. In general, the mind operates by
contrasts. We are able to formulate concepts about
something by becoming aware of its opposite. The brain
is continually dredging up these contrasts.
What this means is that whenever we see or imagine
something, our minds cannot help but see or imagine the
opposite. If we are forbidden by our culture to think a
particular thought or entertain a particular desire, that
taboo instantly brings to mind the very thing we are
forbidden. Every no sparks a corresponding yes. (It was
the outlawing of pornography in Victorian times that
created the first pornographic industry.) We cannot
control this vacillation in the mind between contrasts.
This predisposes us to think about and then desire
exactly what we do not have.
Second, complacency would be a dangerous
evolutionary trait for a conscious animal such as
humans. If our early ancestors had been prone to feeling
content with present circumstances, they would not have
been sensitive enough to possible dangers that lurked in
the most apparently safe environments. We survived and
thrived through our continual conscious alertness, which
predisposed us to thinking and imagining the possible
negative in any circumstance. We no longer live in
savannas or forests teeming with life-threatening
predators and natural dangers, but our brains are wired
as if we were. We are inclined therefore toward a
continual negative bias, which often consciously is
expressed through complaining and griping.
Finally, what is real and what is imagined are both
experienced similarly in the brain. This has been
demonstrated through various experiments in which
subjects who imagine something produce electrical and
chemical activity in their brains that is remarkably
similar to when they actually live out what they are
imagining, all of this shown through functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI). Reality can be quite harsh
and is full of limits and problems. We all must die. Every
day we get older and less strong. To become successful
requires sacrifice and hard work. But in our imagination
we can voyage beyond these limits and entertain all
kinds of possibilities. Our imagination is essentially
limitless. And what we imagine has almost the force of
what we actually experience. And so we become
creatures who are continually prone to imagining
something better than present circumstances and feeling
some pleasure in the release from reality that our
imagination brings us.
All of this makes the grass-is-always-greener
syndrome inevitable in our psychological makeup. We
should not moralize or complain about this possible flaw
in human nature. It is a part of the mental life of each
one of us, and it has many benefits. It is the source of our
ability to think of new possibilities and innovate. It is
what has made our imagination such a powerful
instrument. And on the flip side it is the material out of
which we can move, excite, and seduce people.
Knowing how to work on people’s natural
covetousness is a timeless art that we depend on for all
forms of persuasion. The problem we face today is not
that people have suddenly stopped coveting but quite the
opposite: that we are losing our connection to this art
and the power that goes with it.
We see evidence of this in our culture. We live in an
age of bombardment and saturation. Advertisers blanket
us with their messages and brand presence, directing us
here or there to click and buy. Movies bludgeon us over
the head, attacking our senses. Politicians are masters at
stirring up and exploiting our discontent with present
circumstances, but they have no sense of how to spark
our imagination about the future. In all of these cases
subtlety is sacrificed, and all of this has an overall
hardening effect on our imaginations, which secretly
crave something else.
We see evidence of this in personal relationships as
well. More and more people have come to believe that
others should simply desire them for who they are. This
means revealing as much as they can about themselves,
exposing all of their likes and dislikes, and making
themselves as familiar as possible. They leave no room
for imagination or fantasy, and when the man or woman
they want loses interest in them, they go online to rant at
the superficiality of men or the fecklessness of women.
Increasingly self-absorbed (see chapter 2), we find it
harder than ever to get into the psychology of the other
person, to imagine what they want from us instead of
what we want from them.
 Understand: People may point to all of this as
evidence that we humans are becoming more honest and
truthful, but human nature does not change within a few
generations. People have become more obvious and
forthright not out of some deep moral calling but out of
increasing self-absorption and overall laziness. It
requires no effort to simply be oneself or to blast one’s
message. And the lack of effort simply results in a lack of
effect on other people’s psychology. It means that
people’s interest in you will be paper thin. Their
attention will quickly move on and you will not see the
reason for this. Do not swallow the easy moralism of the
day, which urges honesty at the expense of desirability.
Go in the opposite direction. With so few people out
there who understand the art of desirability, it affords
you endless opportunities to shine and exploit people’s
repressed fantasies.

Strategies for Stimulating Desire

The key to making this law work for you is to objectify
yourself and what you produce. Normally you are locked
in your own thoughts and dreams. You imagine people
should love and respect you for who you are. You believe
that what you produce should naturally excite people.
After all, you have invested a lot of effort and have high
hopes for success. But others see none of this. To them,
you are just a person among others, and as a person you
inspire either curiosity and excitement or indifference,
and, even hostility. They project onto you their own
fantasies and preconceptions. Once made public, your
work is also an object completely divorced from your
own hopes and dreams, and it inspires emotions that are
weak or strong. To the degree that you can see yourself
and what you produce as objects that people perceive in
their own manner, you have the power to alter their
perceptions and create objects of desire.
 The following are the three main strategies for
creating such objects.
Know how and when to withdraw. This is the essence of
the art. You have a presence that people see and
interpret. If you are too obvious with this, if people can
read you too easily and figure you out, if you show your
needs too visibly, then they will unconsciously begin to
have a degree of disrespect; over time they will lose
interest. Your presence must have a touch of coldness to
it, as if you feel like you could do without others. This
signals to people that you consider yourself worthy of
respect, which unconsciously heightens your value in
their eyes. It makes people want to chase after you. This
touch of coldness is the first form of withdrawal that you
must practice. Add to this a bit of blankness and
ambiguity as to who you are. Your opinions, values, and
tastes are never too obvious to people. This gives them
room to read into you what they want. Movie stars are
masters of this. They turn their faces and their presence
into screens upon which people can project their own
fantasies. What you want in general is to create an air of
mystery and to attract interpretations.
Once you sense that you have engaged people’s
imagination, that you have your hooks in them, then you
must use physical absence and withdrawal. You are not
so available. A day or week can go by without your
presence. You create a feeling of emptiness inside them,
a touch of pain. You occupy increasing amounts of their
mental space in these absences. They come to want more
of you, not less.
The musician Michael Jackson played this game to
perfection on the social level. He was deeply aware of the
dangers of saturating the market with his music and
public appearances. He spread out the releases of his
albums, making the public hungry for more. He carefully
managed the frequency of his interviews and
performances and never talked about the meaning of his
lyrics or propagated any overt message. He occasionally
had his publicists leak to the press some new story
surrounding him, such as his use of hyperbaric chambers
as a way to maintain eternal youthfulness. He would
neither confirm nor deny these stories and the press
would run wild. He was someone who sparked stories
and rumors, but nothing concrete. Through this strategic
elusiveness he made himself an object of continual desire
—both to know him better and to possess his music.
With the work you produce you can create similar
covetous effects. Always leave the presentation and the
message relatively open-ended. People can read into
your work several interpretations. Never define exactly
how they should take or use it. This is why the work of
great dramatists such as Shakespeare and Chekhov has
lasted for so many centuries and always seem so fresh
and exciting; each generation can read into their plays
what they want to. These writers described timeless
elements of human nature, but without judging or
directing the audience to what they should feel or think.
Take that as the model for whatever you produce.
Keep in mind the following: the more active our
imagination becomes, the greater the pleasure we derive
from it. When we were children, if we were given a game
with explicit instructions and rules, we quickly lost
interest. But if the game was something we invented or
was loosely structured, allowing us to inject our own
ideas and fantasies, we could sustain our interest for
much longer. When we view an abstract painting that
evokes dreams or fantasies, or see a film that is not easily
interpreted, or hear a joke or advertisement that is
ambiguous, we are the ones who do the interpreting, and
we find it exciting to be able to exercise our imagination
in this way. Through your work you want to stimulate
this pleasure for people to the maximum degree.
Human desire is never an
Create rivalries of desire.
individual phenomenon. We are social creatures and
what we want almost always reflects what other people
want. This stems from our earliest years. We saw the
attention that our parents could give us (the object we
first coveted) as a zero-sum game. If our siblings
received a lot of attention, then there would be less for
us. We had to compete with them and with others to get
attention and affection. When we saw our siblings or
friends receive something—a gift or a favor—it sparked a
competitive desire to have the same thing. If some object
or person was not desired by others, we tended to see it
as something indifferent or distasteful—there must be
something wrong with it.
This becomes a lifelong pattern. For some it is more
overt. In relationships they are interested only in men or
women who are already taken, who are clearly desired by
a third party. Their desire is to take away this loved
object, to triumph over the other person, a dynamic that
most certainly has roots in their childhood. If other
people are making money through some new gimmick,
they want not only to participate but to corner the
market. For others it is subtler. They see people
possessing something that seems exciting, and their
desire is not to take but to share and participate in the
experience. In either direction, when we see people or
things desired by others, it drives up their value.
You must learn how to exploit this. If you can
somehow create the impression that others desire you or
your work, you will pull people into your current without
having to say a word or impose yourself. They will come
to you. You must strive to surround yourself with this
social aura, or at least create the illusion.
You can create this effect in several ways. You manage
it so that your object is seen or heard everywhere, even
encouraging piracy if necessary, as Chanel did. You don’t
directly intervene. This will inevitably spark some kind of
viral pull. You can speed up this process by feeding
rumors or stories about the object through various
media. People will begin to talk and the word of mouth
will spread the effect. Even negative comments or
controversy will do the trick, sometimes even better than
praise. It will give your object a provocative and
transgressive edge. Anyway, people are drawn toward
the negative. Your silence or lack of overt direction of the
message will allow people to run wild with their own
stories and interpretations. You can also get important
people or tastemakers to talk about it and fan the flames.
What you are offering, they say, is new, revolutionary,
something not seen or heard of before. You are
trafficking in the future, in trends. At a certain point,
enough people will feel the pull and will not want to be
left out, which will pull in others. The only problem in
this game is that in the world today you have much
competition for these viral effects and the public is
incredibly fickle. You must be a master not only at
setting off these chain reactions but at renewing them or
creating new ones.
As an individual you must make it clear that people
desire you, that you have a past—not too much of a past
to inspire mistrust but enough to signal that others have
found you desirable. You want to be indirect in this. You
want them to hear stories of your past. You want them to
literally see the attention you receive from men or
women, all of this without your saying a word. Any
bragging or explicit signaling of this will neutralize the
effect.
In any negotiating situation you must always strive to
bring in a third or fourth party to vie for your services,
creating a rivalry of desire. This will immediately
enhance your value, not just in terms of a bidding war
but also in the fact that people will see that others covet
you.
Use induction. Wemay think we live in a time of great
freedom compared with the past, but in fact we live in a
world that is more regulated than ever before. Our every
move is followed digitally. There are more laws than ever
governing all aspects of human behavior. Political
correctness, which has always existed, can be more
intense because of how visible we have become on social
media. Secretly most of us feel bothered or crushed by all
of these constraints on our physical and mental
movement. We yearn for what is transgressive and
beyond the limits that are set for us. We can easily be
pulled toward that repressed no or yes.
You want to associate your object with something ever
so slightly illicit, unconventional, or politically advanced.
Chanel did this with her overt androgynous appeal and
flouting of gender roles. The fight between generations is
always ripe material for this. What you offer is in bold
contrast to the stodgy previous generation. John F.
Kennedy did this by setting himself off against the 1950s
and the Eisenhower era—a time of stultifying conformity.
By contrast, voting for him meant youth, vigor, and a lost
masculinity. In essence he played to the secret
resentment of the father figure and the transgressive
desire to get rid of him. This desire is always tacitly out
there among the young, and it always has a taboo
element attached.
One illicit desire that almost all people share is
voyeurism. To peek inside the private lives of others
violates strict social taboos on privacy, and yet everyone
feels the pull to see what is going on behind people’s
doors. Theater and film depend upon these voyeuristic
desires. They put us inside people’s rooms, and we
experience this almost as if we were literally spying on
people. You can incorporate this into your work by giving
the impression you are revealing secrets that should
really not be shared. Some will be outraged but everyone
will be curious. These could be secrets about yourself and
how you accomplished what you did, or it could be about
others, what happens behind the closed doors of
powerful people and the laws that they operate by.
 In any event, what you offer should be new,
unfamiliar, and exotic, or at least presented as such. The
contrast to what is out there, so numbingly conventional,
will create a covetous pull.
Finally, dangle in front of people the prospect of
grasping the unattainable or the impossible. Life is full of
all kinds of irritating limits and difficulties. To become
wealthy or successful requires great effort. We are locked
inside our own character (see chapter 4) and cannot
become someone else. We cannot recover our lost youth
or the health that went with it. Every day brings us closer
to death, the ultimate limit. Your object, however, offers
the fantasy of a quick path to wealth and success, of
recovering lost youth, of becoming a new person, and
even of conquering death itself. People will grasp
greedily at such things because they are considered so
impossible. By the law of induction we can imagine all of
these shortcuts and fantasies (just as we can imagine a
unicorn), which gives us the desire to reach them, and
imagining them is almost like experiencing them.
Remember: it is not possession but desire that
secretly impels people. To possess something inevitably
brings about some disappointment and sparks the desire
for something new to pursue. You are preying upon the
human need for fantasies and the pleasures of chasing
after them. In this sense your efforts must be continually
renewed. Once people get what they want or possess you,
your value and their respect for you immediately begin to
lower. Keep withdrawing, surprising, and stimulating the
chase. As long as you do, you have the power.

The Supreme Desire

Our path must always be toward greater awareness of
our nature. We must see within ourselves the grass-is-
always-greener syndrome at work and how it continually
impels us to certain actions. We need to be able to
distinguish between what is positive and productive in
our covetous tendencies and what is negative and
counterproductive. On the positive side, feeling restless
and discontented can motivate us to search for
something better and to not settle for what we have. It
enlarges our imagination as we consider other
possibilities instead of the circumstances we face. As we
get older, we tend to become more complacent, and
renewing the restlessness of our earlier years can keep us
youthful and our minds active.
This restlessness, however, must be under conscious
control. Often our discontent is merely chronic; our
desire for change is vague and a reflection of our
boredom. This leads to a waste of precious time. We are
unhappy with the way our career is going and so we
make a big change, which requires learning new skills
and acquiring new contacts. We enjoy the newness of it
all. But several years later we again feel the stirring of
discontent. This new path isn’t right either. We would
have been better off thinking about this more deeply,
homing in on those aspects of our previous career that
did not click and trying for a more gentle change,
choosing a line of work related to the previous one but
requiring an adaptation of our skills.
With relationships, we can spend our life searching
for the perfect man or woman and end up largely alone.
There is nobody perfect. Instead, it is better to come to
terms with the flaws of the other person and accept them
or even find some charm in their weaknesses. Calming
down our covetous desires, we can then learn the arts of
compromise and how to make a relationship work, which
never come easily or naturally.
Instead of constantly chasing after the latest trends
and modeling our desires on what others find exciting,
we should spend our time getting to know our own tastes
and desires better, so that we can distinguish what is
something we truly need or want from that which has
been manufactured by advertisers or viral effects.
Life is short and we have only so much energy. Led by
our covetous desires, we can waste so much time in futile
searches and changes. In general, do not constantly wait
and hope for something better, but rather make the most
of what you have.
Consider it this way: You are embedded in an
environment that consists of the people you know and
the places you frequent. This is your reality. Your mind is
being continually drawn far away from this reality,
because of human nature. You dream of traveling to
exotic places, but if you go there, you merely drag with
you your own discontented frame of mind. You search
for entertainment that will bring you new fantasies to
feed upon. You read books filled with ideas that have no
relation to your daily life, that are full of empty
speculations about things that only half exist. And none
of this turmoil and ceaseless desire for what is most
distant ever leads to anything fulfilling—it only stirs up
more chimeras to pursue. In the end you cannot escape
from yourself.
On the other hand, reality beckons you. To absorb
your mind in what is nearest, instead of most distant,
brings a much different feeling. With the people in your
circle, you can always connect on a deeper level. There is
much you will never know about the people you deal
with, and this can be a source of endless fascination. You
can connect more deeply to your environment. The place
where you live has a deep history that you can immerse
yourself in. Knowing your environment better will
present many opportunities for power. As for yourself,
you have mysterious corners you can never fully
understand. In trying to know yourself better, you can
take charge of your own nature instead of being a slave to
it. And your work has endless possibilities for
improvement and innovation, endless challenges for the
imagination. These are the things that are closest to you
and compose your real, not virtual world.
In the end what you really must covet is a deeper
relationship to reality, which will bring you calmness,
focus, and practical powers to alter what it is possible to
alter.
It is advisable to let everyone of your acquaintance—whether
man or woman—feel now and then that you could very well
dispense with their company. This will consolidate
friendship. Nay, with most people there will be no harm in
occasionally mixing a grain of disdain with your treatment of
them; that will make them value your friendship all the
more. . . . But if we really think very highly of a person, we
should conceal it from him like a crime. This is not a very
gratifying thing to do, but it is right. Why, a dog will not bear
being treated too kindly, let alone a man!
—Arthur Schopenhauer
 6

Elevate Your Perspective

The Law of Shortsightedness

I t is in the animal part of your nature to be most

impressed by what you can see and hear in the
present—the latest news reports and trends, the
opinions and actions of the people around you,
whatever seems the most dramatic. This is what makes
you fall for alluring schemes that promise quick results
and easy money. This is also what makes you overreact
to present circumstances—becoming overly exhilarated
or panicky as events turn one direction or the other.
Learn to measure people by the narrowness or breadth
of their vision; avoid entangling yourself with those
who cannot see the consequences of their actions, who
are in a continual reactive mode. They will infect you
with this energy. Your eyes must be on the larger trends
that govern events, on that which is not immediately
visible. Never lose sight of your long-term goals. With
an elevated perspective, you will have the patience and
clarity to reach almost any objective.

Moments of Madness
All through the summer and early fall of 1719 the
Englishman John Blunt (1665–1733), one of the lead
directors of the South Sea Company, followed the latest
news from Paris with increasing anxiety. The French
were in the midst of a spectacular economic boom, fueled
primarily by the success of the Mississippi Company, an
enterprise started by the expatriate Scotsman John Law
to exploit the riches in the Louisiana territories
controlled by the French. Law sold shares in the
company, and as its price kept rising, Frenchmen of all
classes were cashing out and becoming fabulously
wealthy. The word millionaire itself was coined in these
months to refer to such nouveaux riches.
Such news made Blunt angry and envious. He was a
loyal Englishman. With the success of the Mississippi
Company, Paris was drawing in investment capital from
all over Europe. If this continued, France would soon
become the finance capital of the world, surpassing
Amsterdam and London. Such newfound power for the
French could only spell disaster for England, its
archenemy, particularly if another war broke out
between them.
More personally, Blunt was a man of great ambition.
He was the son of a humble shoemaker; from early on in
his life he aimed to ascend to the highest levels of
English society. His means of getting there, he believed,
would be through the financial revolution sweeping
Europe, which centered on the increasing popularity of
joint-stock corporations like Law’s and like the South Sea
Company. As opposed to building wealth through the
traditional means of owning land, which was expensive
to manage and highly taxable, it was relatively easy to
earn money through purchasing stock, and profits were
tax free. Such investments were all the rage in London.
Blunt had plans to turn the South Sea Company into the
biggest and most prosperous joint-stock company in
Europe, but John Law had stolen his thunder with a bold
venture, and with the full backing of the French
government. Blunt would simply have to come up with
something bigger and better, for his sake and for the
future of England.
 The South Sea Company had been formed in 1710 as
an enterprise that would handle and manage part of the
English government’s enormous debts, in exchange for
which the company was to be granted a monopoly on all
English trade with South America. Over the years the
company did almost no trading but served as an informal
bank for the government. Through his leadership of the
company, Blunt had forged relationships with the
wealthiest and most powerful Englishmen, most notably
King George I (1660–1727) himself, who became one of
its biggest investors and was named governor of the
company. Blunt’s motto in life had always been “Think
big,” and it had served him well. And so, as he racked his
brain for a way to outdo the French, he finally hit upon a
scheme in October of 1719 that was worthy of his motto
and that he felt certain would change the course of
history.
The greatest problem facing the English government,
headed by the king, was the massive debts it had
incurred over the course of thirty years during the wars
that had been fought with France and Spain, all financed
through borrowing. Blunt’s proposal was simple and
quite astounding: The South Sea Company would pay the
government a nice fee in order to completely take over
the debt, valued at a whopping £31 million. (The
company would receive in exchange an annual interest
payment on the debt.) The company would then privatize
this £31 million debt and sell it as if it were a commodity,
as shares in the South Sea Company—one share equaling
£100 of debt. Those who had lent the government money
could convert their IOUs into equivalent shares in the
South Sea Company. The shares that were left over
would be sold to the public.
The price for one share would start at £100. As with
any stock, the price could rise and fall, but in this case, if
played right, the price would only go up. The South Sea
Company had an intriguing name and held out the
possibility that it would also begin trading in the vast
wealth in South America. It was also the patriotic duty of
English creditors to participate in the scheme, since they
would be helping to cancel the debt while potentially
making much more money than the annual interest
payments the government paid them. If the share price
rose, as it almost certainly would, buyers could cash out
for a profit and the company could afford to pay nice
dividends. Like magic, debt could be transformed into
wealth. This would be the answer to all of the
government’s problems, and it would assure Blunt
lasting fame.
When King George first heard of Blunt’s proposal in
November of 1719, he was quite confused. He could not
understand how such a negative (debt) could be instantly
turned into a positive. Besides, this new jargon of finance
went straight over his head. But Blunt spoke with such
conviction that he found himself swept up in his
enthusiasm. After all, he was promising to solve George’s
two greatest problems in one fell swoop, and it was hard
to resist such a prospect.
King George was massively unpopular, one of the
most unpopular English kings of all time. It was not
totally his fault: he was not English by birth but German.
His title previously had been the Duke of Brunswick and
Elector of Hanover. When Queen Anne of England died
in 1714, George was her closest living Protestant relative.
But the moment he ascended the throne his new subjects
found him not to their liking. He spoke English with a
horrific accent, and his manners were so coarse, and he
was always avid for more money. Despite his advanced
age he was constantly chasing after women other than
his wife, none of whom were particularly attractive. In
the first years of his reign there were several coup
attempts, and the public might have welcomed the
change if they had succeeded.
 George desperately wanted to prove to his new
subjects that he could be a great king, in his own way.
What he hated most of all was the crushing debts the
government had incurred before he ascended the throne.
George had an almost allergic reaction to any kind of
debt, as if his own blood were being leeched.
Now here was Blunt offering him the chance to cancel
the debt and bring prosperity to England, strengthening
the monarchy in the process. It was almost too good to
be true, and he threw his full weight behind the proposal.
He assigned the chancellor of the exchequer, John
Aislabie, the task of presenting the proposal to
Parliament in January 1720. Parliament would have to
approve it in the form of a bill. Almost immediately
Blunt’s proposal stirred up fierce opposition among
several MPs, some of whom found it ludicrous. But in the
weeks after Aislabie’s speech, opponents of the bill
watched in dismay as support for their side slowly
withered away. Advance shares in the venture had been
virtually gifted to the wealthiest and most powerful
Englishmen, including prominent members of
Parliament, who, sensing the sure profits they personally
would gain, now gave their approval to the bill.
When the bill passed in April of that year, King
George himself showed up at the South Sea House and
deposited £100,000 for shares in the new venture. He
wanted to display his confidence in it, but such a step
was hardly necessary, as the buildup to the bill’s passage
had captured the public and interest in South Sea
Company shares had already reached a fever pitch. The
center of activity was an area of London known as
Exchange Alley, where almost all stocks were sold. Now
the narrow streets in and around the alley were clogged
with traffic growing thicker by the day.
At first it was mostly the wealthy and influential who
came in their fancy coaches to buy up shares. Among the
buyers were also artists and intellectuals—including
John Gay, Alexander Pope, and Jonathan Swift. Soon Sir
Isaac Newton felt the pull and invested a good chunk of
his savings, £7,000. A few weeks later, however, he felt
doubt. The price was rising, but what rises can surely fall,
and so he cashed out, doubling his initial investment.
Soon rumors began to circulate that the company was
about to initiate trade in South America, where all kinds
of riches lay buried in the mountains. This only added
fuel to the fire, and people from all classes began to
converge on London to buy up shares in the South Sea
Company. Blunt, it was reported, was a financial
alchemist who had found the secret of transforming debt
into wealth. In the countryside farmers pulled up from
under their beds their life savings in coins and sent their
sons and nephews to buy as many shares as possible. The
fever spread to women of all classes, who normally did
not dabble in such things. Now actresses were rubbing
elbows with duchesses in Exchange Alley. All the while,
the price kept rising, over £300 and soon £400.
Like France before it, the country was now
experiencing a spectacular boom. On May 28 the king
celebrated his sixtieth birthday, and for someone who
had been known for his frugality, it was the most lavish
party anyone had ever seen, with enormous tubs full of
claret and champagne. One woman at the party flaunted
her new wealth by encrusting her dress with jewels worth
over £5,000. Everywhere in London the wealthy were
tearing down mansions and replacing them with houses
that were even larger and grander. Porters and footmen
were now quitting their jobs and buying expensive
coaches and hiring porters and footmen of their own.
One young actress made such a fortune, she decided to
retire; she rented out an entire theater to say good-bye to
her adoring fans. An aristocratic lady was astonished one
evening at the opera to see that her former maid now
occupied a more expensive box in the theater than her
own. Jonathan Swift wrote in a letter to a friend, “I have
enquired of some that have come from London, what is
the religion there? They tell me it is South Sea stock.
What is the policy of England? The answer is the same.
What is the trade? South Sea still. And what is the
business? Nothing but South Sea.”
In this midst of this feverish buying and selling spree,
there stood John Blunt at the pump, doing whatever he
possibly could to stimulate the interest in South Sea
shares and keep the price rising. He sold the stock in
various subscriptions, offering generous terms of
payment, sometimes requiring only a 20 percent advance
to get in. For every £400 invested, Blunt would lend
£300. He wanted to keep up the demand and make
people feel that they might be missing out on their one
chance for wealth. Soon the price had passed £500 and
kept on rising. By June 15, he had set the subscription
price at an astronomical £1,000, with only 10 percent
down to get in and 10 percent installments spread out
over four years. Few could resist such terms. That very
month King George had Blunt knighted. Now a baronet,
Sir John Blunt stood at the pinnacle of English society.
Yes, he was rather unattractive to look at and he could be
quite pompous. But he had made so many people so
wealthy that he was now England’s most cherished
celebrity.
As the rich and powerful prepared to leave London for
the summer months, the mood was downright giddy.
Blunt affected a confident and carefree air, but
underneath it he was beginning to feel worried, even
panicky. There were so many things he had failed to
foresee. He had inadvertently inspired a rash of new
speculative ventures, some involving legitimate ideas
and some patently absurd, such as the development of a
wheel of perpetual motion. People were now feeling the
fever and were pouring some of their money into these
new joint-stock companies. Every £1 of cash that went
into these was one £1 less that people had to spend on
the South Sea Company, and that was a growing
problem, since there was only so much cash in England,
and there were limits to how far he could go by offering
credit. Similarly, people were beginning to pour their
money into land as a safe investment for the future, often
cashing out their South Sea stock for such purposes.
Blunt himself had been doing that very thing,
unbeknownst to the public.
More troubling still, the French had lost faith in the
Mississippi venture and were pulling out their money;
cash had become scarce and the French economy had
now fallen into a sudden depression. This would
certainly affect the mood in London. Before people
returned from their summer holidays, Blunt had to take
action.
Working with Parliament, he got passed the Bubble
Act of 1720, which banned all joint stocks not authorized
by royal charter. This would put an end to rampant
speculation. But this solution created consequences he
did not foresee. Thousands of people had poured their
savings into these new businesses, and as these were now
outlawed, they had no way of getting their money back.
Their only recourse was to sell South Sea shares. Many of
those who had used credit to buy South Sea shares saw
themselves facing installments they could no longer
afford. They tried to cash out as well. The price of South
Sea shares began to fall. That August crowds were
forming outside the South Sea house as people felt
desperate to sell.
Near the end of August Blunt became desperate
himself. He decided to launch his fourth money
subscription, once again at £1,000. Now the terms were
even more generous than ever, and on top of it he was
promising an astonishingly large Christmas dividend of
30 percent, to be followed by an annual dividend of 50
percent. Some were pulled back into the scheme by such
alluring terms, including Sir Isaac Newton himself. But
others, as if waking up from a dream, began to wonder
about the whole thing: how could a company that had
not traded for anything yet in South America, whose only
tangible asset was the interest the government paid it on
its debt, afford to dish out such large dividends? Now
what had seemed like alchemy or magic appeared to be a
downright hoax on the public. By early September the
selling off had turned into a panic, as almost everyone
rushed to convert paper shares into something real, into
coin or metal of any kind.
As the panic for cash accelerated, the Bank of England
was nearly brought down—it came close to running out
of currency. It was now clear in England that the party
was over. Many had lost their fortunes and life savings in
the sudden downfall. Isaac Newton himself had lost
some £20,000, and from then on the mere mention of
finance or banks would make him ill. People were trying
to sell whatever they could. Soon there was a wave of
suicides, including that of Charles Blunt, Sir John’s
nephew, who slashed his throat after learning the exact
nature of his losses.
Blunt himself was hounded in the streets and nearly
killed by an assassin. He had to quickly escape London.
He spent the rest of his life in the town of Bath, scraping
by on the very modest means still left to him after
Parliament seized almost all of the money he had earned
through the South Sea scheme. Perhaps in his isolation
he could contemplate the irony of it all—he had indeed
changed the course of history and assured his fame for
all time, as the man who had conjured up one of the most
absurd and destructive schemes ever devised in the
history of business.

• • •
Interpretation: John Blunt was a pragmatic, hard-
nosed businessman with a single goal—to make a lasting
fortune for himself and his family. In the summer of
1719, however, this highly realistic man caught a fever of
sorts. When he began to read about what was going on in
Paris, he was struck by the drama of it all. He read vivid
stories about average Frenchmen suddenly making
fortunes. He had never thought prior to this that
investments in joint-stock companies could yield such
quick results, but the evidence from France was
irrefutable. He wanted to bring similar good fortune to
England, and in crafting his plan he naturally imitated
many of the features of Law’s scheme, only increasing
the scale of it.
What is striking here, however, is that one rather
obvious question never seemed to cross his mind. The
scheme would depend on the share price rising. If those
who converted their government IOUs into shares had to
pay £200 per share instead of £100, they would receive
fewer shares, which would leave more shares for South
Sea to sell to the public and make a nice profit. If the
shares were purchased at £200 they were now worth
more if the price continued to rise and were sold at some
point. Seeing the price rise would lure more creditors to
convert their shares and more people to buy in. Everyone
would win only if the price kept rising. But how could the
price keep rising if it was not based on any real assets,
such as trade? If the price started to fall, as it inevitably
would, panic would certainly set in, since people would
lose faith in the scheme, and this could only set off a
chain reaction of selling. How could Blunt not have
foreseen this?
The answer is simple: Blunt’s mental time frame had
shrunk to the point where he lost the ability to look
months down the road and consider consequences.
Mesmerized by events in France and imagining all of the
wealth and power he was on the verge of attaining, he
could focus only on the present, making sure the scheme
launched successfully. Its initial success only made him
imagine it would trend this way for a long time. As it
progressed, he certainly understood that he had to make
the price rise even more quickly, and the only means of
doing so was to lure in more investors through generous
terms of credit. This would make the scheme even more
precarious, one solution incurring several new dangers.
The Bubble Act and the generous dividends carried even
greater immediate risks, but by now his time frame had
shrunk to a matter of days. If only he could keep the ship
afloat another week, he would find some new solution.
Finally, he ran out of time.
When people lose the connection between their
actions and their consequences, they lose their hold on
reality, and the further this goes the more it looks like
madness. The madness that overcame Blunt soon
infected the king, the Parliament, and eventually an
entire nation of citizens renowned for their common
sense. Once the English saw their compatriots making
large sums of money, it became a fact—the scheme had
to be a success. They too lost the ability to think a few
months ahead. Look at what happened to Sir Isaac
Newton, paragon of rationality. In the beginning he too
caught the fever, but after a week his logical mind could
see the holes in the scheme, and so he sold his shares.
Then he watched others making much larger sums of
money than his paltry £14,000 and it bothered him. By
August he had to get back in, even though it was the
absolute worst time to reinvest. Sir Isaac Newton himself
had lost the ability to think past the day. As one Dutch
banker observed of the scene in Exchange Alley, “[It
resembled] nothing so much as if all the Lunatics had
escaped out of the Madhouse at once.”
Understand: We humans tend to live in the
moment. It is the animal part of our nature. We respond
first and foremost to what we see and hear, to what is
most dramatic in an event. But we are not merely
animals tied to the present. Human reality encompasses
the past—every event is connected to something that
happened before in an endless chain of historical
causation. Any present problem has deep roots in the
past. It also encompasses the future. Whatever we do has
consequences that stretch far into the years to come.
When we limit our thinking to what our senses
provide, to what is immediate, we descend to the pure
animal level in which our reasoning powers are
neutralized. We are no longer aware of why or how
things come about. We imagine that some successful
scheme that has lasted a few months can only get better.
We no longer give thought to the possible consequences
of anything we set in motion. We react to what is given in
the moment, based on only a small piece of the puzzle.
Naturally our actions then lead to unintended
consequences, or even to disasters like the South Sea
crash or the more recent crash of 2008.
To complicate matters, we are surrounded by others
who are continually reacting, drawing us deeper into the
present. Salesmen and demagogues play on this
weakness in human nature to con us with the prospect of
easy gains and instant gratification. Our only antidote is
to train ourselves to continually detach from the
immediate rush of events and elevate our perspective.
Instead of merely reacting, we step back and look at the
wider context. We consider the various possible
ramifications of any action we take. We keep in mind our
long-term goals. Often, in raising our perspective, we will
decide that it is better to do nothing, to not react, and to
let time go by and see what it reveals. (If Blunt had only
waited a few months, he would have seen Law’s scheme
falling apart, and England would have been spared the
ruin that came.) Such sanity and balance do not come
naturally. They are powers we acquire through great
effort, and they represent the height of human wisdom.
I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the
madness of people.
—Sir Isaac Newton
 Keys to Human Nature
Almost all of us have experienced something similar to
the following scenarios: Someone we need or depend on
is not paying us proper attention, not returning our calls.
Feeling frustrated, we express our feelings to him or
double our efforts to get a response. Or we encounter a
problem, a project that is not going well, and so we
decide upon a strategy and take appropriate action. Or a
new person appears in our life, and captivated by her
fresh energy and charm, we become friends.
Then weeks go by and we are forced to reassess what
had happened and how we had reacted. New information
comes to light. That person who was not responding to
us was himself overwhelmed with work. If only we had
just waited and not been so impatient, we could have
avoided pushing away a valuable ally. That problem we
tried to solve was not really so urgent, and we made it
worse by rushing an outcome. We needed to know more
before acting. And that new friend ends up not being so
charming; in fact, time reveals her to be a destructive
sociopath whose friendship takes us years to heal from. A
little more distance could have let us see the red flags
before it was too late. Looking back on our life, we see
that we have a tendency to be impatient and to overreact;
we notice patterns of behavior over long periods of time
that elude us in the moment but become clearer to us
later on.
What this means is that in the present moment we
lack perspective. With the passage of time, we gain more
information and see more of the truth; what was
invisible to us in the present now becomes visible in
retrospect. Time is the greatest teacher of them all, the
revealer of reality.
We can compare this to the following visual
phenomenon: At the base of a mountain, in a thick
forest, we have no ability to get our bearings or to map
out our surroundings. We see only what is before our
eyes. If we begin to move up the side of the mountain, we
can see more of our surroundings and how they relate to
other parts of the landscape. The higher we go, the more
we realize that what we thought further below was not
quite accurate, was based on a slightly distorted
perspective. At the top of the mountain we have a clear
panoramic view of the scene and perfect clarity as to the
lay of the land.
For us humans, locked in the present moment, it as if
we are living at the base of the mountain. What is most
apparent to our eyes—the other people around us, the
surrounding forest—gives us a limited, skewed vision of
reality. The passage of time is like a slow ascent up the
mountain. The emotions we felt in the present are no
longer so strong; we can detach ourselves and see things
more clearly. The further we ascend with the passage of
time, the more information we add to the picture. What
we saw three months after the fact is not quite as
accurate as what we come to know a year later.
It would seem, then, that wisdom tends to come to us
when it is too late, mostly in hindsight. But there is in
fact a way for us humans to manufacture the effect of
time, to give ourselves an expanded view in the present
moment. We can call this the farsighted perspective, and
it requires the following process.
First, facing a problem, conflict, or some exciting
opportunity, we train ourselves to detach from the heat
of the moment. We work to calm down our excitement or
our fear. We get some distance.
Next, we start to deepen and widen our perspective.
In considering the nature of the problem we are
confronting, we don’t just grab for an immediate
explanation, but instead we dig deeper and consider
other possibilities, other possible motivations for the
people involved. We force ourselves to look at the overall
context of the event, not just what immediately grabs our
attention. We imagine as best we can the negative
consequences of the various strategies we are
contemplating. We consider how the problem or the
apparent opportunity might play itself out over time,
how other problems or issues not apparent in the
moment might suddenly loom larger than what we are
immediately dealing with. We focus on our long-term
goals and realign our priorities in the present according
to them.
In other words, this process involves distance from
the present, a deeper look at the source of problems, a
wider perspective on the overall context of the situation,
and a look further into the future—including the
consequences of our actions and our own long-term
priorities.
As we go through this process, certain options and
explanations will begin to seem more logical and realistic
than others that grabbed us in the moment. We add to
this the lessons we have learned over the years about our
own patterns of behavior. In this way, though we cannot
re-create the full effect that time has on our thinking, we
can approximate it. Most often the passing months give
us even more information and reveal better options for
us to have taken. We are manufacturing this effect in the
present by widening what we consider and opening our
minds. We are moving up the mountain. Such an
elevated perspective can calm us down and make it
easier for us to maintain our presence of mind as events
unfold.
Although this stands as an ideal, we must admit that
such a perspective is rare among us humans. It seems to
require an effort that is almost beyond us. The reason for
this is simple: short-term thinking is hardwired into our
system; we are built to respond to what is immediate and
to seek out instant gratification. For our early human
ancestors, it paid to notice what was potentially
dangerous in the environment or what offered an
opportunity for food. The human brain as it evolved was
designed not to examine the full picture and context of
an event but to home in on the most dramatic features.
This worked well in a relatively simple environment and
amid the simple social organization of the tribe. But it is
not suited to the complex world we now live in. It makes
us take notice mostly of what stimulates our senses and
emotions, and miss much of the larger picture.
This has a decided impact on how we view the
potential pleasure or pain involved in a situation. Our
brains are designed to make us notice what could
immediately harm us in our surroundings but not to pay
great attention to other dangers looming in the future
that are more abstract. This is why we tend to give much
more attention to something like terrorism (immediate
pain), which certainly deserves our scrutiny, than to
global warming (distant pain), which in fact represents
the greater danger since it puts the very survival of the
planet at risk. But such a danger seems abstract in the
present. By the time it becomes not abstract at all, it
might be too late. We tend also to grab for things that
offer immediate pleasure, even if we know about the
negative long-term consequences. That is why people
continue to smoke, drink, do drugs, or engage in any
self-destructive behavior in which the destruction is not
immediate and dramatic.
In a world that is complex, with myriad dangers that
loom in the future, our short-term tendencies pose a
continual threat to our well-being. And as our attention
spans decrease because of technology, the threat is even
greater. In many ways we are defined by our relationship
to time. When we simply react to what we see and hear,
when we swing from excitement and exuberance to fear
and panic at each new piece of dramatic news, when we
gear our actions toward gaining as much pleasure as
possible in the moment without a thought for future
consequences, we can say that we are giving in to our
animal nature, to what is most primitive and potentially
destructive in our neurological makeup.
When we strive to go against this grain, to consider
more deeply the consequences of what we do and the
nature of our long-term priorities, we are straining to
realize our true human potential as the thinking animal.
And just as short-term thinking can be contagious, one
individual who embodies the wisdom of the farsighted
perspective can have an immensely positive effect on the
people around him or her. Such individuals make us
aware of the larger picture and reveal a mind-set that we
recognize as superior. We want to imitate them.
Throughout history there have been various icons of
this wisdom to inspire and guide us: Joseph in the Old
Testament, who could see into the hearts of men and
foresee the future; Socrates of ancient Greece, who
taught us how to be less foolish and more consequential
in our thinking; the brilliant strategist Zhuge Liang of
ancient China, who could predict every movement of the
enemy; leaders such as Queen Elizabeth I and Abraham
Lincoln, renowned for the success of their long-term
strategizing; the very patient and prescient scientist
Charles Darwin, who finally exposed the effects of deep
time on the evolution of all living things; and Warren
Buffett, the most successful investor in history, whose
power is based on his farsighted perspective.
If possible, avoid deep contact with those whose time
frame is narrow, who are in continual react mode, and
strive to associate with those with an expanded
awareness of time.

Four Signs of Shortsightedness and

Strategies to Overcome Them
Most of us imagine that we engage in some form of long-
term thinking; after all, we have goals and plans. But
really we are fooling ourselves. We can see this most
clearly when we talk to other people about their plans
and strategies for the near and more distant future: we
are often struck by their vagueness and the lack of deep
thinking people generally give to such plans. They are
more like hopes and wishes, and in the rush of
immediate events, feeling pressure and the need to
respond, such weak goals and plans are easily
overwhelmed. Most of the time we are improvising and
reacting to events with insufficient information. Basically
we are in denial about this because it is hard to have
perspective about our own decision-making process.
The best way to overcome this is to recognize the clear
signs of shortsighted thinking in our own lives. As with
most elements of human nature, awareness is the key.
Only by seeing these signs can we combat them. The
following are the four most common manifestations of
short-term thinking:
1. Unintended consequences.History is littered with
endless examples of this phenomenon. In ancient Rome,
a group of men loyal to the Republic feared that Julius
Caesar was going to make his dictatorship permanent
and establish a monarchy. In 44 BC they decided to
assassinate him, thereby restoring the Republic. In the
ensuing chaos and power vacuum Caesar’s great-nephew
Octavius quickly rose to the top, assumed power, and
permanently ended the Republic by establishing a de
facto monarchy. After Caesar’s death it came out that he
had never intended to create a monarchical system. The
conspirators brought about precisely what they had tried
to stop.
In nineteenth-century India, under British colonial
rule, authorities decided there were too many venomous
cobras in the streets of Delhi, making life uncomfortable
for the British residents and their families. To solve this
they offered a reward for every dead cobra residents
would bring in. Soon enterprising locals began to breed
cobras in order to make a living from the bounty. The
government caught on to this and canceled the program.
The breeders, resentful of the rulers and angered by their
actions, decided to release their cobras back on the
streets, thereby tripling the population from before the
government program.
Other notorious examples would include the
Eighteenth Amendment, establishing Prohibition in the
United States in 1920, which was designed to stop the
spread of alcoholism but only ended up increasing
alcohol consumption by a substantial amount; and the
surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese in 1941,
designed to decimate the U.S. naval force in one blow
and bring America to its knees. Instead it shook the
American public out of its deep isolationism, ensuring
the total mobilization of the country’s superior
manpower and resources to not only defeat the Japanese
but also to obliterate its military for good. The very
success of the attack guaranteed the opposite of the
intended result.
We can find less dramatic examples of this in our
daily lives. We try to control a rebellious teenager by
putting some restrictions on his behavior, only to make
him even more rebellious and uncontrollable. We try to
cheer up a depressed person by making her realize that
her life is not that bad and that the sun is shining, only to
find out we have made her even more depressed. She
now feels guilty about her feelings, worthless, and more
alone in her unhappiness. A wife tries to get her partner
to open up more to her. With the hope of establishing
more intimacy, she asks him what he is thinking, what
happened during the course of the day, and so on. He
interprets this as intrusiveness and closes up further,
which makes the wife more suspicious and more prying,
which closes him up even further.
The source of this age-old syndrome is relatively
simple: alarmed by something in the present, we grab for
a solution without thinking deeply about the context, the
roots of the problem, the possible unintended
consequences that might ensue. Because we mostly react
instead of think, our actions are based on insufficient
information—Caesar was not planning to start a
monarchy; the poor people of Delhi despised their
colonial rulers and would not take kindly to suddenly
losing money; Americans would be willing to go to war if
attacked. When we operate with such a skewed
perspective, it results in all kinds of perverse effects. In
all of these cases a simple move partway up the
mountain would have made clear the possible negative
consequences so obvious to us in hindsight: for example,
offering a reward for dead cobras would naturally cause
impoverished residents to breed them.
Invariably in these cases people’s thinking is
remarkably simple and lazy: kill Caesar and the Republic
returns, action A leads to result B. A variation on this,
one that is quite common in the modern world, is to
believe that if people have good intentions, good things
should be the result. If a politician is honest and means
well, he or she will bring about the desired results. In
fact, good intentions often lead to what are known as
cobra effects, because people with the noblest intentions
are often blinded by feelings of self-righteousness and do
not consider the complex and often malevolent
motivations of others.
Nonconsequential thinking is a veritable plague in the
world today that is only growing worse with the speed
and ease of access to information, which gives people the
illusion that they are informed and have thought deeply
about things. Look at self-destructive wars such as the
2003 invasion of Iraq, the attempts to shut down the
American government for short-term political gain, the
increasing number of financial bubbles from tech stocks
to real estate. Related to this is a gradual disconnect
from history itself, as people tend to view present events
as if they were isolated in time.
 Understand: Any phenomenon in the world is by
nature complex. The people you deal with are equally
complex. Any action sets off a limitless chain of
reactions. It is never so simple as A leads to B. B will lead
to C, to D, and beyond. Other actors will be pulled into
the drama and it is hard to predict their motivations and
responses. You cannot possibly map out these chains or
get a complete handle on consequences. But by making
your thinking more consequential you can at least
become aware of the more obvious negative
consequences that could ensue, and this often spells the
difference between success and disaster. You want depth
of thinking, to go to several degrees in imagining the
permutations, as far as your mind can go.
Often, going through this process will convince you of
the wisdom of doing nothing, of waiting. Who knows
what would have resulted in history if the conspirators
had thought this out and chosen to wait until Caesar died
naturally or in battle?
While this mode of thinking is important for
individuals, it can be even more crucial for large
organizations, where there is a lot at stake for many
people. In any group or team, put at least one person in
charge of gaming out all of the possible consequences of
a strategy or line of action, preferably someone with a
skeptical and prudent frame of mind. You can never go
too far in this process, and the time and money spent will
be well rewarded as you avoid potential catastrophes and
develop more solid plans.
You find yourself embroiled in several
2. Tactical hell.
struggles or battles. You seem to get nowhere but you
feel like you have invested so much time and energy
already that it would be a tremendous waste to give up.
You have actually lost sight of your long-term goals, what
you’re really fighting for. Instead it has become a
question of asserting your ego and proving you are right.
Often we see this dynamic in marital spats: it is no longer
about repairing the relationship but about imposing
one’s point of view. At times, caught in these battles, you
feel defensive and petty, your spirit drawn downward.
This is almost a sure sign that you have descended into
tactical hell. Our minds are designed for strategic
thinking—calculating several moves in advance toward
our goals. In tactical hell you can never raise your
perspective high enough to think in that manner. You are
constantly reacting to the moves of this or that person,
embroiled in their dramas and emotions, going around
in circles.
The only solution is to back out temporarily or
permanently from these battles, particularly if they are
occurring on several fronts. You need some detachment
and perspective. Get your ego to calm down. Remind
yourself that winning an argument or proving your point
really gets you nowhere in the long run. Win through
your actions, not your words. Start to think again about
your long-term goals. Create a ladder of values and
priorities in your life, reminding yourself of what really
matters to you. If you determine that a particular battle
is in fact important, with a greater sense of detachment
you can now plot a more strategic response.
More often than not you will realize that certain
battles are not worth it in the end. They are a waste of
valuable energy and time, which should be high on your
scale of values. It is always better to walk away from a
circular battle, no matter how deeply you feel personally
invested in it. Your energy and your spirit are important
considerations. Feeling petty and frustrated can have
reverberating consequences for your ability to think
strategically and reach your goals. Going through the
process delineated above in the Keys will naturally
elevate your perspective and put your mind on the
strategic plane. And in life as in warfare, strategists will
always prevail over tacticians.
 During the run-up to the 1929 crash
3. Ticker tape fever.
on Wall Street, many people had become addicted to
playing the stock market, and this addiction had a
physical component—the sound of the ticker tape that
electronically registered each change in a stock’s price.
Hearing that clicking noise indicated something was
happening, somebody was trading and making a fortune.
Many felt drawn to the sound itself, which felt like the
heartbeat of Wall Street. We no longer have the ticker
tape. Instead many of us have become addicted to the
minute-by-minute news cycle, to “what’s trending,” to
the Twitter feed, which is often accompanied by a ping
that has its own narcotic effects. We feel like we are
connected to the very flow of life itself, to events as they
change in real time, and to other people who are
following the same instant reports.
This need to know instantly has a built-in
momentum. Once we expect to have some bit of news
quickly, we can never go back to the slower pace of just a
year ago. In fact, we feel the need for more information
more quickly. Such impatience tends to spill over into
other aspects of life—driving, reading a book, following a
film. Our attention span decreases, as well as our
tolerance for any obstacles in our path.
We can all recognize signs of this nervous impatience
in our own lives, but what we don’t recognize is the
distorting effect it has on our thinking. The trends of the
moment—in business or politics—are embedded in larger
trends that play out over the course of weeks and
months. Such larger spans of time tend to reveal the
relative weaknesses and strengths of an investment, a
strategic idea, a sports team, or a political candidate,
which are often the opposite of what we see in the
microtrends of the moment. In isolation, a poll or stock
price do not tell us much about these strengths and
weaknesses. They give us the deceptive impression that
what is revealed in the present will only become more
pronounced with time. It is normal to want to keep up
with the latest news, but to base any kind of decision on
these snapshots of the moment is to run the risk of
misreading the larger picture.
Furthermore, people tend to react and overreact to
any negative or positive change in the present, and it
becomes doubly hard to resist getting caught up in their
panic or exuberance.
Look at what Abraham Lincoln had to face in a much
less technological age. At the outbreak of the Civil War,
he looked at the larger picture—as he estimated it, the
North should prevail because it had more men and more
resources to draw on. The only danger was time. Lincoln
would need time for the Union Army to develop itself as
a fighting force; he also needed time to find the right
generals who would prosecute the war as he desired. But
if too much time passed and there were no big victories,
public opinion might turn against the effort, and once
the North became divided within itself, Lincoln’s job
would become impossible. He needed patience but also
victories on the battlefield.
In the first year of the war the North suffered a great
defeat at Bull Run, and suddenly almost everyone
questioned the president’s competency. Now even
levelheaded Northerners such as the famous editor
Horace Greeley urged the president to negotiate peace.
Others urged him to throw everything the North had into
an immediate blow to crush the South, even though the
army was not ready for this.
On and on this went, the pressure continually
mounting as the North failed to deliver a single solid
victory until finally General Ulysses S. Grant finished off
the siege at Vicksburg in 1863, followed soon by the
victory at Gettysburg under General George Meade. Now
suddenly Lincoln was hailed as a genius. But some six
months later, as Grant got bogged down in his pursuit of
the Confederate Army under General Robert E. Lee and
the casualties mounted, the sense of panic returned.
Once again Greeley urged negotiation with the South.
Lincoln’s reelection that year seemed doomed. He had
become immensely unpopular. The war was taking too
long. Feeling the weight of all this, in late August of 1864
Lincoln finally drafted a letter spelling out the terms of
peace he would offer the South, but that very night he
felt ashamed for losing his resolve and hid the letter in a
drawer. The tide had to turn, he felt, and the South
would be crushed. Only a week later, General William
Tecumseh Sherman marched into Atlanta and all the
doubts about Lincoln suddenly vanished for good.
Through long-term thinking Lincoln had correctly
gauged the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two
sides and how the war would eventually trend. Everyone
else got caught up in the day-by-day reports of the
progress of the war. Some wanted to negotiate, others to
suddenly speed up the effort, but all of this was based on
momentary swings of fortune. A weaker man would have
given in to such pressures and the war would have ended
very differently. The writer Harriet Beecher Stowe, who
visited Lincoln in 1864, later wrote of him: “Surrounded
by all sorts of conflicting claims, by traitors, by half-
hearted, timid men, by Border States men and Free
States men, by radical Abolitionists and Conservatives,
he has listened to all, weighed the words of all, waited,
observed, yielded now here and now there, but in the
main kept one inflexible, honest purpose, and drawn the
national ship through.”
Lincoln provides the model for us all and the antidote
to the fever. First and foremost we must develop
patience, which is like a muscle that requires training
and repetition to make it strong. Lincoln was a
supremely patient man. When we face any kind of
problem or obstacle, we must follow his example and
make an effort to slow things down and step back, wait a
day or two before taking action. Second, when faced with
issues that are important, we must have a clear sense of
our long-term goals and how to attain them. Part of this
involves assessing the relative strengths and weaknesses
of the parties involved. Such clarity will allow us to
withstand the constant emotional overreactions of those
around us. Finally, it is important to have faith that time
will eventually prove us right and to maintain our
resolve.
You feel overwhelmed by the
4. Lost in trivia.
complexity of your work. You feel the need to be on top
of all the details and global trends so you can control
things better, but you are drowning in information. It is
hard to see the proverbial forest for the trees. This is a
sure sign that you have lost a sense of your priorities—
which facts are more important, what problems or
details require more attention.
The icon for this syndrome would have to be King
Philip II of Spain (1527–1598). He had a prodigious
appetite for paperwork and for keeping on top of all
facets of the Spanish government. This gave him a
feeling of being in control, but in fact in the end it made
him lose control. He fussed over the placement of toilets
in his new palace at Escorial and their precise distance
from the kitchen; he spent days deliberating on how
exactly particular members of the clergy should be
addressed and remunerated. But sometimes he would
fail to pay proper attention to important reports on spies
and national security issues. Poring over endless reports
on the state of the Turkish army, he believed it showed
signs of great weakness and decided to launch a war
against the Turks. Somehow he had misjudged. The war
would last eighteen years, have no definitive resolution,
and bleed Spain of money.
A similar process occurred in relation to England. The
king had to read every single report on the state of the
English navy, the support of the people for Queen
Elizabeth, every minute detail about the country’s
finances and shoreline defenses. Based on years of such
study, in 1588 he decided to launch his armada against
England, feeling certain that, having made the armada
large enough, Spain would prevail. But he failed to pay
enough attention to weather reports, the most critical
factor of all—for storms at sea would spell the
destruction of the armada. He also failed to realize that
by the time he had compiled and assimilated enough
information on the Turks or on England, the situation
had actually changed. So while he seemed extremely
detail oriented, he was never quite on top of anything.
Over the years Philip strained his mind with so much
reading that he had frequent headaches and dizzy spells.
His thinking was definitely impaired, and he made
decisions that ended up leading directly to the
irreversible decline of the Spanish empire.
In some ways you are probably more like King Philip
II than you would like to imagine. In your life you are
more than likely paying attention to some details that
seem immediately important to you, while ignoring the
weather reports that will doom your project. Like Philip,
you tend to take in information without considering your
priorities, what really matters in the end. But the brain
has its limits. Assimilating too much information leads to
mental fatigue, confusion, and feelings of helplessness.
Everything begins to seem equally important—the
placement of toilets and a possible war with the Turks.
What you need is a mental filtering system based on a
scale of priorities and your long-term goals. Knowing
what you want to accomplish in the end will help you
weed out the essential from the nonessential. You do not
have to know all the details. Sometimes you need to
delegate—let your subordinates handle the information
gathering. Remember that greater control over events
will come from realistic assessments of the situation,
precisely what is made most difficult by a brain
submerged in trivia.
 The Farsighted Human
Most of us live within a relatively narrow time frame. We
generally associate the passage of time with something
negative—aging and moving closer to death. Instinctively
we recoil from thinking too deeply about the future and
the past, for this reminds us of the passage of time. In
relation to the future we may try to think about our plans
a year or two from now, but our thinking is more like a
daydream, a wish, than deep analysis. In relation to the
past we may have a few fond or painful memories from
childhood and later years, but in general the past baffles
us. We change so much with each passing year that who
we were five, ten, twenty years ago might seem like a
stranger to us. We don’t really have a cohesive sense of
who we are, a feeling of connection between the five-
year-old and thirty-five-year-old versions of ourselves.
Not wanting to go too far in either direction, we
mostly live within the present. We react to what we see
and hear and to what others are reacting to. We live for
immediate pleasures to distract us from the passage of
time and make us feel more alive. But we pay a price for
all this. Repressing the thought of death and aging
creates a continual underlying anxiety. We are not
coming to terms with reality. Continually reacting to
events in the present puts us on a roller coaster ride—up
and down we go with each change in fortune. This can
only add to our anxiety, as life seems to pass so quickly
in the immediate rush of events.
Your task as a student of human nature, and someone
aspiring to reach the greater potential of the human
animal, is to widen your relationship to time as much as
possible, and slow it down. This means you do not see
the passage of time as an enemy but rather as a great
ally. Each stage in life has its advantages—those of youth
are most obvious, but with age comes greater
perspective. Aging does not frighten you. Death is
equally your friend (see chapter 18). It motivates you to
make the most of each moment; it gives you a sense of
urgency. Time is your great teacher and master. This
affects you deeply in the present. Awareness that a year
from now this current problem you are experiencing will
hardly seem so important will help you lower your
anxiety and adjust your priorities. Knowing that time will
reveal the weaknesses of your plans, you become more
careful and deliberative with them.
In relation to the future, you think deeply about your
long-term goals. They are not vague dreams but concrete
objectives, and you have mapped out a path to reach
them. In relation to the past, you feel a deep sense of
connection to your childhood. Yes, you are constantly
changing, but these changes are on the surface and
create the illusion of real change. In fact, your character
was set in your earliest years (see chapter 4), along with
your inclinations toward certain activities, your likes and
dislikes. As you get older, this character only becomes
more apparent. Feeling organically connected to who you
were in the past gives you a strong sense of identity. You
know what you like and dislike, you know who you are.
This will help you maintain your self-love, which is so
critical in resisting the descent into deep narcissism and
in helping you to develop empathy (see chapter 2). Also,
you will pay greater attention to the mistakes and lessons
of the past, which those who are locked in the present
tend to repress.
Like everyone, you enjoy the present and its passing
pleasures. You are not a monk. You connect to the trends
of the moment and to the current flow of life. But you
derive even greater pleasure from reaching your long-
term goals and overcoming adversity. This expanded
relationship to time will have a definite effect on you. It
will make you calmer, more realistic, more in tune with
the things that matter. It will also make you a superior
strategist in life, able to resist people’s inevitable
overreactions to what is happening in the present and to
see further into the future, a potential power that we
humans have only begun to tap into.
The years teach much which the days never know.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
 7

Soften People’s
Resistance by
Confirming Their Self-
opinion

The Law of Defensiveness

L ife is harsh and people competitive. We naturally

must look after our own interests. We also want to
feel that we are independent, doing our own bidding.
That is why when others try to persuade or change us,
we become defensive and resistant. To give in
challenges our need to feel autonomous. That is why to
get people to move from their defensive positions you
must always make it seem like what they are doing is of
their own free will. Creating a feeling of mutual warmth
helps soften people’s resistance and makes them want to
help. Never attack people for their beliefs or make them
feel insecure about their intelligence or goodness—that
will only strengthen their defensiveness and make your
task impossible. Make them feel that by doing what you
want they are being noble and altruistic—the ultimate
lure. Learn to tame your own stubborn nature and free
your mind from its defensive and closed positions,
unleashing your creative powers.

The Influence Game

In December 1948, Senator Tom Connally of Texas
received a visit from the newly elected second senator of
the state, Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973). Johnson
had previously served as a Democratic congressman in
the House of Representatives for twelve years, and had
earned a reputation as a politician with high ambitions
who was quite impatient to realize them. He could be
brash, opinionated, and even a bit pushy.
Connally knew all of this, but he was willing to judge
Johnson for himself. He studied the young man closely
(Connally was thirty-one years older). He had met him
before and thought him rather astute. But after
exchanging a few pleasantries, Johnson revealed his true
motives: he was hoping to get a seat on one of the three
most prestigious committees in the Senate—
Appropriations, Finance, or Foreign Relations. Connally
served on two of them as a senior member. Johnson
seemed to suggest that as a fellow Texan Connally could
help him get what he wanted. Connally felt that Johnson
clearly did not understand how the senatorial system
worked, and he decided to put him in his place right then
and there.
Acting as if he were doing Johnson a great favor, he
offered to help him get a seat on the Agriculture
Committee, knowing full well Johnson would find this
insulting—it was among the least coveted of all
committees. Thrusting the knife in deeper, Connally said
that he had followed Johnson’s senatorial campaign and
had heard him exclaim numerous times that he was a
friend of the farmer. Here was his chance to prove it. The
Agriculture Committee would be a perfect fit. Johnson
could not hide his displeasure and squirmed
uncomfortably in his chair. “And then, Lyndon,”
Connally concluded, “after you’ve been in the Senate for
a while, then you get on the Foreign Relations or Finance
Committee, and render a real public service.” And by
“for a while” Connally meant a good twelve to twenty
years, the usual time it took for any senator to amass
enough influence. It was called seniority and that was
how the game was played. It had taken Connally himself
nearly twenty years to get his plum committee positions.
Over the next few weeks, word quickly spread among
senators that Johnson was someone to keep an eye on, a
potential hothead. And so it was a pleasant surprise
when many of them saw and met him for the first time,
after he was officially inaugurated. He was not at all what
they had expected. He was the picture of politeness, and
very deferential. He would often come to visit them in
their offices. He would announce himself to the secretary
in the outer office, then patiently wait there until called
in, sometimes for an hour. He didn’t seem bothered by
this—he busied himself by reading or taking notes. Once
inside, he’d ask the senator about his wife and family or
his favorite sports team—he had clearly done his
homework on the senator in question. He could be quite
self-deprecating. He’d often first introduce himself as
“Landslide Lyndon,” everyone knowing he had won his
Senate seat by the slimmest of margins.
Mostly, however, he came to talk business and get
advice. He’d ask a question or two about some bill or bit
of senatorial procedure and would listen with a focus
that was striking and charming, almost like a child. His
large brown eyes would stay fixed on the senator in
question, and with his chin resting on his hand, he would
occasionally nod and every now and then ask another
question. The senators could tell he was paying deep
attention because invariably he would act on their advice
or repeat their very words to someone else, always
crediting the senator who had spoken them. He would
leave with a gracious thank-you for their time and for the
invaluable education they had provided. This was not the
spirited hothead they had heard so much about, and the
contrast redounded to his credit.
 The senators saw him most often on the Senate floor,
and unlike any other member of the institution, he
attended every session and sat almost the whole time at
his desk. He took copious notes. He wanted to learn
everything about senatorial procedure—a dull affair, but
one that seemed to captivate him. He was far, however,
from being a dullard. When senators encountered him in
the hallway or in the cloakroom, he always had a good
joke to tell or some amusing anecdote. He had spent his
early years in rural poverty, and although he was well
educated, his language had some of the color and biting
humor of the Texan farmer and migrant worker. The
senators found him amusing. Even Tom Connally had to
admit that he had somehow misread him.
Older senators, referred to at the time as Old Bulls,
particularly came to appreciate Lyndon Johnson.
Although they held positions of great authority based on
their seniority, they often felt insecure about their age
(some were in their eighties) and their physical and
mental capacities. But here was Johnson visiting their
offices frequently, intent on absorbing their wisdom.
One older Democratic senator in particular took to
Johnson—Richard Russell of Georgia. He was only
eleven years older than Johnson, but he had been serving
in the Senate since 1933 and had become one of its most
powerful members. They had gotten to know each other
because Johnson had requested and received a seat on
the Armed Services Committee, on which Russell was
second in seniority. Russell crossed paths with Johnson
in the cloakroom, in the corridors, on the Senate floor;
he seemed to be everywhere. And although Johnson
visited Russell in his office almost every day, Russell
came to enjoy his presence. Like Russell, Johnson was
mostly all business, and full of questions on arcane
Senate procedures. He began to call Russell “the Old
Master,” and he would often say, “Well, that’s a lesson
from the Old Master. I’ll remember that.”
 Russell was one of the few senators who had
remained a bachelor. He never admitted he was lonely,
but he spent almost all of his time at his Senate office,
even on Sundays. As Johnson would often be in Russell’s
office discussing some matter until the evening, he would
sometimes invite Russell over for dinner at his house,
telling him that his wife, Lady Bird, was an excellent
cook, particularly good with southern dishes. The first
few times Russell politely refused, but finally he relented
and he soon became a weekly regular at the Johnson
house. Lady Bird was charming and he quickly took to
her.
Slowly the relationship between Russell and Johnson
deepened. Russell was a baseball fanatic, and to his
delight, Johnson confessed a weakness for the sport as
well. Now they would go together to night games of the
Washington Senators. A day would not pass in which
they did not see each other, as the two of them would
often be the only senators in their offices working on the
weekends. They seemed to have so many interests in
common, including the Civil War, and they thought alike
on so many issues dear to southern Democrats, such as
their opposition to a civil rights bill.
Soon Russell could be heard touting the junior
senator as “a can-do young man” with a capacity equal to
his own for hard work. Johnson was the only junior
senator over his long career whom he referred to as a
“disciple.” But the friendship went deeper than that.
After attending a hunting party that Johnson had
organized in Texas, Russell wrote to him, “Ever since I
reached home I have been wondering if I would wake up
and find that I had just been dreaming that I had made a
trip to Texas. Everything was so perfect that it is difficult
to realize that it could happen in real life.”
In 1950 the Korean War broke out and there was
pressure on the Armed Services Committee to form a
subcommittee to investigate the military’s preparedness
for the war. Such a subcommittee had been formed
during World War II and chaired by Harry Truman, and
it was through that chairmanship that Truman had
become famous and risen to power. The current
chairman of the Armed Services Committee was Senator
Millard Tydings of Maryland. Tydings would naturally
assume the chairmanship of the subcommittee, since it
would be a great platform for publicity.
Johnson approached Tydings with a proposal:
Tydings was facing a reelection campaign that year, and
Johnson offered to chair the subcommittee only up to
the time of the election, allowing Tydings to focus on
winning it. Then he would step aside and let Tydings
have the position. Tydings, protective of the powers he
had accrued, declined Johnson’s offer. But then Dick
Russell met with him and said something to cause
Tydings to change his mind. Johnson was named the
chairman, a stunning coup for a senator who had been
on the job for only a year and a half, and he would hold
on to the job for quite a while, as Tydings lost his
reelection bid.
As chairman Johnson was suddenly receiving national
public exposure, and journalists covering the Senate
discovered that he was a master at handling the press.
He carefully guarded the findings of the subcommittee,
allowing no leaks to journalists. He surrounded its work
with tremendous mystery and drama, giving the
impression that the committee was uncovering some real
dirt on the military. He doled out information and
reports to a select group of powerful journalists who had
written articles that he had approved of. The other
journalists had to fight for any news crumbs he deigned
to offer.
The junior senator began to fascinate the press corps
—he was tough yet sympathetic to the journalists’ job.
And most important, he knew how to give them a good
story. Soon some of them were writing about him as a
zealous patriot, a future political force to be reckoned
with. Now Russell could properly defend his elevation of
Johnson—the senator from Texas had done a great job
and had finally gotten the Senate some positive publicity.
In May and June of 1951, Johnson and Russell
worked closely together on the recall of General
MacArthur from Korea. Now Russell had a firsthand
view of Johnson’s staff, and he was astounded at how
efficient it was, larger and better organized than his own.
It made Russell feel out of step with the times. But
Johnson, as if sensing his thoughts, began to help
Russell build his own modern staff. He gave him
complete access to the legal and public relations teams
he had developed, showing Russell how helpful they
could be. As Johnson worked with him on this, the bond
between them grew even tighter. One day Russell told a
reporter, “That Lyndon Johnson could be president, and
would make a good one.” The reporter was
flabbergasted. It was so unlike Russell to ever pay such a
compliment.
One spring day in 1951, Senator Hubert Humphrey of
Minnesota was waiting to catch the subway to the Capitol
when Lyndon Johnson suddenly approached him and
suggested they ride together and talk. Such words were
like music to Humphrey; he almost couldn’t believe
Johnson was sincere in the offer. Humphrey had joined
the Senate at the same time as Johnson, and he had been
considered the bigger star, a charismatic liberal who
could be president one day. Humphrey, however, had a
problem that had completely impeded his rise to the top:
he believed so stridently in liberal causes that he had
alienated almost everyone else. In his first speech to the
Senate, Humphrey criticized the institution for its slow
pace of change and its cozy atmosphere. Soon he was
paid back in kind—relegated to the worst committees.
The bills he introduced went nowhere. When he would
walk into the Senate cloakroom, he would be shunned by
almost everyone. As this ostracism got worse, Humphrey
felt increasingly depressed and despondent. Sometimes
driving home from work, he would pull over and cry. His
career had taken a very wrong turn.
In the subway car together, Johnson praised him
effusively. “Hubert,” he told him, “you have no idea what
a wonderful experience it is for me ride to the Senate
chamber with you. There are so many ways I envy you.
You are articulate, you have such a broad range of
knowledge.” Feeling relieved to hear this, Humphrey was
then surprised by the vehemence of Johnson’s criticisms
that followed. “But goddammit, Hubert, you’re spending
so much time making speeches that there is no time left
to get anything done.” Humphrey needed to be more
pragmatic, fit in better. When they finally parted,
Johnson invited Humphrey to stop by his office one day
for drinks. Humphrey soon became a regular visitor, and
this southern senator, quite loathed by northern liberals
as the darling of the conservative Russell, enthralled
him.
First, Johnson was immensely entertaining.
Everything he said was accompanied by some folksy
anecdote, often of a bawdy nature but always teaching
some wicked lesson. Sitting in his office, the drinks being
lavishly poured, he would instigate bouts of laughter that
would reverberate through the corridors. It was hard to
resist a man who could put you in a good mood. He had
incredible presence. As Humphrey later wrote, “He’d
come on just like a tidal wave sweeping all over the place.
He went through walls. He’d come through a door and
he’d take the whole room over.”
Second, he had such invaluable information to share.
He taught Humphrey all of the intricacies of Senate
procedure and the knowledge he had accrued about the
psychological weaknesses of various senators through
close observation. He had become the greatest vote
counter in the history of the Senate, able to predict the
results of almost any Senate vote with astounding
accuracy. He shared with Humphrey his vote-counting
method.
Finally, he taught Humphrey the power he could have
by compromising, by being more pragmatic and less
idealistic. He would share with him stories about FDR,
Humphrey’s hero. When Johnson was in the House of
Representatives, he had become close friends with the
president. FDR, according to Johnson, was a
consummate politician who knew how to get things done
by retreating tactically and even compromising. The
subtext here was that Johnson was really a closet liberal
who also idolized FDR and who wanted just as much as
Humphrey to pass a civil rights bill. They were both on
the same side, fighting for the same noble causes.
Working with Johnson, there was no limit to how
high Humphrey could rise within the Senate and beyond.
As Johnson had correctly guessed, Humphrey had
presidential ambitions. Johnson himself could never
become president, or so he said to Humphrey, because
the nation was not ready for a president from the South.
But he could help Humphrey get there. Together they
would make an unbeatable team.
What sealed the deal for Humphrey, however, was
how Johnson proceeded to make his life easier within the
Senate. Johnson talked to his fellow southern Democrats
about Humphrey’s intelligence and humor, how they had
misread him as a man. Having softened them up in this
way, Johnson then reintroduced Humphrey to these
senators, who found him charming. Most important of
all, he got Russell to change his mind—and Russell could
move mountains. Now that he was sharing drinks with
the more powerful senators, Humphrey’s loneliness
faded away. He felt compelled to return the favor and to
get many northern liberals to change their minds about
Johnson, whose influence was now beginning to spread
like an invisible gas.
 In 1952 the Republicans swept into power with the
election of Dwight D. Eisenhower as president, taking in
the process control of the Senate and the House. One of
the casualties in the election was Ernest McFarland of
Arizona, the former Democratic leader in the Senate.
Now that the leadership position was vacant, the
scrambling for his replacement began.
Johnson suggested that Russell himself take the
position, but Russell declined. He could have more
power operating behind the scenes. Instead he told
Johnson he should be the next leader, and Russell could
make it happen. Johnson, acting surprised, said he
would consider it, but only if Russell would remain the
Old Master and advise Johnson every step of the way. He
did not have to say another word. Within weeks, Russell
had essentially helped secure him the position, and it
was a remarkable coup. At the age of forty-four, Johnson
was by far the youngest leader in the history of either
party.
Several weeks into his new position, Johnson came to
Russell with a most unusual request. Positions on key
committees had been based for decades on seniority. But
what this meant was that committee chairmen were
often not up to the job. Men in their seventies and
eighties had ideas that were rooted in the past. They did
not have the stomach for a big fight. Now, with the
Republicans in full control, they were planning on rolling
back some of FDR’s greatest achievements with the New
Deal and in foreign policy. It was going to be a rough two
years until midterm elections.
Johnson wanted the power as the leader of the Senate
Democrats to alter the committee landscape. He was not
advocating anything radical. He would shift here and
there a few committees and chairmanships, bringing in
some fresh blood, such as the newly elected Senator
John Kennedy, and Hubert Humphrey, whom he wanted
to get on the Foreign Relations Committee. These
younger men would give a fresh public face to the party
and bring some energy in combating the Republicans.
Russell could see the wisdom in this, and he gave
Johnson his tacit approval, but he also warned him:
“You’re dealing with the most sensitive thing in the
Senate. . . . [You’re] playing with dynamite.”
Johnson approached other older senators. Some were
easy to convince, such as Senator Robert Byrd, who had
a great fondness for the new leader. Liberals came on
board with these changes, thanks to the work of
Humphrey, who now had tremendous power as the
liaison between Johnson and the northerners. Others
were much more recalcitrant. Johnson, however, would
not give up the fight. With those who continued to resist,
he went into a higher gear. He became relentless. He
would spend hours in his office behind a closed door,
talking to himself, rehearsing his arguments and the
counterarguments of these stubborn senators until he
was sure he had found the perfect approach. To some he
argued pure pragmatism—the need to defeat the
Republicans at all costs. With others he reached back to
the glory years of FDR. To southern senators he made it
clear that making the party more powerful and unified
would make Johnson’s job easier, and that as a fellow
southerner he would be their ultimate ally in further
fights.
He served them endless drinks in his office, pulled out
the full arsenal of his wit and charm. He would telephone
them at all hours. If the senator continued resisting, he
would call again later in the evening. He never argued
with vehemence or tried to force the issue. He saw their
side. He offered numerous quid pro quos. Eventually, as
one senator after another relented, he got the last
holdouts to cave in. Somehow Johnson was now
someone to fear; if they did not give in and remained one
of the few holdouts, clearly he could make their lives
miserable over the next few years.
 When it finally became public, the Republicans and
the press were astounded at what Lyndon Johnson had
accomplished. In a matter of weeks, since assuming the
leadership position, he had gained unprecedented
powers. He, not the seniority system, controlled
committee appointments. He was now the undisputed
“Master of the Senate,” and the byword among his
colleagues was “Let Lyndon do it.” Drawn into his sphere
of influence was the most unlikely cast of characters—
from Dick Russell to Hubert Humphrey. But the most
astonished person of all must have been Senator Tom
Connally himself. In four short years, Johnson had not
only risen to the top but had gained control of the Senate
Democrats through a slow and steady campaign of
accumulating influence, far surpassing the power
Connally had accrued in over twenty years of service.

• • •
Interpretation: From the beginning of his political
career, Johnson had a single ambition—to one day
become president of the United States. To get there he
needed a relatively swift rise to prominence. The younger
he reached leadership positions, the more time he would
have to spread his name and gain leverage within the
Democratic Party. Elected to the House of
Representatives at the age of twenty-eight, he seemed on
track to get what he wanted, but in the House his career
got bogged down. The place was so big and complex, and
he was not good at dealing with large groups. He was not
an exciting public speaker. He was much more charming
in one-on-one situations. He became frustrated and
restless. Finally reaching the Senate at the age of forty,
he brought with him his impatience, as evidenced by his
meeting with Connally. But shortly before his
inauguration, he toured the floor of the Senate and had
an epiphany: the place was much smaller; it was more
like a cozy club for gentlemen. Here he could work one
on one and slowly gain power by accumulating influence.
 To accomplish this, however, he had to transform
himself. He was naturally aggressive; he would have to
rein this in, slow down, and step back. He would have to
stop talking so much and getting into heated arguments.
Let other people do the talking; let them feel like the star
of the show. Stop thinking of himself; instead, focus
completely on his fellow senators as they talked and
talked. Assume the inoffensive front of the junior senator
learning the ropes, the serious and somewhat dull
student of procedure and legislation. Behind this front he
could observe people without seeming ambitious or
aggressive. In this way he could slowly gain knowledge of
the inner workings of the Senate—vote counting, how
bills were actually passed—and insights into the various
senators, their deepest insecurities and weaknesses. At
some point, his deep understanding of the institution
would translate into a commodity he could exchange for
influence and favors.
After several months of this campaign, he was able to
alter the reputation he had had in the House. He no
longer seemed a threat, and with the senators’ defenses
down, Johnson could escalate his campaign.
He turned his attention to winning over key allies. As
he had always believed, having one key ally at or near the
top of the hierarchy could move mountains. Early on he
spotted Senator Russell as the perfect target—lonely, a
believer in a cause without any real disciples, and very
powerful. Johnson genuinely liked Russell, and he was
always in search of father figures, but his attention and
approach were highly strategic. He made sure he got
appointed to the Armed Services Committee, where he
would have the most access to Russell. Their constant
encounters in the hallway or the cloakroom were rarely
accidental. Without making it obvious, he slowly
increased the hours they spent together. Johnson had
never liked baseball and could care less about the Civil
War, but he quickly learned to cultivate an interest in
both. He mirrored back to Russell his own conservative
values and work ethic and made the lonely senator feel
like he had not only a friend but a worshipping son and
disciple.
Johnson was careful to never ask for favors. Instead
he quietly did favors himself for Russell, helping him to
modernize his staff. When Johnson finally wanted
something, such as the chairmanship of the
subcommittee, he would insinuate his desire rather than
directly express it. Russell would come to see him as an
extension of his own political ambitions, and at that
point he would do almost anything for his acolyte.
Within a few years, word got around that Johnson
was a masterful vote counter and had inside knowledge
on various senators, the kind of information that could
be extremely useful when trying to get a bill passed. Now
senators would come to him for this information, and he
would share it with the understanding that at some point
he would expect favors in return. Slowly his influence
was spreading, but he realized that his desire to have the
dominant position within his party and the Senate had
one major obstacle—the northern liberals.
Once again, Johnson chose the perfect target—
Senator Humphrey. He read him as a man who was
lonely, in need of validation, but who was also
tremendously ambitious. The way to Humphrey’s heart
was threefold: make him feel liked, confirm his belief
that he was presidential material, and give him the
practical tools to realize his ambitions. As he had done
with Russell, Johnson gave Humphrey the impression
that he was secretly on his side, mirroring Humphrey’s
deepest values by sharing his adoration of FDR. After
several months of this campaign, Humphrey would do
almost anything for Johnson. Now with a bridgehead
established to the northern liberals, Johnson had
expanded his influence to all corners of the Senate.
 By the time the leadership position opened up,
Johnson had established tremendous credibility as
someone who returned favors, who could get things
done, and who had very powerful allies. His desire to get
control over committee assignments represented a
radical change in the system, but he carefully couched it
as a way to enhance the Democratic Party and help
individual senators in their various battles with
Republicans. It was in their interest to hand over power
to Lyndon Johnson. Step by step he had acquired such
influence without ever appearing aggressive or even
threatening. By the time those in the party realized what
had happened, it was too late—he was in complete
control of the chessboard, the Master of the Senate.
Understand: Influence over people and the power
that it brings are gained in the opposite way from what
you might imagine. Normally we try to charm people
with our own ideas, showing ourselves off in the best
light. We hype our past accomplishments. We promise
great things about ourselves. We ask for favors, believing
that being honest is the best policy. What we do not
realize is that we are putting all of the attention on
ourselves. In a world where people are increasingly self-
absorbed, this only has the effect of making others turn
more inward in return and think more of their own
interests rather than ours.
As the story of Johnson demonstrates, the royal road
to influence and power is to go the opposite direction:
Put the focus on others. Let them do the talking. Let
them be the stars of the show. Their opinions and values
are worth emulating. The causes they support are the
noblest. Such attention is so rare in this world, and
people are so hungry for it, that giving them such
validation will lower their defenses and open their minds
to whatever ideas you want to insinuate.
Your first move then is always to step back and
assume an inferior position in relation to the other. Make
it subtle. Ask for their advice. People are dying to impart
their wisdom and experience. Once you feel that they are
addicted to this attention, you can initiate a cycle of
favors by doing something small for them, something
that saves them time or effort. They will instantly want to
reciprocate and will return the favor without feeling
manipulated or pushed. And once people do favors for
you, they will continue to work on your behalf. In doing
something for you, they have judged you worthy of this,
and to stop helping you would mean to call into question
their original judgment and their own intelligence, which
people are very reluctant to do. Working slowly this way
in a group, you will expand your influence without its
seeming aggressive or even purposeful, the ultimate
disguise for your ambitions.
The true spirit of conversation consists more in bringing out
the cleverness of others than in showing a great deal of it
yourself; he who goes away pleased with himself and his own
wit is also greatly pleased with you. Most men . . . seek less to
be instructed, and even to be amused, than to be praised and
applauded.
—Jean de La Bruyère

Keys to Human Nature

From early on in life we humans develop a defensive and
self-protective side to our personality. It begins in early
childhood as we cultivate a sense of personal physical
space that others should not violate. It later expands into
a feeling of personal dignity—people should not coerce or
manipulate us into doing things we don’t want to. We
should be free to choose what we desire. These are
necessary developments in our growth as socialized
humans.
As we get older, however, these defensive qualities
often solidify into something much more rigid, and for
good reason. People are continually judging and
appraising us—are we competent enough, good enough,
a team player? We never feel quite free of this scrutiny.
One noticeable failure in our lives, and people’s scrutiny
will turn into negative judgments that can cripple us for
a long time. Furthermore, we have the feeling that people
are always trying to take from us—they want our time,
our money, our ideas, our labor. In the face of all of this,
we naturally become more self-absorbed and defensive—
we have to look after our own interests, since nobody
else will. We set up walls around ourselves to keep out
intruders and those who want something from us.
By the time we reach our twenties, we have all
developed systems of defense, but in certain
circumstances our inner walls can come tumbling down.
For instance, during a night of revelry with friends,
perhaps after some drinking, we feel bonded with others
and not judged by them. Our minds loosen up, and
suddenly new and very interesting ideas come to us, and
we’re open to doing things we would normally never do.
In another instance, perhaps we attend some public rally
and hear an inspiring speaker advocating for a cause.
Feeling on the same page as hundreds of others, caught
up in the group spirit, we suddenly feel called to action
and to work for the cause—something we might normally
resist.
The most telling example, however, occurs when we
fall in love and the feeling is reciprocated. The other
person appreciates and reflects back to us our most
positive qualities. We feel worthy of being loved. Under
such a spell, we let go of our ego and our habitual
stubbornness; we give the other person unusual sway
over our willpower.
What these moments have in common is that we feel
inwardly secure—not judged but accepted by friends, the
group, or the loved one. We see a reflection of ourselves
in others. We can relax. At our core we feel validated.
Not needing to turn inward and defensive, we can direct
our minds outward, beyond our ego—to a cause, a new
idea, or the happiness of the other.
 Understand: Creating this feeling of validation is
the golden key that will unlock people’s defenses. And we
cannot survive and thrive in this highly competitive
world without possessing such a power.
We continually find ourselves in situations in which
we need to move people from their resistant positions.
We need their assistance, or we need the ability to alter
their ugly behavior. If we flail about, improvising in the
moment, trying to plead, cajole, and even make people
feel guilty, we are more than likely only making them
more defensive. If we somehow succeed in getting what
we want through these methods, their support is thin,
with an undercurrent of resentment. We have taken from
them—time, money, ideas—and they will close
themselves off to further influence. And if we go through
long stretches of time continually butting up against
people’s resistance and getting nowhere, we can face a
very dangerous dynamic in life—mounting frustration at
the apparent indifference of people. This subtly infects
our attitude. When we find ourselves in situations
needing to influence people, they sense our neediness
and insecurity. We try too hard to please. We seem ever
so slightly desperate, defeated before starting. This can
turn into a negative self-fulfilling dynamic that will keep
us marginalized without ever being aware of the source
of the problem.
Before it is too late we must turn this dynamic
around, as Johnson did at the age of forty. We must
discover the power that we can possess by giving people
the validation they crave and lowering their defenses.
And the key to making this happen in a realistic and
strategic manner is to fully understand a fundamental
law of human nature.
This law is as follows: People have a perception about
themselves that we shall call their self-opinion. This self-
opinion can be accurate or not—it doesn’t matter. What
matters is how people perceive their own character and
worthiness. And there are three qualities to people’s self-
opinion that are nearly universal: “I am autonomous,
acting of my own free will”; “I am intelligent in my own
way”; and “I am basically good and decent.”
When it comes to the first universal (I am acting of
my own free will), if we join a group, or believe
something, or buy a product, it is because we choose to
do so. The truth might be that we were manipulated or
succumbed to peer pressure, but we will tell ourselves
something else. If we ever feel consciously coerced—as in
having to obey a boss—we either tell ourselves we have
chosen to obey or we deeply resent being forced and
manipulated. In the latter case, we might smile and obey,
but we will find a way to secretly rebel. In other words,
we feel the need to continually express and assert our
free will.
With the second universal (I am intelligent), we may
realize we are not on the level of an Einstein, but in our
field, in our own way, we are intelligent. A plumber
revels in his superior knowledge of the inner workings of
a house and in his manual skills, which are a form of
intelligence. He also thinks his political opinions come
from solid common sense, another sign of intelligence, as
he sees it. People are generally never comfortable with
the thought that they could be gullible and less than
intelligent. If they have to admit they are not smart in the
conventional way, they will at least think they are
cleverer than others.
With the third universal (I am a good person), we like
to see ourselves as supporting the right causes. We treat
people well. We are a team player. If we happen to be the
boss and we like to instill discipline in the troops, we call
it “tough love.” We are acting for the good of others.
In addition to these universals, we find that people
have more personalized self-opinions that serve to
regulate their particular insecurities. For instance, “I’m a
free spirit, one of a kind” or “I’m very self-reliant and
don’t need anybody’s help” or “I am good-looking and I
can depend on that” or “I am a rebel and disdain all
authority.” Implied in these various self-opinions is a
feeling of superiority in this one area: “I am a rebel and
you are less so.” Many of these types of self-opinions are
related to developmental issues in early childhood. For
instance, the rebel type had a father figure who
disappointed him; or perhaps he suffered from bullying
and cannot bear any feeling of inferiority. He must
despise all authority. The self-reliant type may have
experienced a very distant mother, be haunted by
feelings of abandonment, and have crafted a self-image
of rugged independence.
Our self-opinion is primary: it determines so much of
our thinking and our values. We will not entertain ideas
that clash with our self-opinion. Let us say we see
ourselves as particularly tough and self-reliant. We will
then gravitate toward ideas and philosophies that are
realistic, hard-core, and unforgiving of others’
weaknesses. If in this scenario we also happen to be
Christian, we will then reinterpret Christian religious
doctrines to match our tough self-image, finding
elements within Christianity that emphasize self-
reliance, tough love, and the need to destroy our
enemies. In general, we will choose to belong to groups
that validate our feeling of being noble and smart. We
might think we have particular ideas or values that stand
on their own, but in fact they are dependent on our self-
opinion.
When you try to convince people of something, one of
three things will happen. First, you might inadvertently
challenge a particular aspect of their self-opinion. In a
discussion that might turn into an argument, you make
them feel stupid or brainwashed or less than good. Even
if you are subtle in your arguments, the implication is
that you know better. If this happens, you make people
even more defensive and resistant. Walls go up that will
never come down.
Second, you can leave their self-opinion in a neutral
position—neither challenged nor confirmed. This often
happens if you try to be reasonable and calm in your
approach, avoiding any emotional extremes. In this
scenario people remain resistant and dubious, but you
have at least not tightened them up, and you have some
room to maneuver them with your rational arguments.
Third, you can actively confirm their self-opinion. In
this case you are fulfilling one of people’s greatest
emotional needs. We can imagine that we are
independent, intelligent, decent, and self-reliant, but
only other people can truly confirm this for us. And in a
harsh and competitive world in which we are all prone to
continual self-doubt, we almost never get this validation
that we crave. When you give it to people, you will have
the magical effect that occurred when you yourself were
drunk, or at a rally, or in love. You will make people
relax. No longer consumed by insecurities, they can
direct their attention outward. Their minds open,
making them susceptible to suggestion and insinuation.
If they decide to help you, they feel like they are doing
this of their own free will.
Your task is simple: instill in people a feeling of inner
security. Mirror their values; show that you like and
respect them. Make them feel you appreciate their
wisdom and experience. Generate an atmosphere of
mutual warmth. Get them to laugh along with you,
instilling a feeling of rapport. All of this works best if the
feelings are not completely faked. By exercising your
empathy, by getting inside their perspective (see chapter
2 for more on this), you are more likely to genuinely feel
at least a part of such emotions. Practice this often
enough and confirming people’s self-opinion will become
your default position—you will have a loosening-up effect
on almost everyone you encounter.
 One caveat: most people have a relatively high self-
opinion, but some people have a low opinion of
themselves. They tell themselves, “I am not worthy of
good things” or “I am not such a nice person” or “I have
too many problems and issues.” Because they generally
expect bad things to happen to them, they often feel
relieved and justified when bad things do happen. In this
way their low self-opinion serves to calm their
insecurities about ever getting success in life. If your
targets have a low self-opinion, the same rule applies. If
you insist that they can easily better their lives by
following your advice, this will clash with their belief that
the world is against them and that they really do not
deserve such good things. They will discount your ideas
and resist you. Instead you must work from within their
self-opinion, empathizing with the injustices in their life
and the difficulties they have faced. Now, with them
feeling validated and mirrored, you have some latitude to
make gentle corrections and even apply some reverse
psychology (see the section below).
Finally, the greatest obstacle you will face in
developing these powers comes from a cultural prejudice
against the very idea of influence: “Why can’t we all just
be honest and transparent with one another, and simply
ask for what we want? Why can’t we just let people be
who they are and not try to change them? Being strategic
is ugly and manipulative.” First, when people tell you
such things, you should be on guard. We humans cannot
stand feelings of powerlessness. We need to have
influence or we become miserable. The honestymongers
are no different, but because they need to believe in their
angelic qualities, they cannot square this self-opinion
with the need to have influence. And so they often
become passive-aggressive, pouting and making others
feel guilty as a means of getting what they want. Never
take people who say such things at face value.
 Second, we humans cannot avoid trying to influence
others. Everything we say or do is examined and
interpreted by others for clues as to our intentions. We
are silent? Perhaps it is because we are upset and want to
make this clear. Or we are genuinely listening as a way of
trying to impress with our politeness. No matter what we
do, people will read into it attempts at influence, and
they are not wrong in doing so. As social animals we
cannot avoid constantly playing the game, whether we
are conscious of this or not.
Most people do not want to expend the effort that
goes into thinking about others and figuring out a
strategic entry past their defenses. They are lazy. They
want to simply be themselves, speak honestly, or do
nothing, and justify this to themselves as stemming from
some great moral choice.
Since the game is unavoidable, better to be skillful at
it than in denial or merely improvising in the moment. In
the end, being good at influence is actually more socially
beneficial than the moral stance. By having this power,
we can influence people who have dangerous or
antisocial ideas. Becoming proficient at persuasion
requires that we immerse ourselves in the perspective of
others, exercising our empathy. We might have to abide
by the cultural prejudice and nod our heads in
agreement about the need for complete honesty, but
inwardly we must realize that this is nonsense and
practice what is necessary for our own well-being.

Five Strategies for Becoming a Master

Persuader
The following five strategies—distilled from the examples
of the greatest influencers in history—are designed to
help you focus more deeply on your targets and create
the kinds of emotional effects that will help lower
people’s resistance. It would be wise to put all five into
practice.
1. Transform yourself into a deep listener. In
the normal flow of a conversation, our attention is
divided. We hear parts of what other people are saying,
in order to follow and keep the conversation going. At
the same time, we’re planning what we’ll say next, some
exciting story of our own. Or we are even daydreaming
about something irrelevant. The reason for this is simple:
we are more interested in our own thoughts, feelings,
and experiences than in those of the other person. If this
were not the case, we would find it relatively easy to
listen with full attention. The usual prescription is to talk
less and listen more, but this is meaningless advice as
long as we prefer our own internal monologue. The only
solution is to somehow be motivated to reverse this
dynamic.
Think of it this way: You know your own thoughts
only too well. You are rarely surprised. Your mind tends
to circle obsessively around the same subjects. But each
person you encounter represents an undiscovered
country full of surprises. Imagine for a moment that you
could step inside people’s minds and what an amazing
journey that could be. People who seem quiet and dull
often have the strangest inner lives for you to explore.
Even with boors and fools, you can educate yourself as to
the origins and nature of their flaws. Transforming
yourself into a deep listener will not only prove more
amusing as you open your mind to their mind but will
also provide the most invaluable lessons about human
psychology.
Once you are motivated to listen, the rest is relatively
simple. You cannot make the strategic purpose behind
your listening too obvious. The other person has to feel it
is a lively exchange, even though in the end they may do
80 percent of the talking. For this purpose, you must not
barrage them with questions that make it feel like a job
interview. Instead, pay attention to their nonverbal cues.
You will see their eyes light up when certain topics are
mentioned—you must guide the conversation in that
direction. People will become chatty without realizing it.
Almost everyone likes to talk about their childhood, their
family, the ins and outs of their work, or some cause that
is dear to them. An occasional question or comment
plays off something they have said.
You are deeply absorbed in what they say, but you
must feel and appear relaxed in being so. You convey
that you are listening by maintaining relatively
consistent eye contact and nodding as they talk. The best
way to signal how deeply you are listening is to
occasionally say something that mirrors what they have
said, but in your own words and filtered through your
own experience. In the end, the more they talk, the more
they will reveal about their insecurities and unmet
desires.
Your goal is to make them come away from the
encounter feeling better about themselves. You have let
them be the star of the show. You have drawn out of
them the wittier, more fun-loving side of their
personality. They will love you for this and will look
forward to the next encounter. As they become
increasingly relaxed in your presence, you will have great
latitude for planting ideas and influencing their
behavior.
2. Infect people with the proper mood. As social
animals, we are extremely susceptible to the moods of
other people. This gives us the power to subtly infuse
into people the appropriate mood for influencing them.
If you are relaxed and anticipating a pleasurable
experience, this will communicate itself and have a
mirror-like effect on the other person. One of the best
attitudes to adapt for this purpose is one of complete
indulgence. You do not judge other people; you accept
them as they are.
 In the novel The Ambassadors, the writer Henry
James paints the portrait of this ideal in the form of
Marie de Vionnet, an older French woman of impeccable
manners who surreptitiously uses an American named
Lambert Strether to help her in a love affair. From the
very moment he meets her, Strether is captivated. She
seems a “mix of lucidity and mystery.” She listens deeply
to what he says and, without responding, gives him the
feeling she completely understands him. She envelops
him in her empathy. She acts from the beginning as if
they have become good friends, but it is in her manner,
nothing she says. He calls her indulgent spirit “a
beautiful conscious mildness,” and it has a hypnotic
power over him. Well before she even asks for his help,
he is completely under her spell and will do anything for
her. Such an attitude replicates the ideal mother figure—
unconditional in her love. It is not expressed so much in
words as in looks and body language. It works equally
well on men and women and has an hypnotic effect on
almost anyone.
A variation of this is to infect people with a warm
feeling of rapport through laughter and shared pleasures.
Lyndon Johnson was the master of this. Of course, he
used alcohol, which flowed freely in his office, his targets
never knowing that his own drinks were greatly watered
down so he could retain control of himself. His bawdy
jokes and colorful anecdotes created a comfortable club-
like atmosphere for men. It was hard to resist the mood
he set. Johnson could also be quite physical, often
wrapping his arms around a man’s shoulder, frequently
touching him on the arm. Many studies on nonverbal
cues have demonstrated the incredible power that a
simple touch of people’s hands or arms can have in any
interaction, making them think positive things about you
without their ever being aware of the source of their good
opinion. Such gentle taps establish a feeling of visceral
rapport, as long as you do not maintain eye contact,
which will give it too much of a sexual connotation.
 Keep in mind that your expectations about people are
communicated to them nonverbally. It has been
demonstrated, for instance, that teachers who expect
greater things from their pupils can, without ever saying
anything, have a positive effect on their work and grades.
By feeling particularly excited when you’re meeting
someone, you will communicate this to him or her in a
powerful way. If there is a person of whom you will
eventually ask a favor, try imagining him or her in the
best light—generous and caring—if that is possible. Some
have claimed to get great results by simply thinking the
other person is handsome or good-looking.
3. Confirm their self-opinion. Recall the
universal qualities of the self-opinions of people with a
high self-opinion. Here’s how to approach each one of
them.
Autonomy. No attempt at influence can ever work if
people feel in any way that they are being coerced or
manipulated. They must choose to do whatever it is you
want them to do, or they must at least experience it as
their choice. The more deeply you can create this
impression, the greater your chances of success.
In the novel Tom Sawyer, the twelve-year-old
protagonist of the same name is portrayed as an
extremely savvy boy, raised by his aunt, with an uncanny
sensitivity to human nature. Despite his cleverness, Tom
is always getting into trouble. The second chapter of the
book begins with Tom being punished for getting in a
fight. Instead of spending a hot summer Saturday
afternoon messing around with his friends and
swimming in the river, Tom has to whitewash the very
large fence in the front of the house. As he starts the job,
his friend Ben Rogers walks by, eating a delicious-
looking apple. Ben is as mischievous as Tom, and seeing
him at this tedious chore, he decides to torment him by
asking him if he’s planning on going for a swim that
afternoon, knowing full well he can’t.
 Tom pretends to feign deep interest in his work. Now
Ben is curious. He asks Tom if he’s seriously more
interested in painting the fence than in having some fun.
Tom finally addresses him, while still keeping an eye on
his work. His aunt would not give such a job to just
anyone, he says. It is what people see first of their house
when they pass by. This is a very important job that
won’t come up again for many years. In the past he and
his friends painted something on fences and got into
trouble; now he can do so freely. It is a challenge, a test
of skill. And yes, he enjoys it. Swimming can be done any
old weekend, but not this.
Ben asks if he can try his hand, to see what Tom
means. After several pleas, Tom finally relents, only after
Ben offers him his apple. Soon other boys approach and
Tom does the same sell job on them, accumulating more
pieces of fruit and toys. An hour later, we see Tom lying
in the shade while a whole team of friends finishes the
job for him. Tom used basic psychology to get what he
wanted. First, he got Ben to reinterpret this job, not by
saying anything but through his absorbed attention in
the task and his body language: the task must be
something interesting. Second, he framed the job as a
test of skill and intelligence, a rare opportunity,
something that would appeal to any competitive boy.
And finally, as he knew, once the neighborhood boys saw
others at the task, they would want to join in, making it a
group activity. Nobody wanted to be left out. Tom could
have pleaded with dozens of friends to help him and
gotten nowhere. Instead he framed it in such a way that
they wanted to do the work. They came to him, begging
for the job.
Your attempts at influence must always follow a
similar logic: how can you get others to perceive the
favor you want to ask for as something they already
desire? Framing it as something pleasurable, as a rare
opportunity, and as something other people want to do
will generally have the proper effect.
Another variation on this is to appeal directly to
people’s competitive instincts. In 1948 the director Billy
Wilder was casting for his new film A Foreign Affair,
which was to be set in Berlin just after the war. One of
the main characters was a woman named Erika von
Shluetow, a German cabaret singer with suspicious ties
to various Nazis during the war. Wilder knew that
Marlene Dietrich would be the perfect actress to play the
part, but Dietrich had publicly expressed her intense
dislike of anything having to do with the Nazis and had
worked hard for various Allied causes. When first
approached about the role, she found it too distasteful,
and that was the end of the discussion.
Wilder did not protest or plead with her, which would
have been futile, given Dietrich’s famed stubbornness.
Instead he told her he had found two perfect American
actresses to play the part, but he wanted her opinion on
which would be better. Would she view their tests?
Feeling bad that she had turned down her old friend
Wilder, Dietrich naturally agreed to this. But Wilder had
cleverly tested two well-known actresses whom he knew
would be quite terrible for the role, making a mockery of
the part of a sexy German cabaret singer. The ploy
worked like a charm. The very competitive Dietrich was
aghast at their performances and immediately
volunteered to do the part herself.
Finally, when giving people gifts or rewards as a
possible means of winning them over to your side, it is
always best to give smaller gifts or rewards than larger
ones. Large gifts make it too apparent that you are trying
to buy their loyalty, which will offend people’s sense of
independence. Some might accept large gifts out of need,
but later they will feel resentful or suspicious. Smaller
gifts have a better effect—people can tell themselves they
deserve such things and are not being bought or bribed.
In fact, such smaller rewards, spread out over time, will
bind people to you in a much greater way than anything
lavish.
Intelligence.When you disagree with another person
and impose your contrary opinion, you are implying that
you know better, that you have thought things through
more rationally. People challenged in this way will then
naturally become even more attached to their opinions.
You can prevent this by being more neutral, as if this
opposing idea is simply something you are entertaining
and it could be wrong. But better still, you can go much
further: you see their point of view and agree with it.
(Winning arguments is rarely worth the effort.) With
their intelligence flattered, you now have some room to
gently alter their opinion or have lowered their defenses
for a request for help.
The nineteenth-century British prime minister and
novelist Benjamin Disraeli conceived of an even cleverer
ploy when he wrote, “If you wish to win a man’s heart,
allow him to confute you.” You do this by beginning to
disagree with a target about a subject, even with some
vehemence, and then slowly come to seeing their point of
view, thereby confirming not only their intelligence but
also their own powers of influence. They feel ever so
slightly superior to you, which is precisely what you
want. They will now be doubly vulnerable to a
countermove of your own. You can create a similar effect
by asking people for advice. The implication is that you
respect their wisdom and experience.
In 1782 the French playwright Pierre-Augustin Caron
de Beaumarchais put the finishing touches on his great
masterpiece The Marriage of Figaro. The approval of
King Louis XVI was required, and when he read the
manuscript, he was furious. Such a play would lead to a
revolution, he said: “This man mocks everything that
must be respected in a government.” After much
pressure he agreed to have it privately performed in a
theater at Versailles. The aristocratic audience loved it.
The king allowed more performances, but he directed his
censors to get their hands on the script and alter its
worst passages before it was presented to the public.
To bypass this, Beaumarchais commissioned a
tribunal of academics, intellectuals, courtiers, and
government ministers to go over the play with him. A
man who attended the meeting wrote, “M. de
Beaumarchais announced that he would submit
unreservedly to every cut and change that the gentlemen
and even the ladies present might deem appropriate. . . .
Everyone wanted to add something of his own. . . . M. de
Breteuil suggested a witticism, Beaumarchais accepted it
and thanked him. . . . ‘It will save the fourth act.’ Mme de
Matignon contributed the color of the little page’s
ribbon. The color was adopted and became fashionable.”
Beaumarchais was indeed a very clever courtier. By
allowing others to make even the smallest changes to his
masterpiece, he greatly flattered their egos and their
intelligence. Of course, on the larger changes later
requested by Louis’s censors, Beaumarchais did not
relent. By then he had so won over the members of his
own tribunal that they stridently defended him, and
Louis had to back down. Lowering people’s defenses in
this way on matters that are not so important will give
you great latitude to move them in the direction you
desire and get them to concede to your desires on more
important matters.
Goodness. In our daily thoughts, we constantly comfort
ourselves as to the moral nature of our actions. If we are
employees of a company, we see ourselves as good team
members. If we are bosses, we treat people well, or at
least we pay and support them well. We help the right
causes. In general, we do not like to see ourselves as
selfish and narrowly focused on our own agenda. Just as
important, we want others to see us in this light. Look at
social media and how people will make a display of
supporting the best causes. Few people give to charities
anonymously—they want their names loudly advertised.
You must never inadvertently cast doubts on this
saintly self-opinion. To make positive use of this trait in
people, frame what you are asking them to do as part of a
larger cause that they can participate in. They are not
merely buying clothes but helping the environment or
keeping jobs local. In taking these actions, people can
feel better about themselves. Keep it subtle. If you are
trying to get recruits for a job, let others spread the
message about the cause. Make it appear prosocial and
popular. Make people want to join the group, instead of
having to plead with them. Pay great attention to the
words and labels you use. It is better, for instance, to call
someone a team member than an employee.
To put yourself in the inferior, one-down position,
you can commit some relatively harmless faux pas, even
offend people in a more pronounced way, and then ask
for their forgiveness. By asking for this, you imply their
moral superiority, a position people love to occupy. Now
they are vulnerable to suggestion.
Finally, if you need a favor from people, do not
remind them of what you have done for them in the past,
trying to stimulate feelings of gratitude. Gratitude is rare
because it tends to remind us of our helplessness, our
dependence on others. We like to feel independent.
Instead, remind them of the good things they have done
for you in the past. This will help confirm their self-
opinion: “Yes, I am generous.” And once reminded, they
will want to continue to live up to this image and do yet
another good deed. A similar effect can come from
suddenly forgiving your enemies and forging a
rapprochement. In the emotional turmoil this creates,
they will feel obligated to live up to the high opinion you
have now shown toward them and will be extra
motivated to prove themselves worthy.
 4. Allay their insecurities. Everyone has
particular insecurities—about their looks, their creative
powers, their masculinity, their power status, their
uniqueness, their popularity, et cetera. Your task is to get
a bead on these insecurities through the various
conversations you draw them into.
Once you’ve identified them, you must first be extra
careful not to trigger them. People have grown sensitive
antennae for any words or body language that might cast
doubt on their physical appearance or their popularity,
or whatever their insecurity may be. Be aware of this and
be on guard. Second, the best strategy is to praise and
flatter those qualities that people are most insecure
about. We all crave this, even if we somehow see through
the person who is praising us. That is because we live in a
tough world in which we are continually judged, and
yesterday’s triumph is easily followed by tomorrow’s
failure. We never really feel secure. If the flattery is done
right, we feel that the flatterer likes us, and we tend to
like people who like us.
The key to successful flattery is to make it strategic. If
I know that I am particularly awful at basketball,
praising me for my basketball skills in any way will ring
false. But if I am uncertain about my skills, if I imagine I
am perhaps not really so bad, then any flattery on that
score can work wonders. Look for those qualities people
are uncertain about and offer reassurance. Lord
Chesterfield advised his son in his letters (later published
in 1774), “Cardinal Richelieu who was undoubtedly the
ablest statesman of his time . . . had the idle vanity of
being thought the best poet too: he envied the great
Corneille his reputation. Those, therefore, who flattered
skillfully, said little to him of abilities in state affairs, or
at least but en passant, and as it might naturally occur.
But the incense which they gave him, the smoke of which
they knew would turn his head in their favour, was as
a . . . poet.”
 If your targets are powerful and quite Machiavellian,
they might feel somewhat insecure about their moral
qualities. Flattering them about their clever
manipulations might backfire, but obvious praise of their
goodness would be too transparent, because they know
themselves too well. Instead, some strategic flattery
about how you have benefited from their advice and how
their criticisms helped improve your performance will
appeal to their self-opinion of being tough yet fair, with a
good heart underneath the gruff exterior.
It is always better to praise people for their effort, not
their talent. When you extol people for their talent, there
is a slight deprecation implied, as if they were simply
lucky for being born with natural skill. Instead, everyone
likes to feel that they earned their good fortune through
hard work, and that is where you must aim your praise.
With people who are your equals, you have more
room to flatter. With those who are your superiors, it is
best to simply agree with their opinions and validate
their wisdom. Flattering your boss is too transparent.
Never follow up your praise with a request for help, or
whatever it is you are after. Your flattery is a setup and
requires the passage of some time. Do not appear too
ingratiating in the first encounter or two. Better to show
even a little coldness, which will give you room to warm
up. After a few days you have grown to like this person,
and then a few flattering words aimed at their
insecurities will begin to melt their resistance. If
possible, get third parties to pass along your
compliments, as if they had simply overheard them.
Never be too lavish in your praise or use absolutes.
A clever way to cover your tracks is to mix in some
small criticisms of the person or their work, nothing that
will trigger insecurities but enough to give your praise a
more realistic hue: “I loved your screenplay, although I
feel act two might need a little work.” Do not say, “Your
latest book is so much better than the last one.” Be very
careful when people ask you for their opinion about their
work or something related to their character or their
looks. They do not want the truth; they want support and
confirmation given as realistically as possible. Be happy
to supply this for them.
You must seem as sincere as possible. It would be best
to choose qualities to praise that you actually admire, if
at all possible. In any event, what gives people away is
the nonverbal cues—praise along with stiff body
language or a fake smile or eyes glancing elsewhere. Try
to feel some of the good emotions you are expressing so
any exaggeration will seem less obvious. Keep in mind
that your target must have a relatively high self-opinion.
If it is low, the flattery will not jibe with how they feel
about themselves and will ring hollow, whereas for those
of high self-opinion it will seem only natural.
5. Use people’s resistance and stubbornness.
Some people are particularly resistant to any form of
influence. They are most often people with deeper levels
of insecurity and low self-opinion. This can manifest
itself in a rebellious attitude. Such types feel as if it is
them against the world. They must assert their will at all
costs and resist any kind of change. They will do the
opposite of what people suggest. They will seek advice
for a particular problem or symptom, only to find dozens
of reasons of why the advice given won’t work for them.
The best thing to do is to play a game of mental judo with
them. In judo you do not counter people’s moves with a
thrust of your own but rather encourage their aggressive
energy (resistance) in order to make them fall on their
own. Here are some ways to put this into practice in
everyday life.
In the book Change, the therapist
Use their emotions:
authors (Paul Watzlawick, John H. Weakland, and
Richard Fisch) discuss the case of a rebellious teenager,
suspended from school by the principal because he was
caught dealing drugs. He was still to do his homework at
home but was forbidden to be on campus. This would
put a big dent in his drug-dealing business. The boy
burned with the desire to get vengeance.
The mother consulted a therapist, who told her to do
the following: explain to the son that the principal
believed only students who attended class in person
could do well. In the principal’s mind, by keeping the boy
away from school he was ensuring he would fail. If he did
better by working at home than in class, this would
embarrass the principal. Better to not try too hard this
semester and get on the good side of the principal by
proving him right. Of course, such advice was designed
to play into his emotions. Now he desired nothing more
than to embarrass the principal and so threw himself
into his homework with great energy, the goal of the
therapist all along. In essence, the idea is not to counter
people’s strong emotions but to move with them and find
a way to channel them in a productive direction.
Use their language: The therapist Milton Erickson (see
chapter 3) described the following case that he had
treated: A husband came to him for advice, although he
seemed quite set on doing what he wanted anyway. He
and his wife came from very religious families and had
married mostly to please their parents. The husband and
wife were very religious as well. Their honeymoon,
however, had been a disaster. They found sex very
awkward and did not feel like they were in love. The
husband decided it was not anyone’s fault but that they
should get “a friendly divorce.” Erickson readily agreed
with him and suggested exactly how to bring about this
“friendly divorce.” He instructed him to reserve a room
at a hotel. They were to have one final “friendly” night
together before the divorce. They were also to have one
last “friendly” glass of champagne, one last “friendly”
kiss between them, and so on. These instructions
virtually ensured the wife’s seduction by her husband. As
Erickson had hoped, the husband followed his
instructions, the couple had an exciting evening together,
and they happily decided to remain married.
Erickson intuited that the husband did not really want
a divorce and that the two of them felt awkward because
of their religious backgrounds. They were both deeply
insecure about their physical desires, yet resistant to any
kind of change. Erickson used the husband’s language
and his desire for divorce but found a way to gently
redirect the energy toward something much different.
When you use people’s words back at them, it has a
hypnotic effect. How can they not follow what you
suggest when it is exactly the words they have used?
Use their rigidity: A
pawnbroker’s son once came to the
great eighteenth-century Zen master Hakuin with the
following problem: he wanted to get his father to practice
Buddhism, but the man pretended to be too busy with
his bookkeeping to have time for even a single chant or
prayer. Hakuin knew the pawnbroker—he was an
inveterate miser who was only using this as an excuse to
avoid religion, which he considered a waste of time.
Hakuin advised the boy to tell his father that the Zen
master himself would buy from him each prayer and
chant that he did on a daily basis. It was strictly a
business deal.
Of course the pawnbroker was very happy with the
deal—he could shut his son up and make money in the
process. Each day he presented Hakuin with his bill for
the prayers, and Hakuin duly paid him. But on the
seventh day he failed to show up. It seemed that he had
gotten so caught up in the chanting that he had forgotten
to count how many prayers he had done. A few days later
he admitted to Hakuin he had become completely taken
up with the chants, felt so much better, and did not need
to be paid anymore. He soon became a very generous
donor to Hakuin’s temple.
When people are rigid in their opposition to
something, it stems from deep fear of change and the
uncertainty it could bring. They must have everything on
their terms and feel in control. You play into their hands
if you try with all your advice to encourage change—it
gives them something to react against and justifies their
rigidity. They become more stubborn. Stop fighting with
such people and use the actual nature of their rigid
behavior to effect a gentle change that could lead to
something greater. On their own, they discover
something new (like the power of Buddhist prayer), and
on their own they might take this further, all set up by
your judo maneuver.
Keep in mind the following: people often won’t do
what others ask them to do, because they simply want to
assert their will. If you heartily agree with their rebellion
and tell them to keep on doing what they’re doing, it now
means that if they do so they are following your advice,
which is distasteful to them. They may very well rebel
again and assert their will in the opposite direction,
which is what you wanted all along—the essence of
reverse psychology.

The Flexible Mind—Self-strategies

You find it frustrating when people resist your good ideas
out of sheer stubbornness, but you are largely unaware of
how the same problem—your own stubbornness—afflicts
you and limits your creative powers.
As children our minds were remarkably flexible. We
could learn at a rate that far surpasses our adult
capacities. We can attribute much of the source of this
power to our feelings of weakness and vulnerability.
Sensing our inferiority in relation to those older than us,
we felt highly motivated to learn. We were also genuinely
curious and hungry for new information. We were open
to the influence of parents, peers, and teachers.
In adolescence many of us had the experience of
falling under the sway of a great book or writer. We
became entranced by the novel ideas in the book, and
because we were so open to influence, these early
encounters with exciting ideas sank deeply into our
minds and became part of our own thought processes,
affecting us decades after we absorbed them. Such
influences enriched our mental landscape, and in fact
our intelligence depends on the ability to absorb the
lessons and ideas of those who are older and wiser.
Just as the body tightens with age, however, so does
the mind. And just as our sense of weakness and
vulnerability motivated the desire to learn, so does our
creeping sense of superiority slowly close us off to new
ideas and influences. Some may advocate that we all
become more skeptical in the modern world, but in fact a
far greater danger comes from the increasing closing of
the mind that afflicts us as individuals as we get older,
and seems to be afflicting our culture in general.
Let us define the ideal state of the mind as one that
retains the flexibility of youth along with the reasoning
powers of the adult. Such a mind is open to the influence
of others. And just as you use strategies to melt people’s
resistance, you must do the same on yourself, working to
soften up your rigid mental patterns.
To reach such an ideal, we must first adopt the key
tenet of the Socratic philosophy. One of Socrates’s
earliest admirers was a young man named Chaerephon.
Frustrated that more Athenians did not revere Socrates
as he himself did, Chaerephon visited the Oracle of
Delphi and posed a question: “Is there a wiser man than
Socrates in all of Athens?” The oracle answered no.
Chaerephon felt vindicated in his admiration of
Socrates and rushed to tell his mentor the good news.
Socrates, however, being a humble man, was not at all
pleased to hear this and was determined to prove the
oracle wrong. He visited many people, each eminent in
their own field—politics, the arts, business—and asked
them many questions. When they kept to knowledge of
their field, they seemed quite intelligent. But then they
would expatiate on all kinds of subjects about which they
clearly knew nothing. On such subjects they merely
spouted the conventional wisdom. They did not think
through any of these ideas.
Finally Socrates had to admit that the oracle was
indeed accurate—he was wiser than all the others
because he was aware of his own ignorance. Over and
over again he examined and reexamined his own ideas,
seeing inadequacies and infantile emotions lodged
within them. His motto in life had become “The
unexamined life is not worth living.” The charm of
Socrates, what made him so devilishly fascinating to the
youth of Athens, was the supreme openness of his mind.
In essence, Socrates assumed the weaker, vulnerable
position of the ignorant child, always asking questions.
Think of it this way: We like to scoff at the
superstitious and irrational ideas that most people held
in the seventeenth century. Imagine how those of the
twenty-fifth century will scoff at ours. Our knowledge of
the world is limited, despite the advances of science. Our
ideas are conditioned by the prejudices instilled in us by
our parents, by our culture, and by the historical period
we live in. They are further limited by the increasing
rigidity of the mind. A bit more humility about what we
know would make us all more curious and interested in a
wider range of ideas.
When it comes to the ideas and opinions you hold, see
them as toys or building blocks that you are playing with.
Some you will keep, others you will knock down, but
your spirit remains flexible and playful.
To take this further, you can adopt a strategy
promulgated by Friedrich Nietzsche: “He who really
wants to get to know something new (be it a person, an
event, a book) does well to entertain it with all possible
love and to avert his eyes quickly from everything in it he
finds inimical, repellent, false, indeed to banish it from
mind: so that, for example, he allows the author of a
book the longest start and then, like one watching a race,
desires with beating heart that he may reach his goal. For
with this procedure one penetrates to the heart of the
new thing, to the point that actually moves it: and
precisely this is what is meant by getting to know it. If
one has gone this far, reason can afterwards make its
reservations; that over-estimation, that temporary
suspension of the critical pendulum, was only an artifice
for luring forth the soul of the thing.”
Even in writing that is inimical to your own ideas
there is often something that rings true, which
represents the “soul of the thing.” Opening yourself up to
its influence in this way should become part of your
mental habits, allowing you to better understand things,
even to criticize them properly. Sometimes, however,
that “soul” will move you as well and gain some
influence, enriching your mind in the process.
Upon occasion it is good to let go of your deepest set
of rules and restrictions. The great fourteenth-century
Zen master Bassui posted at the door of his temple a list
of thirty-three rules his monks were to abide by or be
thrown out. Many of the rules dealt with alcohol, which
was strictly forbidden. One night, to totally disconcert
his literal-minded monks, he showed up to a talk
completely drunk. He never apologized or repeated it,
but the lesson was simple: such rules are merely
guidelines, and to demonstrate our freedom we must
violate them from time to time.
Finally, when it comes to your own self-opinion, try to
have some ironic distance from it. Make yourself aware
of its existence and how it operates within you. Come to
terms with the fact that you are not as free and
autonomous as you like to believe. You do conform to the
opinions of the groups you belong to; you do buy
products because of subliminal influence; you can be
manipulated. Realize as well that you are not as good as
the idealized image of your self-opinion. Like everyone
else, you can be quite self-absorbed and obsessed with
your own agenda. With this awareness, you will not feel
the need to be validated by others. Instead you will work
at making yourself truly independent and concerned
with the welfare of others, as opposed to staying attached
to the illusion of your self-opinion.
There was something terribly enthralling in the exercise of
influence. No other activity was like it. To project one’s soul
into some gracious form, and let it tarry there for a moment;
to hear one’s own intellectual views echoed back to one with
all the added music of passion and youth; to convey one’s
temperament into another as though it were a subtle fluid or
a strange perfume: there was a real joy in that—perhaps the
most satisfying joy left to us in an age so limited and vulgar
as our own, an age grossly carnal in its pleasures, and grossly
common in its aims.
—Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
 8

Change Your
Circumstances by
Changing Your Attitude

The Law of Self-sabotage

E ach of us has a particular way of looking at the

world, of interpreting events and the actions of
people around us. This is our attitude, and it determines
much of what happens to us in life. If our attitude is
essentially fearful, we see the negative in every
circumstance. We stop ourselves from taking chances.
We blame others for mistakes and fail to learn from
them. If we feel hostile or suspicious, we make others
feel such emotions in our presence. We sabotage our
career and relationships by unconsciously creating the
circumstances we fear the most. The human attitude,
however, is malleable. By making our attitude more
positive, open, and tolerant of other people, we can
spark a different dynamic—we can learn from
adversity, create opportunities out of nothing, and
draw people to us. We must explore the limits of our
willpower and how far it can take us.

The Ultimate Freedom

As a child, Anton Chekhov (1860–1904)—the future
celebrated writer—faced each morning with a feeling of
dread: would he be beaten that day by his father or
somehow spared? Without warning, and sometimes
without any apparent cause, his father, Pavel Yegorovich,
would strike him hard several times with a cane or a
whip or the back of his hand. What made it doubly
confusing was that his father did not beat him out of any
apparent malice or anger. He told Anton he was doing it
out of love. It was God’s will that children be beaten, to
instill humility. That was how he had been raised, and
look at what a fine man he had turned into. At the end of
the beating, young Anton had to kiss his father’s hand
and ask to be forgiven. At least he was not alone in this
ordeal—his four brothers and one sister all received the
same treatment.
The beating was not the only thing he came to dread.
In the afternoon he would hear his father’s approaching
footsteps outside their ramshackle wooden house, and he
would tremble with fear. More often than not he was
coming to the house at that hour to ask the child Anton
to replace him in the grocery shop that he owned, in the
backwater town of Taganrog, Russia, where the family
lived. For most of the year, the shop was unbearably
cold. While minding the counter, Anton would try to do
his homework, but his fingers would quickly become
numb and the ink in the pot for his pen would freeze up.
In that mess of a store, which smelled of rancid meat, he
would have to listen to the dirty jokes of the Ukrainian
peasants who worked there, and witness the lewd
behavior of the assortment of town drunks who
wandered in for their shots of vodka. In the midst of all
this, he had to make sure that every kopeck was
accounted for, or he would get an added thrashing from
his father. He would often be left there for hours while
his father was getting drunk somewhere else.
His mother would try to intervene. She was a gentle
soul who was no match for her husband. The boy was too
young to work, she would say. He needed time for his
studies. Sitting in the freezing shop was ruining his
health. The father would thunder back that Anton was
lazy by nature, and only through hard work could he
become a respectable citizen.
There was no respite from the father’s presence. On
Sunday, the one day the shop was closed, he would wake
the children up at four or five in the morning to rehearse
their singing for the church choir, of which he was the
director. Once home from the service, they would have to
repeat it, ritual by ritual, on their own, then return for
the noon mass. By the time it was over, they were all too
exhausted to play.
In the moments he had to himself, Anton would
wander around town. Taganrog was a grim place to grow
up. The fronts of almost all of the houses were decaying
and crumbling, as if they were already ancient ruins. The
roads were not paved, and when the snow melted there
was mud everywhere, with giant potholes that could
swallow a child up to the neck. There were no
streetlights. Prisoners would be tasked with finding the
stray dogs on the streets and beating them to death. The
only quiet and safe place was the surrounding
graveyards, and Anton would visit them often.
On these walks, he would wonder about himself and
the world. Was he really so worthless that he deserved
the almost daily beatings from his father? Perhaps. And
yet his father was a walking contradiction—he was lazy, a
drunk, and quite dishonest with customers, despite his
religious zeal. And the citizens of Taganrog were equally
ridiculous and hypocritical. He would observe them at
the cemetery, trying to act pious during the funeral
service but then excitedly whispering to one another
about the delicious cakes they would eat later at the
home of the widow, as if that was why they had shown
up.
His only recourse in the face of the pain and boredom
he constantly felt was to laugh at it all. He became the
family clown, imitating the characters of Taganrog and
inventing stories about their private lives. Sometimes his
humor turned aggressive. He played cruel practical jokes
on other children in the neighborhood. Sent to the
market by his mother, he often tormented the live duck
or chicken that he carried home in a sack. He was
becoming impish and quite lazy.
Then in 1875, everything changed for the Chekhov
family. Anton’s two older brothers, Alexander and
Nikolai, had had enough of their father. They decided to
move together to Moscow, Alexander to pursue a
university degree and Nikolai to become an artist. This
snubbing of his authority infuriated the father, but he
could not stop them. At around the same time, Pavel
Yegorovich had to finally confront his complete
mismanagement of the grocery store—he had piled up
debts over the years and now the bills came due. Facing
bankruptcy and almost certainly time in the debtor’s
prison, he quietly slipped out of town one night, without
telling his wife, and escaped to Moscow, intending to live
with his sons.
The mother was forced to sell the family possessions
to pay the debts. A boarder who lived with them offered
to help the mother with their case against the creditors,
but much to her surprise, he used his court connections
to swindle the Chekhovs out of their house. Without a
penny to her name, the mother was forced to leave for
Moscow with the other children. Only Anton would stay
to finish his studies and get his diploma. He was charged
with selling all of the remaining family belongings and
sending the money to Moscow as soon as possible. The
former boarder, now owner of the house, gave Anton a
corner of one room to live in, and so at the age of sixteen,
with no money of his own and no family to look after
him, Anton was suddenly left to fend for himself in
Taganrog.
Anton had never really been alone before. His family
had been his whole life, for better or worse. Now it was
as if the bottom had dropped out. He had no one to turn
to for help in any way. He blamed his father for this
miserable fate, for being trapped in Taganrog. One day
he felt angry and bitter, the next day depressed. But soon
it became clear that he had no time for such sentiments.
He had no money or resources, and yet somehow he had
to survive. So he hired himself out as a tutor to as many
families as possible. When they went on vacation he
would often go hungry for days. His one jacket was
threadbare; he had no galoshes for the heavy rains. He
felt ashamed when he entered people’s houses, shivering
and his feet all wet. But at least he was now able to
support himself.
He had decided to become a doctor. He had a
scientific frame of mind, and doctors made a good living.
To get into medical school he would have to study much
harder. Frequenting the town library, the only place he
could work in peace and quiet, he began to also browse
the literature and philosophy sections, and soon he felt
his mind soaring far beyond Taganrog. With books, he
no longer felt so trapped. At night, he returned to his
corner of a room to write stories and sleep. He had no
privacy, but he could keep his corner neat and tidy, free
of the usual disorder of the Chekhov household.
He had finally begun to settle down, and new
thoughts and emotions came to him. Work was no longer
something he dreaded; he loved absorbing his mind in
his studies, and tutoring had made him feel proud and
dignified—he could take care of himself. Letters came
from his family—Alexander ranting and complaining
about their father making everyone miserable again;
Mikhail, the youngest son, feeling worthless and
depressed. Anton wrote back to Alexander: stop
obsessing over our father and start taking care of
yourself. He wrote to Mikhail: “Why do you refer to
yourself as my ‘worthless, insignificant little brother’? Do
you know where you should be aware of your
worthlessness? Before God, perhaps . . . but not before
people. Among people you should be aware of your
worth.” Even Anton was surprised by the new tone he
was taking in these letters.
Then one day, several months after being abandoned,
he wandered through the streets of Taganrog and
suddenly felt welling up from within a tremendous and
overwhelming sense of empathy and love for his parents.
Where did this come from? He had never felt this before.
In the days leading up to this moment he had been
thinking long and hard about his father. Was he really to
blame for all their problems? Pavel’s father, Yegor
Mikhailovich, had been born a serf, serfdom being a
form of indentured slavery. The Chekhovs had been serfs
for several generations. Yegor had finally been able to
buy the family’s freedom, and he set his three sons up in
different fields, Pavel designated as the family merchant.
But Pavel could not cope. He had an artistic
temperament, could have been a talented painter or
musician. He felt bitter at his fate—a grocery store and
six children. His father had beaten him, and so he beat
his children. Although no longer a serf, Pavel still bowed
and kissed the hand of every local official and landowner.
He remained a serf at heart.
Anton could see that he and his siblings were falling
into the same pattern—bitter, secretly feeling worthless,
and wanting to take their anger out on others. Now that
he was alone and taking care of himself, Anton yearned
to be free in the truest sense of the word. He wanted to
be free of the past, free of his father. And here, as he
walked the streets of Taganrog, the answer came to him
from these new and sudden emotions. Understanding his
father, he could accept and even love him. He was not
some imposing tyrant but a rather helpless old man.
With a bit of distance, he could feel compassion and
forgive the beatings. He would not become enmeshed in
all of the negative feelings his father inspired. And he
could finally value as well his kind mother, and not
blame her for being so weak. With his mind emptied of
rancor and obsessive thoughts of his lost childhood, it
was as if a great weight had been suddenly lifted off him.
He made a vow to himself: no more bowing and
apologizing to people; no more complaining and
blaming; no more disorderly living and wasting time.
The answer to everything was work and love, work and
love. He had to spread this message to his family and
save them. He had to share it with mankind through his
stories and plays.
Finally in 1879 Anton moved to Moscow to be with his
family and to attend medical school, and what he saw
there made him despondent. The Chekhovs and a few
boarders were all crammed in a single room in the
basement of a tenement, in the middle of the red-light
district. The room had little ventilation and almost no
light. Worst of all was the morale of the group. His
mother was beaten down by the constant anxieties about
money and the subterranean existence. His father drank
even more and held some odd jobs that were quite a step
down from owning a business. He continued to beat his
children.
Anton’s younger siblings were no longer in school (the
family could not afford it) and felt completely useless.
Mikhail in particular was even more depressed than ever.
Alexander had gotten work as a writer for magazines, but
he felt he deserved much better and started to drink
heavily. He blamed his problems on his father for
following him to Moscow and haunting his every move.
Nikolai, the artist, slept till late, worked sporadically, and
spent most of his time at the local tavern. The entire
family was spiraling downward at an alarming rate, and
the neighborhood they lived in only made it worse.
The father and Alexander had recently moved out.
Anton decided he needed to do the opposite—move into
the cramped room and become the catalyst for change.
He would not preach or criticize but rather set the proper
example. What mattered was keeping the family together
and elevating their spirits. To his overwhelmed mother
and sister he announced that he would take charge of the
housework. Seeing Anton cleaning and ironing, his
brothers now agreed to share in these duties. He
scrimped and saved from his own medical school
scholarship and got more money from his father and
Alexander. With this money he put Mikhail, Ivan, and
Maria back into school. He managed to find his father a
better job. Using his father’s money and his own savings,
he was able to move the entire family to a much larger
apartment with a view.
He worked to improve all aspects of their lives. He got
his brothers and sister to read books he had chosen, and
well into the night they would discuss and argue the
latest findings in science and philosophical questions.
Slowly they all bonded on a much deeper level, and they
began to refer to him as Papa Antosha, the leader of the
family. The complaining and self-pitying attitude he had
first encountered had mostly disappeared. His two
younger brothers now talked excitedly about their future
careers.
Anton’s greatest project was to reform Alexander,
whom he considered the most gifted yet troubled
member of the family. Once Alexander came home
completely drunk, began to insult the mother and sister,
and threatened to smash Anton’s face in. The family had
become resigned to these tirades, but Anton would not
tolerate this. He told Alexander the next day that if he
ever yelled at another family member, he would lock him
out and disavow him as a brother. He was to treat his
mother and sister with respect and not blame the father
for his turning to drink and womanizing. He must have
some dignity—dress well and take care of himself. That
was the new family code.
 Alexander apologized and his behavior improved, but
it was a continual battle that demanded all of Anton’s
patience and love, for the self-destructive streak in the
Chekhovs was deeply ingrained. It had led Nikolai to an
early death from alcoholism, and without constant
attention Alexander could easily follow the same path.
Slowly Anton weaned him from drinking and helped him
with his journalistic career, and eventually Alexander
settled into a quiet and satisfying life.
Sometime in 1884, Anton had begun to spit blood,
and it was apparent to him that he had the preliminary
signs of tuberculosis. He refused to submit to the
examination of a fellow doctor. He preferred not to know
and to go on writing and practicing medicine without
worrying about the future. But as he became increasingly
famous for his plays and short stories, he began to
experience a new kind of discomfort—the envy and petty
criticisms of his fellow writers. They formed various
political cliques and endlessly attacked one another,
including Anton himself, who had refused to ally himself
with any revolutionary cause. All of this made Anton feel
increasingly disenchanted with the literary world. The
elevated mood he had so carefully crafted in Taganrog
was dissipating. He became depressed and considered
giving up writing entirely.
Then, toward the end of 1889, he thought of a way to
free himself from his growing depression. Since his days
in Taganrog, the poorest and most abject members of
society had fascinated him. He liked to write about
thieves and con artists, and get inside their minds. The
lowliest members of Russian society were its prisoners,
who lived in ghastly conditions. And the most notorious
prison in Russia was on Sakhalin Island, just north of
Japan. It housed five penal colonies with hundreds of
thousands of prisoners and their families. It was like a
shadow state—nobody in Russia had any idea what really
went on on the island. This could be the answer to his
present misery. He would make the arduous trek across
Siberia to the island. He would interview the most
hardened criminals. He would write a detailed book on
the conditions there. Far from the pretentious literary
world, he would connect to something very real and
reignite the generous mood he had crafted in Taganrog.
His friends and family tried to dissuade him. His
health had gotten worse; the travel could kill him. But
the more they tried to dissuade him, the more he felt
certain it was the only way to save himself.
After a three-month journey he finally arrived at the
island in July of 1890, and he immediately immersed
himself in this new world. His task was to interview
every possible prisoner, including the most vicious
murderers. He investigated every aspect of their lives. He
witnessed the most gruesome torture sessions of
prisoners and followed convicts as they worked in the
local mines, chained to wheelbarrows. Prisoners who
completed their sentences would often have to stay on
the island in labor camps, and so Sakhalin was full of
wives waiting to join them in these camps. These women
and their daughters would resort to prostitution to stay
alive. Everything was designed to degrade people’s
spirits and drain them of every ounce of dignity. It
reminded him of his family dynamic, on a much larger
scale.
This was certainly the lowest rung of hell he could
have visited, and it affected him deeply. He now longed
to return to Moscow and write about what he had seen.
His sense of proportion had been restored. He had
finally freed himself of the petty thoughts and concerns
that had weighed him down. Now he could get outside of
himself and feel generous again. The book he wrote,
Sakhalin Island, caught the attention of the public and
led to substantial reforms of conditions on the island.
By 1897 his health had deteriorated, and he began to
cough blood rather regularly. He could no longer
disguise his tuberculosis from the world at large. The
doctor who treated him advised that he retire from all
work and leave Moscow for good. He needed rest.
Perhaps by living in a sanatorium he could extend his life
a few years. Anton would have none of this. He would
live as if nothing had changed.
A cult had begun to form around Chekhov,
comprising younger artists and adoring fans of his plays,
all of which had made him one of Russia’s most famous
writers. They came to visit him in large numbers, and
although he was clearly ailing, he radiated a calmness
that astonished almost everyone. Where did it come
from? Was he born this way? He seemed to absorb
himself completely in their stories and problems. No one
ever heard him talk about his illness.
In the winter of 1904, as his condition worsened, he
suddenly had the desire to take an open-sleigh ride into
the country. Hearing the bells of the sleigh and breathing
the cold air had always been one of his greatest
pleasures, and he needed to feel this one more time. It
put him in such high spirits that he did not care anymore
about the consequences, which were dire. He died a few
months later.

• • •
Interpretation: The moment his mother left him to be
alone in Taganrog, young Anton Chekhov felt trapped, as
if he had been thrown into prison. He would be forced to
work as much as he could outside his studies. He was
now stuck in this hopelessly dull backwater with no
support system, living in the corner of a small room.
Bitter thoughts about his fate and about the childhood he
had never had gnawed at him in his few free moments.
But as the weeks went by, he noticed something very
strange—he actually liked the work he did as a tutor,
even though the pay was meager and he was continually
running around town. His father had kept telling him he
was lazy, and he had believed it, but now he was not so
sure. Each day represented a challenge to find more
work and put food on the table. He was succeeding in
this. He was not some miserable worm who needed a
beating. Besides, the work was a way to get outside
himself and immerse his mind in the problems of his
students.
The books he read took him far away from Taganrog
and filled him with interesting thoughts that lingered in
his mind for entire days. Taganrog itself was not so bad.
Each shop, each house contained the oddest characters,
supplying him endless material for stories. And that
corner of the room—that was his kingdom. Far from
feeling trapped, he now felt liberated. What had actually
changed? Certainly not his circumstances, or Taganrog,
or the corner of the room. What had changed was his
attitude, which opened him up to new experiences and
possibilities. Once he felt this, he wanted to take it
further. The greatest remaining impediment to this sense
of freedom was his father. No matter what he tried, he
couldn’t seem to get rid of deep feelings of bitterness. It
was as if he could still feel the beatings and hear the
endless pointed criticisms.
As a last resort, he tried to analyze his father as if he
were a character in a story. This led him to think about
his father’s father and all the generations of Chekhovs.
As he considered his father’s erratic nature and his wild
imagination, he could understand how he must have felt
trapped by his circumstances, and why he turned to
drinking and tyrannizing the family. He was helpless,
more a victim than an oppressor. This understanding of
his father laid the groundwork for the sudden rush of
unconditional love he felt one day for his parents. As he
glowed with this new emotion, he finally felt completely
liberated from resentments and anger. The negative
emotions from the past had finally fallen away from him.
His mind could now be completely open. The sensation
was so exhilarating that he had to share it with his
siblings and free them as well.
What had brought Chekhov to this point was the crisis
he had faced when left alone at such a young age. He
experienced another such crisis some thirteen years
later, when he became depressed about the pettiness of
his fellow writers. His solution was to reproduce what
had happened in Taganrog, but in reverse—he would be
the one to abandon others and force himself to be alone
and vulnerable. In this way he could reexperience the
freedom and empathy he had felt in Taganrog. The early
death sentence from tuberculosis was the last crisis. He
would let go of his fear of death, and the bitter feelings
that came with having his life cut short, by continuing to
live at full tilt. This final and ultimate freedom gave him
a radiance that almost everyone who met him in this
period could feel.
Understand: The story of Anton Chekhov is really a
paradigm for what we all face in life. We carry with us
traumas and hurts from early childhood. In our social
life, as we get older, we accumulate disappointments and
slights. We too are often haunted by a sense of
worthlessness, of not really deserving the good things in
life. We all have moments of great doubt about ourselves.
These emotions can lead to obsessive thoughts that
dominate our minds. They make us curtail what we
experience as a way to manage our anxiety and
disappointments. They make us turn to alcohol or any
kind of habit to numb the pain. Without realizing it, we
assume a negative and fearful attitude toward life. This
becomes our self-imposed prison. But this is not how it
has to be. The freedom that Chekhov experienced came
from a choice, a different way of looking at the world, a
change in attitude. We can all follow such a path.
This freedom essentially comes from adopting a
generous spirit—toward others and toward ourselves. By
accepting people, by understanding and if possible even
loving them for their human nature, we can liberate our
minds from obsessive and petty emotions. We can stop
reacting to everything people do and say. We can have
some distance and stop ourselves from taking everything
personally. Mental space is freed up for higher pursuits.
When we feel generous toward others, they feel drawn to
us and want to match our spirit. When we feel generous
toward ourselves, we no longer feel the need to bow and
scrape and play the game of false humility while secretly
resenting our lack of success. Through our work and
through getting what we need on our own, without
depending on others, we can stand tall and realize our
potential as humans. We can stop reproducing the
negative emotions around us. Once we feel the
exhilarating power from this new attitude, we will want
to take it as far as possible.
Years later, in a letter to a friend, Chekhov tried to
summarize his experience in Taganrog, referring to
himself in the third person: “Write about how this young
man squeezes the slave out of himself drop by drop and
how one fine morning he awakes to find that the blood
coursing through his veins is no longer the blood of a
slave but that of a real human being.”
The greatest discovery of my generation is the fact that
human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes
of mind.
—William James

Keys to Human Nature

We humans like to imagine that we have an objective
knowledge of the world. We take it for granted that what
we perceive on a daily basis is reality—this reality being
more or less the same for everybody. But this is an
illusion. No two people see or experience the world in the
same way. What we perceive is our personal version of
reality, one that is of our own creation. To realize this is a
critical step in our understanding of human nature.
 Imagine the following scenario: A young American
must spend a year studying in Paris. He is somewhat
timid and cautious, prone to feelings of depression and
low self-esteem, but he’s genuinely excited by this
opportunity. Once there, he finds it hard to speak the
language, and the mistakes he makes and the slightly
derisory attitude of the Parisians make it even harder for
him to learn. He finds the people not friendly at all. The
weather is damp and gloomy. The food is too rich. Even
Notre Dame Cathedral seems disappointing, the area
around it so crowded with tourists. Although he has
pleasurable moments, he generally feels alienated and
unhappy. He concludes that Paris is overrated and a
rather unpleasant place.
Now imagine the same scenario but with a young
woman who is more extroverted and has an adventurous
spirit. She’s not bothered by making mistakes in French,
nor by the occasional snide remark from a Parisian. She
finds learning the language a pleasant challenge. Others
find her spirit engaging. She makes friends more easily,
and with more contacts her knowledge of French
improves. She finds the weather romantic and quite
suitable to the place. To her, the city represents endless
adventures and she finds it enchanting.
In this case, two people see and judge the same city in
opposite ways. As a matter of objective reality, the
weather of Paris has no positive or negative qualities.
Clouds simply pass by. The friendliness or unfriendliness
of the Parisians is a subjective judgment—it depends on
whom you meet and how they compare with the people
where you come from. Notre Dame Cathedral is merely
an agglomeration of carved pieces of stone. The world
simply exists as it is—things or events are not good or
bad, right or wrong, ugly or beautiful. It is we with our
particular perspectives who add color to or subtract it
from things and people. We focus on either the beautiful
Gothic architecture or the annoying tourists. We, with
our mind-set, can make people respond to us in a
friendly or unfriendly manner, depending on our anxiety
or openness. We shape much of the reality that we
perceive, dictated by our moods and emotions.
Understand: Each of us sees the world through a
particular lens that colors and shapes our perceptions.
Let us call this lens our attitude. The great Swiss
psychologist Carl Jung defined this in the following way:
“Attitude is a readiness of the psyche to act or react in a
certain way. . . . To have an attitude means to be ready
for something definite, even though this something is
unconscious; for having an attitude is synonymous with
an a priori orientation to a definite thing.”
What this means is the following: In the course of a
day, our minds respond to thousands of stimuli in the
environment. Depending on the wiring of our brain and
our psychological makeup, certain stimuli—clouds in the
sky, crowds of people—lead to stronger firings and
responses. The stronger the response, the more we pay
attention. Some of us are more sensitive to stimuli that
others would mostly ignore. If we are unconsciously
prone to feelings of sadness, for whatever reason, we are
more likely to pick up signs that promote this feeling. If
we have a suspicious nature, we are more sensitive to
facial expressions that display any kind of possible
negativity and to exaggerate what we perceive. This is the
“readiness of the psyche to . . . react in a certain way.”
We are never conscious of this process. We merely
experience the aftereffects of these sensitivities and
firings of the brain; they add up to an overall mood or
emotional background that we might call depression,
hostility, insecurity, enthusiasm, or adventurousness. We
experience many different moods, but in an overall sense
we can say that we have a particular way of seeing and
interpreting the world, dominated by one emotion or a
blend of several, such as hostility and resentment. This is
our attitude. People with a largely depressive attitude
can feel moments of joy, but they are more disposed
toward experiencing sadness; they anticipate the feeling
in their day-to-day encounters.
Jung illustrates this idea in the following way:
Imagine that on a hike people come upon a brook that
must be crossed to continue the journey. One person,
without much thought, will simply leap across, touching
a stone or two, not worried at all about possibly falling.
He loves the sheer physical pleasure of the jump and
doesn’t care if he fails. Another person is excited as well,
but it has less to do with the physical joy than with the
mental challenge the brook represents. She will quickly
calculate the most effective means of crossing and will
gain satisfaction from figuring this out. Another person,
of a cautious nature, will take more time to think it
through. He takes no pleasure in the crossing; he is
irritated by the obstruction, but he wants to continue the
hike and he will do his best to safely cross. A fourth will
simply turn back. She will see no need for crossing and
will rationalize her fears by saying the hike has been long
enough.
No one simply sees or hears the rushing of water over
rocks. Our minds do not perceive just what is there. Each
person sees and responds to the same brook differently,
according to their particular attitude—adventurous,
fearful, et cetera.
The attitude that we carry with us throughout life has
several roots: First, we come into this world with certain
genetic inclinations—toward hostility, greed, empathy, or
kindness. We can notice these differences, for instance,
in the case of the Chekhov children, who all had to
respond to the same physical punishments of the father.
At a very early age Anton revealed a more ironic attitude,
prone to laughing at the world and seeing things with
some detachment. This made it easier for him to reassess
his father once he was on his own. The other children
lacked this ability to distance themselves and were more
easily enmeshed in the father’s brutality. This would
seem to indicate something different in the way Anton’s
brain was wired. Some children are greedier than others
—they display from early on a greater need for attention.
They tend to always see what is missing, what they are
not getting from others.
Second, our earliest experiences and attachment
schemas (see chapter 4) play a large role in shaping the
attitude. We internalize the voices of the mother and
father figure. If they were very authoritarian and
judgmental, we will tend to be harsher on ourselves than
others and have a more critical bent toward everything
we see. Equally important are the experiences we have
outside the family, as we get older. When we love or
admire someone, we tend to internalize a part of their
presence, and they shape how we see the world in a
positive way. This could be teachers, mentors, or peers.
Negative and traumatic experiences can have a
constricting effect—they close our minds off to anything
that might possibly make us reexperience the original
pain. Our attitude is constantly being shaped by what
happens to us, but vestiges of our earliest attitude always
live on. No matter how far he progressed, Chekhov
remained susceptible to feelings of depression and self-
loathing.
What we must understand about the attitude is not
only how it colors our perceptions but also how it
actively determines what happens to us in life—our
health, our relations with people, and our success. Our
attitude has a self-fulfilling dynamic.
Look again at the scenario of the young man in Paris.
Feeling somewhat tense and insecure, he reacts
defensively to mistakes that he makes in learning the
language. This makes it harder for him to learn, which in
turn makes meeting people more difficult, which makes
him feel more isolated. The more his energy lowers from
depression, the more this cycle perpetuates itself. His
insecurities can also push people away. The way we think
about people tends to have a like effect upon them. If we
feel hostile and critical, we tend to inspire critical
emotions in other people. If we feel defensive, we make
others feel defensive. The attitude of the young man
tends to lock him into this negative dynamic.
The attitude of the young woman, on the other hand,
triggers a positive dynamic. She is able to learn the
language and meet people, all of which elevates her
mood and energy levels, which makes her more
attractive and interesting to others, on and on.
Although attitudes come in many varieties and
blends, we can generally categorize them as negative and
narrow or positive and expansive. Those with a negative
attitude tend to operate from a basic position of fear
toward life. They unconsciously want to limit what they
see and experience to give them more control. Those
with a positive attitude have a much less fearful
approach. They are open to new experiences, ideas, and
emotions. If the attitude is like our lens on the world, the
negative attitude narrows the aperture of this lens, and
the positive variety expands it as far as possible. We
might move between these two poles, but generally we
tend to see the world with a more closed or open lens.
Your task as a student of human nature is twofold:
First, you must become aware of your own attitude and
how it slants your perceptions. It is hard to observe this
in your day-to-day life because it is so close to you, but
there are ways to catch glimpses of it in action. You can
see it in how you judge people once they are out of your
presence. Are you quick to focus on their negative
qualities and bad opinions, or are you more generous
and forgiving when it comes to their flaws? You will see
definite signs of your attitude in how you face adversity
or resistance. Are you quick to forget or gloss over any
mistakes on your part? Do you instinctively blame others
for any bad things that happen to you? Do you dread any
kind of change? Do you tend to keep to routines and to
avoid anything unexpected or unusual? Do you get your
back up when someone challenges your ideas and
assumptions?
You will also catch signs of it in how people respond
to you, particularly in a nonverbal way. Do you catch
them being nervous or defensive in your presence? Do
you tend to attract people who play the mother or father
role in your life?
Once you have a good feel for the makeup of your own
attitude, its negative or positive bent, you have much
greater power to alter it, to move it more in the positive
direction.
Second, you must not only be aware of the role of your
attitude but also believe in its supreme power to alter
your circumstances. You are not a pawn in a game
controlled by others; you are an active player who can
move the pieces at will and even rewrite the rules. View
your health as largely dependent on your attitude.
Feeling excited and open to adventure, you can tap into
energy reserves you did not know that you had. The
mind and the body are one, and your thoughts affect
your physical responses. People can recover much more
quickly from illness through sheer desire and willpower.
You are not born with fixed intelligence and inherent
limits. See your brain as a miraculous organ designed for
continual learning and improvement, well into old age.
The rich neural connections in your brain, your creative
powers, are something you develop to the degree that
you open yourself up to new experiences and ideas. View
problems and failures as means to learn and toughen
yourself up. You can get through anything with
persistence. View the way people treat you as largely
flowing from your own attitude, something you can
control.
Do not be afraid to exaggerate the role of willpower. It
is an exaggeration with a purpose. It leads to a positive
self-fulfilling dynamic, and that is all you care about. See
this shaping of your attitude as your most important
creation in life, and never leave it to chance.

The Constricted (Negative) Attitude

Life is inherently chaotic and unpredictable. The human
animal, however, does not react well to uncertainty.
People who feel particularly weak and vulnerable tend to
adopt an attitude toward life that narrows what they
experience so that they can reduce the possibility of
unexpected events. This negative, narrowing attitude
often has its origins in early childhood. Some children
have little comfort or support in facing a frightening
world. They develop various psychological strategies to
constrict what they have to see and experience. They
build up elaborate defenses to keep out other viewpoints.
They become increasingly self-absorbed. In most
situations they come to expect bad things to happen, and
their goals in life revolve around anticipating and
neutralizing bad experiences to better control them. As
they get older, this attitude becomes more entrenched
and narrower, making any kind of psychological growth
nearly impossible.
These attitudes have a self-sabotaging dynamic. Such
people make others feel the same negative emotion that
dominates their attitude, which helps confirm them in
their beliefs about people. They do not see the role that
their own actions play, how they often are the instigators
of the negative response. They only see people
persecuting them, or bad luck overwhelming them. By
pushing people away, they make it doubly hard to have
any success in life, and in their isolation their attitude
gets worse. They are caught in a vicious cycle.
The following are the five most common forms of the
constricted attitude. Negative emotions have a binding
power—a person who is angry is more prone to also feel
suspicion, deep insecurities, resentment, et cetera. And
so we often find combinations of these various negative
attitudes, each one feeding and accentuating the other.
Your goal is to recognize the various signs of such
attitudes that exist in you in latent and weakened forms,
and to root them out; to see how they operate in a
stronger version in other people, better understanding
their perspective on life; and to learn how to handle
people with such attitudes.
The Hostile Attitude. Some children exhibit a
hostile attitude at a very early age. They interpret
weaning and the natural separation from parents as
hostile actions. Other children must deal with a parent
who likes to punish and inflict hurt. In both cases, the
child looks out on a world that seems fraught with
hostility, and their answer is to seek to control it by
becoming the source of the hostility themselves. At least
then it is no longer so random and sudden. As they get
older, they become adept at stimulating anger and
frustration in others, which justifies their original
attitude—“See, people are against me, I am disliked, and
for no apparent reason.”
In a relationship, a husband with a hostile attitude
will accuse his wife of not really loving him. If she
protests and becomes defensive, he will see this as a sign
that she has to try hard to disguise the truth. If she is
intimidated into silence, he sees that as a sign that he
was right all along. In her confusion, she can easily begin
to feel some hostility on her part, confirming his opinion.
People with this attitude have many other subtle tricks
up their sleeve for provoking the hostility they secretly
want to feel directed at them—withdrawing their
cooperation on a project at just the wrong moment,
constantly being late, doing a poor job, deliberately
making an unfavorable first impression. But they never
see themselves as playing any kind of role in instigating
the reaction.
 Their hostility permeates everything they do—the way
they argue and provoke (they are always right); the nasty
undertone of their jokes; the greediness with which they
demand attention; the pleasure they get out of criticizing
others and seeing them fail. You can recognize them by
how they are easily moved to anger in these situations.
Their life, as they describe it, is full of battles, betrayals,
persecutions, but seemingly not originating from them.
In essence, they are projecting their own hostile feelings
onto other people and are primed to read them in almost
any apparently innocent action. Their goal in life is to
feel persecuted and to desire some form of revenge. Such
types generally have career problems, as their anger and
hostility frequently flare up. This gives them something
else to complain about and a basis on which to blame the
world for being against them.
If you notice signs of this attitude in yourself, such
self-awareness is a major step toward being able to get
rid of it. You can also try a simple experiment: Approach
people you are meeting for the first time, or only know
peripherally, with various positive thoughts—“I like
them,” “They seem smart,” et cetera. None of this is
verbalized, but you do your best to feel such emotions. If
they respond with something hostile or defensive, then
perhaps the world is truly against you. More than likely
you will not see anything that could be remotely
construed as negative. In fact, you will see the opposite.
Clearly, then, the source of any hostile response is you.
In dealing with the extremes of this type, struggle as
best you can to not respond with the antagonism they
expect. Maintain your neutrality. This will confound
them and temporarily put a stop to the game they are
playing. They feed off your hostility, so do not give them
fuel.
The Anxious Attitude. These types anticipate all
kinds of obstacles and difficulties in any situation they
face. With people, they often expect some sort of
criticism or even betrayal. All of this stimulates unusual
amounts of anxiety before the fact. What they really fear
is losing control of the situation. Their solution is to limit
what can possibly happen, to narrow the world they deal
with. This means limiting where they go and what they’ll
attempt. In a relationship, they will subtly dominate the
domestic rituals and habits; they will seem brittle and
demand extra careful attention. This will dissuade people
from criticizing them. Everything must be on their terms.
At work they will be ferocious perfectionists and
micromanagers, eventually sabotaging themselves by
trying to keep on top of too many things. Once outside
their comfort zone—the home or the relationship they
dominate—they become unusually fretful.
Sometimes they can disguise their need for control as
a form of love and concern. When Franklin Roosevelt
came down with polio in 1921, at the age of thirty-nine,
his mother, Sara, did all she could to restrict his life and
keep him to one room in the house. He would have to
give up his political career and surrender to her care.
Franklin’s wife, Eleanor, knew him better. What he
wanted and needed was to slowly get back to something
resembling his old life. It became a battle between the
mother and the daughter-in-law that Eleanor eventually
won. The mother was able to disguise her anxious
attitude and need to dominate her son through her
apparent love, transforming him into a helpless invalid.
Another disguise, similar to such love, is to seek to
please and cajole people in order to disarm any possible
unpredictable and unfriendly action. (See chapter 4,
Toxic Types, The Pleaser.)
If you notice such tendencies in yourself, the best
antidote is to pour your energies into work. Focusing
your attention outward into a project of some sort will
have a calming effect. As long as you rein in your
perfectionistic tendencies, you can channel your need to
control into something productive. With people, try to
slowly open yourself to their habits and pace of doing
things, instead of the opposite. This can show you that
you have nothing to fear by loosening control.
Deliberately place yourself in the circumstances you
most dread, discovering that your fears are grossly
exaggerated. You are slowly introducing a bit of chaos
into your overly ordered life.
In dealing with those with this attitude, try to not feel
infected with their anxiety, and instead try to provide the
soothing influence they so lacked in their earliest years.
If you radiate calmness, your manner will have greater
effect than your words.
The Avoidant Attitude. People with this attitude
see the world through the lens of their insecurities,
generally related to doubts about their competence and
intelligence. Perhaps as children they were made to feel
guilty and uncomfortable with any efforts to excel and
stand out from siblings; or they were made to feel bad
about any kind of mistake or possible misbehavior. What
they came to dread most was the judgment of their
parents. As these people get older, their main goal in life
is to avoid any kind of responsibility or challenge in
which their self-esteem might be at stake and for which
they can be judged. If they do not try too hard in life,
they cannot fail or be criticized.
To enact this strategy they will constantly seek escape
routes, consciously or unconsciously. They will find the
perfect reason for leaving a job early and changing
careers, or breaking off a relationship. In the middle of
some high-stakes project they will suddenly develop an
illness that will cause them to leave. They are prone to all
kinds of psychosomatic maladies. Or they become
alcoholics, addicts of some sort, always falling off the
wagon at the right time but blaming this on the “disease”
they have, and their bad upbringing that caused their
addiction. If it weren’t for alcohol, they could’ve been a
great writer or entrepreneur, so they say. Other
strategies will include wasting time and starting too late
on something, always with some built-in excuse for why
that happened. They then cannot be blamed for the
mediocre results.
These types find it hard to commit to anything, for a
good reason. If they remained at a job or in a
relationship, their flaws might become too apparent to
others. Better to slip away at the right moment and
maintain the illusion—to themselves and to others—of
their possible greatness, if only . . . Although they are
generally motivated by the great fear of failing and the
judgments that ensue, they are also secretly afraid of
success—for with success come responsibilities and the
need to live up to them. Success might also trigger their
early fears about standing out and excelling.
You can easily recognize such people by their
checkered careers and their short-term personal
relationships. They may try to disguise the source of
their problems by seeming saintly—they look down on
success and people who have to prove themselves. Often
they will present themselves as noble idealists,
propagating ideas that will never come to pass but that
will add to the saintly aura they wish to project. Having
to enact ideals might expose them to criticism or failure,
so they choose those that are too lofty and unrealistic for
the times they live in. Do not be fooled by the holier-
than-thou front they present. Look at their actions, the
lack of accomplishments, the great projects they never
start on, always with a good excuse.
If you notice traces of this attitude in yourself, a good
strategy is to take on a project of even the smallest scale,
taking it all the way to completion and embracing the
prospect of failure. If you fail, you will have already
cushioned the blow because you anticipated it, and
inevitably it will not hurt as much as you had imagined.
Your self-esteem will rise because you finally tried
something and finished it. Once you diminish this fear,
progress will be easy. You will want to try again. And if
you succeed, all the better. Either way, you win.
When you find others with this attitude, be very wary
of forming partnerships with them. They are masters at
slipping away at the wrong moment, at getting you to do
all of the hard work and take the blame if it fails. At all
costs avoid the temptation to help or rescue them from
their negativity. They are too good at the avoidance
game.
The Depressive Attitude. As children, these types
did not feel loved or respected by their parents. For
helpless children, it is too much to imagine that their
parents could be wrong or flawed in their parenting.
Even if unloved, they still are dependent on them. And so
their defense is to often internalize the negative
judgment and imagine that they are indeed unworthy of
being loved, that there is something actually wrong with
them. In this way they can maintain the illusion that
their parents are strong and competent. All of this occurs
quite unconsciously, but the feeling of being worthless
will haunt such people their entire lives. Deep down they
will feel ashamed of who they are and not really know
why they feel this way.
As adults they will anticipate abandonment, loss, and
sadness in their experiences and see signs of potentially
depressing things in the world around them. They are
secretly drawn to what is gloomy in the world, to the
seamy side of life. If they can manufacture some of the
depression they feel in this way, it at least is under their
control. They are consoled by the thought that the world
is a dreary place. A strategy they will employ throughout
their lives is to temporarily withdraw from life and from
people. This will feed their depression and also make it
something they can manage to some extent, as opposed
to traumatic experiences imposed upon them.
An excellent example of this type was the talented
German composer and conductor Hans von Bülow
(1830–1894). In 1855 von Bülow met and fell in love
with Cosima Liszt (1837–1930), the charismatic
daughter of the composer Franz Liszt. Cosima was drawn
to von Bülow’s air of sadness. He lived with his
domineering and hostile mother, and Cosima had great
sympathy for him. She wanted to rescue von Bülow and
transform him into a great composer. They were soon
married. As time went on, Cosima could see that he felt
quite inferior in relation to her intelligence and strong
will. Soon he began to question her love for him. He
continually withdrew from her during his bouts of
depression. When she became pregnant, he suddenly
developed some mysterious ailment that prevented him
from being with her. Without warning he could become
quite cold.
Feeling unloved and neglected, she began an affair
with the famous composer Richard Wagner, who was a
friend and colleague of von Bülow’s. Cosima had the
feeling that von Bülow had unconsciously encouraged
their affair. When she eventually left von Bülow to live
with Wagner, von Bülow bombarded her with letters,
blaming himself for what had happened; he was
unworthy of her love. He would then go on about the bad
turn in his career, his various illnesses, his suicidal
tendencies. Although he criticized himself, she could not
help but feel guilty and depressed for somehow being
responsible. Recounting all of his woes seemed like his
subtle way of wounding her. She compared each letter to
“a sword twisted in my heart.” And they kept coming,
year after year, until he remarried and repeated the same
pattern with his new wife.
These types often have a secret need to wound others,
encouraging behavior such as betrayal or criticism that
will feed their depression. They will also sabotage
themselves if they experience any kind of success, feeling
deep down that they don’t deserve it. They will develop
blocks in their work, or take criticism to mean they
should not continue with their career. Depressive types
can often attract people to them, because of their
sensitive nature; they stimulate the desire to want to help
them. But like von Bülow, they will start to criticize and
wound the ones who wish to help, then withdraw again.
This push and pull causes confusion, but once under
their spell it is hard to disengage from them without
feeling guilty. They have a gift for making other people
feel depressed in their presence. This gives them more
fuel to feed off.
Most of us have depressive tendencies and moments.
The best way to handle them is to be aware of their
necessity—they are our body’s and mind’s way of
compelling us to slow down, to lower our energies and
withdraw. Depressive cycles can serve positive purposes.
The solution is to realize their usefulness and temporary
quality. The depression you feel today will not be with
you in a week, and you can ride it out. If possible, find
ways to elevate your energy level, which will physically
help lift you out of the mood. The best way to handle
recurrent depression is to channel your energies into
work, especially the arts. You are used to withdrawing
and being alone; use such time to tap into your
unconscious. Externalize your unusual sensitivity and
your dark feelings into the work itself.
Never try to lift up depressive people by preaching to
them about the wonderfulness of life. Instead, it is best
to go along with their gloomy opinion of the world while
subtly drawing them into positive experiences that can
elevate their moods and energy without any direct
appeal.
The Resentful Attitude. As children, these types
never felt they got enough parental love and affection—
they were always greedy for more attention. They carry
this sense of dissatisfaction and disappointment with
them throughout their lives. They are never quite getting
the recognition they deserve. They are experts at
scanning people’s faces for signs of possible disrespect or
disdain. They see everything in relation to themselves; if
someone has more than they do, it is a sign of injustice, a
personal affront. When they feel this lack of respect and
recognition, they do not explode in anger. They are
generally cautious and like to control their emotions.
Instead, the hurt incubates inside them, the sense of
injustice growing stronger as they reflect on this. They do
not easily forget. At some point they will take their
revenge in some shrewdly plotted act of sabotage or
passive aggression.
Because they have a continual feeling of being
wronged, they tend to project this on to the world, seeing
oppressors everywhere. In this way, they often become
the leader of those who feel disaffected and oppressed. If
such types get power, they can become quite vicious and
vengeful, finally able to vent their resentments on
various victims. In general, they carry themselves with
an air of arrogance; they are above others even if no one
recognizes this. They carry their head a little too high;
they frequently have a slight smirk or look of disdain. As
they get older, they are prone to pick petty battles,
unable to completely contain their resentments that have
accumulated over time. Their bitter attitude pushes a lot
of people away, and so they often end up congregating
with others who have this attitude, as their form of
community.
The Roman emperor Tiberius (42 BC–AD 37) is
perhaps the most classic example of this type. As a child,
his tutor noticed something wrong with the boy. “He is a
pitcher molded with blood and bile,” the tutor once
wrote to a friend. The writer Suetonius, who knew
Tiberius, described him as follows: “He carried himself
with his head held proudly high. . . . He was almost
always silent, never saying a word except now and
again. . . . And even then he did so with extreme
reluctance, at the same time always making a disdainful
gesture with his fingers.” Emperor Augustus, his
stepfather, had to continually apologize to the Senate for
“his displeasing manners, full of haughtiness.” Tiberius
hated his mother—she never loved him enough. He never
felt appreciated by Augustus, or his soldiers, or the
Roman people. When he became emperor, he slowly and
methodically took revenge on those who he felt had
slighted him, and such revenge would be cold and cruel.
As he got older, he became increasingly unpopular.
His enemies were legion. Feeling the hatred of his
subjects, he retired to the island of Capri, where he spent
the last eleven years of his reign, almost completely
avoiding Rome. He was known to repeat to others in his
last years, “After me, let fire destroy the earth!” At his
death Rome exploded with celebration, the crowds
voicing their feelings with the famous phrase “Into the
Tiber [River] with Tiberius!”
If you notice resentful tendencies within yourself, the
best antidote is to learn to let go of hurts and
disappointments in life. It is better to explode into anger
in the moment, even it if it’s irrational, than to stew on
slights that you have probably hallucinated or
exaggerated. People are generally indifferent to your fate,
not as antagonistic as you imagine. Very few of their
actions are really directed at you. Stop seeing everything
in personal terms. Respect is something that must be
earned through your achievements, not something given
to you simply for being human. You must break out of
the resentful cycle by becoming more generous toward
people and human nature.
In dealing with such types, you must exercise
supreme caution. Although they might smile and seem
pleasant, they are actually scrutinizing you for any
possible insult. You can recognize them by their history
of past battles and sudden breaks with people, as well as
how easily they judge others. You might try to slowly
gain their trust and lower their suspicions; but be aware
that the longer you are around them, the more fuel you
will give them for something to resent, and their
response can be quite vicious. Better to avoid this type if
possible.

The Expansive (Positive) Attitude

Some fifty years ago, many medical experts began to
think of health in a new and revolutionary way. Instead
of focusing on specific problems, such as digestion or
skin ailments or the condition of the heart, they decided
it was much better to look at the human body as a whole.
If people improved their diet and their exercise habits,
this would have a beneficial effect on all of the organs,
because the body is an interconnected whole.
This seems obvious to us now, but such an organic
way of thinking has great application to our
psychological health as well. Now more than ever people
focus on their specific problems—their depression, their
lack of motivation, their social inadequacies, their
boredom. But what governs all of these seemingly
separate problems is our attitude, how we view the world
on a daily basis. It is how we see and interpret events.
Improve the overall attitude and everything else will
elevate as well—creative powers, the ability to handle
stress, confidence levels, relationships with people. It
was an idea first promulgated in the 1890s by the great
American psychologist William James, but it remains a
revolution waiting to happen.
A negative, constricting attitude is designed to narrow
down the richness of life at the cost of our creative
powers, our sense of fulfillment, our social pleasures,
and our vital energies. Without wasting another day
under such conditions, your goal is to break out, to
expand what you see and what you experience. You want
to open the aperture of the lens as wide as you can. Here
is your road map.
 How to view the world: See yourself as an
explorer. With the gift of consciousness, you stand before
a vast and unknown universe that we humans have just
begun to investigate. Most people prefer to cling to
certain ideas and principles, many of them adopted early
on in life. They are secretly afraid of what is unfamiliar
and uncertain. They replace curiosity with conviction. By
the time they are thirty, they act as if they know
everything they need to know.
As an explorer you leave all that certainty behind you.
You are in continual search of new ideas and new ways of
thinking. You see no limits to where your mind can
roam, and you are not concerned with suddenly
appearing inconsistent or developing ideas that directly
contradict what you believed a few months before. Ideas
are things to play with. If you hold on to them for too
long, they become something dead. You are returning to
your childlike spirit and curiosity, from before you had
an ego and being right was more important than
connecting to the world. You explore all forms of
knowledge, from all cultures and time periods. You want
to be challenged.
By opening the mind in this way, you will unleash
unrealized creative powers, and you will give yourself
great mental pleasure. As part of this, be open to
exploring the insights that come from your own
unconscious, as revealed in your dreams, in moments of
tiredness, and in the repressed desires that leak out in
certain moments. You have nothing to be afraid of or to
repress there. The unconscious is merely one more realm
for you to freely explore.
How to view adversity: Our life inevitably involves
obstacles, frustrations, pain, and separations. How we
come to handle such moments in our early years plays a
large role in the development of our overall attitude
toward life. For many people, such difficult moments
inspire them to restrict what they see and experience.
They go through life trying to avoid any kind of adversity,
even if this means never really challenging themselves or
getting much success in their careers. Instead of learning
from negative experiences, they want to repress them.
Your goal is to move in the opposite direction, to
embrace all obstacles as learning experiences, as means
to getting stronger. In this way you embrace life itself.
By 1928 the actress Joan Crawford had a reasonably
successful career in Hollywood, but she was feeling
increasingly frustrated by the limited roles she was
receiving. She saw other less talented actresses vault
ahead of her. Perhaps the problem was that she was not
assertive enough. She decided she needed to voice her
opinion to one of the most powerful production chiefs on
the MGM lot, Irving Thalberg. Little did she realize that
Thalberg viewed this as impudence and that he was
vindictive by nature. He therefore cast her in a Western,
knowing that was the last thing she wanted and that such
a fate was a dead end for many an actress.
Joan had learned her lesson and decided to embrace
her fate. She made herself love the genre. She became an
expert rider. She read up on the Old West and became
fascinated by its folklore. If that’s what it took to get
ahead, she decided to become the leading actress of
Westerns. At the very least this would expand her acting
skills. This became her lifelong attitude toward work and
the supreme challenges an actress faced in Hollywood,
where careers were generally very short. Every setback
was a chance to grow and develop.
In 1946 twenty-year-old Malcolm Little (later known
as Malcolm X) began serving an eight-to-ten-year prison
sentence for burglary. Prison generally has the effect of
hardening the criminal and narrowing his already
narrow view of the world. Instead, Malcolm decided to
reassess his life. He began to spend time in the prison
library and fell in love with books and learning. As he
saw it now, prison afforded him the best possible means
of changing himself and his attitude toward life. With so
much time on his hands, he could study and earn himself
a degree. He could develop the discipline he had always
been missing. He could train himself to become an
expert speaker. He embraced the experience without any
bitterness and emerged stronger than ever. Once he left
prison, he saw any difficulty, large or small, as a means
to test and toughen himself.
Although adversity and pain are generally beyond
your control, you have the power to determine your
response and the fate that comes from that.
How to view yourself: As we get older, we tend to
place limits on how far we can go in life. Over the years
we internalize the criticisms and doubts of others. By
accepting what we think to be the limits of our
intelligence and creative powers, we create a self-
fulfilling dynamic. They become our limits. You do not
need to be so humble and self-effacing in this world.
Such humility is not a virtue but is rather a value that
people promote to help keep you down. Whatever you
are doing now, you are in fact capable of much more, and
by thinking that, you will create a very different dynamic.
In ancient times, many great leaders, such as
Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, felt that they
were descended from gods and part divine. Such self-
belief would translate into high levels of confidence that
others would feed off and recognize. It became a self-
fulfilling prophecy. You do not need to indulge in such
grandiose thoughts, but feeling that you are destined for
something great or important will give you a degree of
resilience when people oppose or resist you. You will not
internalize the doubts that come from such moments.
You will have an enterprising spirit. You will continually
try new things, even taking risks, confident in your
ability to bounce back from failures and feeling destined
to succeed.
 When Chekhov had the epiphany about the ultimate
freedom he could create for himself, he had what the
American psychologist Abraham Maslow called a “peak
experience.” These are moments in which you are lifted
out of the daily grind and you sense that there is
something larger and more sublime in life that you have
been missing. In the case of Chekhov it was sparked by a
crisis, by loneliness, and it led to the sensation of
complete acceptance of people and the world around
him. These moments can come from exerting yourself
past what you thought were your limits; they can come
from overcoming great obstacles, climbing a mountain,
taking a trip to a very different culture, or the deep
bonding that comes from any form of love. You want to
deliberately go in search of such moments, stimulate
them if you can. They have the effect, as they did with
Chekhov, of altering your attitude for good. They expand
what you think about your possibilities and about life
itself, and the memory is something you will always
return to for supreme inspiration.
In general, this way of looking at yourself runs
counter to the cool, ironic attitude that many people like
to assume in the postmodern world—never too
ambitious, never too positive about things or life, always
affecting a nonchalant and very false humility. Such
types see the positive, expansive attitude as Pollyannaish
and simpleminded. But really their cool attitude is a
clever mask for their great fears—of embarrassing
themselves, of failing, of showing too much emotion. As
with all such trends in culture, the cool attitude will
eventually fade away, a remnant of the early twenty-first
century. Moving in the opposite direction, you are much
more progressive.
How to view your energy and health: Although
we are all mortal and subject to illnesses beyond our
control, we must recognize the role that willpower plays
in our health. We have all felt this to some degree or
another. When we fall in love or feel excited by our work,
suddenly we have more energy and recover quickly from
any illnesses. When we are depressed or unusually
stressed, we become prey to all kinds of ailments. Our
attitude plays an enormous role in our health, one that
science has begun to explore and will examine in more
depth in the coming decades. In general, you can safely
push yourself beyond what you think are your physical
limits by feeling excited and challenged by a project or
endeavor. People get old and prematurely age by
accepting physical limits to what they can do, making it a
self-fulfilling cycle. Those who age well continue to
engage in physical activity, only moderately adjusted.
You have wellsprings of energy and health you have yet
to tap into.
How to view other people: First you must try to
get rid of the natural tendency to take what people do
and say as something personally directed at you,
particularly if what they say or do is unpleasant. Even
when they criticize you or act against your interests,
more often than not it stems from some deep earlier pain
they are reliving; you become the convenient target of
frustrations and resentments that have been
accumulating over the years. They are projecting their
own negative feelings. If you can view people this way,
you will find it easier to not react and get upset or
become embroiled in some petty battle. If the person is
truly malicious, by not becoming emotional yourself you
will be in a better place to plot the proper countermove.
You will save yourself from accumulating hurts and
bitter feelings.
See people as facts of nature. They come in all
varieties, like flowers or rocks. There are fools and saints
and sociopaths and egomaniacs and noble warriors;
there are the sensitive and the insensitive. They all play a
role in our social ecology. This does not mean we cannot
struggle to change the harmful behavior of the people
who are close to us or in our sphere of influence; but we
cannot reengineer human nature, and even if we
somehow succeeded, the result could be a lot worse than
what we have. You must accept diversity and the fact that
people are what they are. That they are different from
you should not be felt as a challenge to your ego or self-
esteem but as something to welcome and embrace.
From this more neutral stance, you can then try to
understand the people you deal with on a deeper level, as
Chekhov did with his father. The more you do this, the
more tolerant you will tend to become toward people and
toward human nature in general. Your open, generous
spirit will make your social interactions much smoother,
and people will be drawn to you.

—
Finally, think of the modern concept of attitude in terms
of the ancient concept of the soul. The concept of the soul
is found in almost all indigenous cultures and in
premodern civilizations. It originally referred to external
spiritual forces permeating the universe and contained
in the individual human in the form of the soul. The soul
is not the mind or the body but rather the overall spirit
we embody, our way of experiencing the world. It is what
makes a person an individual, and the concept of the soul
was related to the earliest ideas of personality. Under
this concept, a person’s soul could have depths. Some
people possessed a greater degree of this spiritual force,
had more of a soul. Others had a personality lacking in
this force and were somewhat soulless.
This has great relevance to our idea of the attitude. In
our modern conception of the soul, we replace this
external spiritual force with life itself, or what can be
described as the life force. Life is inherently complex and
unpredictable, its powers far beyond anything we can
ever completely comprehend or control. This life force is
reflected in nature and human society by the remarkable
diversity we find in both realms.
On the one side we find people whose goal in life is to
inhibit and control this life force. This leads them to self-
destructive strategies. They have to limit their thoughts
and remain true to ideas that have lost their relevance.
They have to limit what they experience. Everything is
about them and their petty needs and personal problems.
They often become obsessed with a particular goal that
dominates all of their thoughts—such as making money
or getting attention. All of this renders them dead inside
as they close themselves off to the richness of life and the
variety of human experience. In this way they veer
toward the soulless, an internal lack of depth and
flexibility.
Your goal must be to always move in the opposite
direction. You rediscover the curiosity you once had as a
child. Everything and everyone is a source of fascination
to you. You keep learning, continually expanding what
you know and what you experience. With people you feel
generous and tolerant, even with your enemies and with
those trapped in the soulless condition. You do not
enslave yourself to bitterness or rancor. Instead of
blaming others or circumstances, you see the role that
your own attitude and actions played in any failure. You
adapt to circumstances instead of complaining about
them. You accept and embrace uncertainty and the
unexpected as valuable qualities of life. In this way, your
soul expands to the contours of life itself and fills itself
with this life force.
Learn to measure the people you deal with by the
depth of their soul, and if possible associate as much as
you can with those of the expansive variety.
This is why the same external events or circumstances affect
no two people alike; even with perfectly similar surroundings
every one lives in a world of his own. . . . The world in which
a man lives shapes itself chiefly by the way in which he looks
at it, and so it proves different to different men; to one it is
barren, dull, and superficial; to another rich, interesting, and
full of meaning. On hearing of the interesting events which
have happened in the course of a man’s experience, many
people will wish that similar things had happened in their
lives too, completely forgetting that they should be envious
rather of the mental aptitude which lent those events the
significance they possess when he describes them.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
 9

Confront Your Dark Side

The Law of Repression

P eople are rarely who they seem to be. Lurking

beneath their polite, affable exterior is inevitably a
dark, shadow side consisting of the insecurities and the
aggressive, selfish impulses they repress and carefully
conceal from public view. This dark side leaks out in
behavior that will baffle and harm you. Learn to
recognize the signs of the Shadow before they become
toxic. See people’s overt traits—toughness, saintliness, et
cetera—as covering up the opposite quality. You must
become aware of your own dark side. In being
conscious of it you can control and channel the creative
energies that lurk in your unconscious. By integrating
the dark side into your personality, you will be a more
complete human and will radiate an authenticity that
will draw people to you.

The Dark Side

On November 5, 1968, Republican Richard Nixon
accomplished perhaps the greatest comeback in
American political history, narrowly defeating his
Democratic rival, Hubert Humphrey, to become the
thirty-seventh president of the United States. Only eight
years earlier he had lost his first attempt at the
presidency to John F. Kennedy in a devastating fashion.
The election was extremely close, but clearly some voting
shenanigans in Illinois, orchestrated by the Democratic
Party machine in Chicago, played a role in his defeat.
Two years later he lost badly in the race to become the
governor of California. Bitter at how the press had
hounded and provoked him throughout the race, he
addressed the media the day after this defeat and
concluded by saying, “Just think of how much you’re
going to be missing. You won’t have Nixon to kick
around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last
press conference.”
The response to these words was overwhelmingly
negative. He was accused of wallowing in self-pity. ABC
News ran a half-hour special called “The Political
Obituary of Richard Nixon.” A Time magazine article on
him concluded: “Barring a miracle, Richard Nixon can
never hope to be elected to any political office again.”
By all accounts his political career should have been
over in 1962. But Richard Nixon’s life had been an
endless series of crises and setbacks that had only made
him more determined. As a young man his dream was to
attend an Ivy League school, the key to attaining power
in America. Young Richard was exceptionally ambitious.
His family, however, was relatively poor and could not
afford to pay for such an education. He overcame this
seemingly insuperable barrier by transforming himself
into a superior student, earning the nickname “Iron
Butt” for his inhuman work habits, and managed to land
a scholarship to the law school at Duke University. To
keep the scholarship he had to remain at the top of his
class, which he did through the kind of hard work few
others could endure.
After several years in the U.S. Senate, in 1952 Dwight
D. Eisenhower had chosen him to be his running mate as
vice president on the Republican ticket, but quickly
regretted the choice. Nixon had kept a secret fund from
the Republican Party that he had supposedly used for
private purposes. In fact he was innocent of the charges,
but Eisenhower did not feel comfortable with him, and
this was the excuse to get rid of him. Cutting him loose in
this way would almost certainly ruin Nixon’s political
career. Once again he rose to the challenge, appearing on
live television and delivering the speech of his life,
defending himself against the charges. It was so effective,
the public clamored for Eisenhower to keep him on the
ticket. He went on to serve eight years as vice president.
And so, the crushing defeats of 1960 and 1962 would
again be the means of toughening himself up and
resurrecting his career. He was like a cat with nine lives.
Nothing could kill him. He laid low for a few years, then
came charging back for the 1968 election. He was now
the “new Nixon,” more relaxed and affable, a man who
liked bowling and corny jokes. And having learned all the
lessons from his various defeats, he ran one of the
smoothest and savviest campaigns in modern history
and made all of his enemies and doubters eat crow when
he defeated Humphrey.
In becoming president, he had seemingly reached the
apex of power. But in his mind there was yet one more
challenge to overcome, perhaps the greatest of all.
Nixon’s liberal enemies saw him as a political animal,
one who would resort to any kind of trickery to win an
election. To the East Coast elites who hated him, he was
the hick from Whittier, California, too obvious in his
ambition. Nixon was determined to prove them all
wrong. He was not who they thought he was. He was an
idealist at heart, not a ruthless politician. His beloved
mother, Hannah, was a devout Quaker who had instilled
in him the importance of treating all people equally and
promoting peace in the world. He wanted to craft a
legacy as one of the greatest presidents in history. For
the sake of his mother, who had died earlier that year, he
wanted to embody her Quaker ideals and show his
detractors how deeply they had misread him.
 His political icons were men like French president
Charles de Gaulle, whom he had met and greatly
admired. De Gaulle had crafted a persona that radiated
authority and love of country. Nixon would do the same.
In his notebooks he began to refer to himself as “RN”—
the world leader version of himself. RN would be strong,
resolute, compassionate yet completely masculine. The
America he was to lead was riven by antiwar protests,
riots in the cities, a rising crime rate. He would end the
war and work toward world peace; at home he would
bring prosperity to all Americans, stand for law and
order, and instill a sense of decency the country had lost.
Accomplishing this, he would take his place among the
presidents he revered—Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow
Wilson. And he would will this into existence, as he
always had done.
In his first months he moved quickly. He assembled a
top-notch cabinet, including the brilliant Henry
Kissinger as his national security adviser. For his
personal staff he preferred clean-cut young men who
would be fiercely loyal to him and serve as tools to realize
his great ambitions for America. This would include Bob
Haldeman, his chief of staff; John Ehrlichman, in charge
of domestic policy; John Dean, the White House counsel;
and Charles Colson, a White House aide.
He didn’t want intellectuals around him; he wanted
go-getters. But Nixon was not naive. He understood that
in politics loyalty was ephemeral. And so early on in his
administration he installed a secret voice-activated
taping system throughout the White House that only a
select few would know about. In this way he could keep
discreet tabs on his staff and preemptively discover any
possible turncoats or leakers among them. It would
provide evidence he could use later on if anyone tried to
misrepresent any conversations with him. And best of
all, once his presidency was over, the edited tapes could
be used to demonstrate his greatness as a leader, the
clear and rational way he came to his decisions. The
tapes would secure his legacy.
As the first few years went by, Nixon worked to
execute his plan. He was an active president. He signed
bills to protect the environment, the health of workers,
and the rights of consumers. On the foreign front, he
struggled to wind down the war in Vietnam, with limited
success. But soon he laid the groundwork for his first
visit to the Soviet Union and his celebrated trip to China
and signed into law an agreement with the Soviets to
limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons. This was just
the start of what he would bring about.
And yet despite the relative smoothness of these first
years, something strange began to stir within Richard
Nixon. He could not shake these feelings of anxiety,
something he had been prone to his entire life. It started
to come out in his closed-door meetings with his
personal staff, late at night over some drinks. Nixon
would begin to share with them stories from his colorful
past, and in the process he would go over some of his old
political wounds, and bitterness would rise up from deep
within.
He was particularly obsessed with the Alger Hiss case.
Alger Hiss was an important staffer in the State
Department who in 1948 had been accused of being a
communist spy. Hiss denied the charges. Dapper and
elegant, he was the darling of the liberals. Nixon, at the
time a junior congressman from California, smelled a
phony. While other congressmen decided to leave Hiss
alone, Nixon, representing the House Un-American
Activities Committee, kept investigating. In an interview
with Hiss, as Nixon reminded him of the law against
perjury, Hiss replied, “I am familiar with the law. I
attended Harvard Law School. I believe yours was
Whittier?” (a reference to the lowly undergraduate
college Nixon had attended).
 Relentless in his pursuit of Hiss, Nixon was successful
in getting him indicted for perjury, and Hiss went to
prison. This victory made Nixon famous but, as he told
his staff members, it earned him the eternal wrath of
East Coast elites, who saw him as the unctuous upstart
from Whittier. In the 1950s these elites, many of them
Harvard graduates, quietly kept Nixon and his wife, Pat,
out of their social circles, limiting Nixon’s political
contacts. Their allies in the press ridiculed him
mercilessly for any misstatement or possible misdeed.
Yes, Nixon was no angel. He liked winning, but the
hypocrisy of these liberals galled him—Bobby Kennedy
was the king of political dirty tricks, and yet what
reporter publicized this?
As he went deeper and deeper into these stories night
after night with his staff, he reminded them that this past
was still very much alive. The old enemies were still at
work against him. There was CBS correspondent Daniel
Schorr, who seemed to hate Nixon with unusual zeal. His
reports from Vietnam always managed to highlight the
worst aspects of the war and make Nixon look bad. There
was Katharine Graham, the owner of the Washington
Post, a newspaper that seemed to have a personal
vendetta against him going back many years. She was the
doyenne of the Georgetown social scene, which had
snubbed him and Pat for years. Worst of all, there was
Larry O’Brien, now the chairman of the Democratic
Party, who as a key adviser in the Kennedy
administration had managed to get Nixon audited by the
IRS. As Nixon saw it, O’Brien was the evil genius of
politics, a man who would do anything to prevent
Nixon’s reelection in 1972.
His enemies were everywhere and they were
relentless—planting negative stories in the press,
procuring embarrassing leaks from within the
bureaucracy, spying on him, ready to pounce on the
slightest whiff of scandal. And what, he would ask his
staff, are we doing on our side? If his team did nothing to
respond to this, they would have only themselves to
blame. His legacy, his ambitions were at stake. As the
stories began to pile up of antiwar demonstrations and
leaks about his administration’s Vietnam War effort,
Nixon became red-hot with anger and frustration, the
talk with his staff heating up on both sides. Once, as
Colson talked about getting revenge on some particularly
nettlesome opponents, Nixon chimed in, “One day we
will get them—we’ll get them on the ground where we
want them. And then we’ll stick our heels in, step on
them hard and twist—right, Chuck, right?”
When informed that many of the staff at the Bureau of
Labor Statistics were Jews, he felt that was probably the
reason for some bad economic numbers coming from
there. “The government is full of Jews,” he told
Haldeman. “Most Jews are disloyal.” They were the
mainstay of the East Coast establishment that worked so
hard against him. Another time he told Haldeman,
“Please get me the names of the Jews, you know, the big
Jewish contributors to the Democrats. . . . Could we
please investigate some of the cocksuckers?” Auditing
them would be in order. He had other harsh ideas for
how to hurt Katharine Graham and embarrass Daniel
Schorr.
Nixon also began to feel increasingly anxious about
his public image, so critical to his legacy. He badgered
his staff, and even Henry Kissinger, to promote to the
press his strong leadership style. In interviews, they
should refer to him as Mr. Peace, and Kissinger should
not be getting so much credit. He wanted to know what
the elites at the parties in Georgetown were saying about
him. Were they finally changing their minds in any way
about Richard Nixon?
Despite his nervousness, by 1972 it was clear that
events were lining up well for him. His Democratic
opponent in his reelection bid would be Senator George
McGovern, a diehard liberal. Nixon was ahead in the
polls, but he wanted much more. He wanted a complete
landslide and mandate from the public. Certain that men
like O’Brien had some tricks up their sleeve, he began to
rail at Haldeman to do some spying and get some dirt on
the Democrats. He wanted Haldeman to assemble a team
of “nutcutters” to do the necessary dirty work with
maximum efficiency. He would leave the details up to
him.
Much to his chagrin, in June of that year Nixon read
in the Washington Post of a botched break-in at the
Watergate Hotel, in which a group of men had attempted
to plant bugs in the offices of Larry O’Brien. This led to
the arrest of three men—James McCord, E. Howard
Hunt, and G. Gordon Liddy—with ties to the committee
for the reelection of President Nixon. The break-in was
so badly done that Nixon suspected it was all a setup by
the Democrats. This was not the efficient team of
nutcutters he had advocated.
A few days later, on June 23, he discussed the break-
in with Haldeman. The FBI was investigating the case.
Some of the men arrested were former CIA operatives.
Perhaps, Haldeman proposed, they could get top brass in
the CIA to put pressure on the FBI to drop the
investigation. Nixon approved. He told Haldeman, “I’m
not going to get that involved.” Haldeman responded,
“No, sir. We don’t want you to.” But Nixon then added,
“Play it tough. That’s the way they play and that’s the
way we’re going to play it.” Nixon put his counsel, John
Dean, in charge of the internal investigation, with clear
instructions that he should stonewall the FBI and cover
up any connections to the White House. Anyway, Nixon
had never directly ordered the break-in. Watergate was a
trifle, nothing to tarnish his reputation. It would fade
away, along with all the other dirty political deeds never
discovered or recorded in the history books.
 And indeed he was correct, for the time being—the
public paid little attention to the break-in. Nixon went on
to have one of the biggest landslides in electoral history.
He swept every state except Massachusetts and the
District of Columbia. He even won over a large
percentage of Democrats. He now had four more years to
solidify his legacy and nothing to stop him. His
popularity numbers had never been higher.
Watergate, however, kept coming back to life and
would not leave him alone. In January 1973, the Senate
decided to launch an investigation. In March, McCord
finally spilled the beans, implicating various members of
the White House staff in the ordering of the break-in.
Hunt began demanding hush money to not reveal what
he knew. The way out of this mess was simple and clear—
hire an outside lawyer to do an internal investigation of
the break-in, with the full cooperation of Nixon and his
team, and bring all the details to light. Nixon’s
reputation would suffer, some would go to prison, but it
would keep him politically alive, and he was the master
of coming back from the dead.
Nixon, however, could not take such a step. There
would be too much immediate damage. The thought of
coming clean about what he knew and had ordered
frightened him to death. In meetings with Dean he
continued to discuss the cover-up, even suggesting where
they could come up with hush money. Dean cautioned
him to not get so involved, but Nixon seemed oddly
fascinated by the growing mess he had created, and
unable to pull himself away.
Soon he was forced to fire Haldeman and Ehrlichman,
both of whom had been deeply implicated in the break-
in. It was an ordeal to get him to personally fire them,
and when it came to delivering the news to Ehrlichman,
he broke down and sobbed. But it seemed that nothing
he did could stop the momentum of the Watergate
investigation, which got closer and closer to Nixon,
making him feel like a trapped rat.
On July 19, 1973, he received the worst news of all:
the Senate committee investigating Watergate had
learned of the secret taping system installed in the White
House, and they demanded that the tapes be handed
over to them as evidence. All Nixon could think about
was the intense embarrassment that would ensue if the
tapes went public. They would make him the
laughingstock of the world. Think of the language that he
had used and the many harsh things he had advocated.
His image, his legacy, all the ideals he had striven to
realize, it would all be ruined in one fell stroke. He
thought of his mother and his own family—they had
never heard him speak as he had done in the privacy of
his own office. It was as if he were another person on
those tapes. Alexander Haig, who was now his chief of
staff, told Nixon he had to tear out the taping system and
destroy the tapes immediately, before receiving an
official subpoena.
Nixon seemed paralyzed: Destroying the tapes would
be an admission of guilt; perhaps the tapes would
exonerate him, as they would prove he had never directly
ordered the break-in. But the thought of any of these
tapes becoming public terrified him. He went back and
forth on this in his mind, but in the end he decided to not
destroy them. By invoking executive privilege he would
resist handing them over.
Finally, as pressure mounted, in April 1974 Nixon
decided to release edited transcripts of the tapes in the
form of a 1,200-page book and hope for the best. The
public was horrified by what it read. Yes, many had
thought him slippery and devious, but the forceful
language, the swearing, the sometimes hysterical,
paranoid tone of his conversation, and the utter lack of
compunction or hesitation in ordering various illegal acts
revealed a side of Nixon they had never suspected. Even
members of his family were shocked. When it came to
Watergate, he seemed very weak and indecisive, not at
all the de Gaulle image he wanted to project. He never
once showed the slightest desire to get at the truth and
punish the wrongdoers. Where was the man of law and
order?
On July 24 came the final blow: the Supreme Court
ordered him to hand over the tapes themselves, and
among them would be the recorded conversation of June
23, 1972, in which he had approved of using the CIA to
quash the FBI investigation. This was the “smoking gun”
that revealed his involvement in the cover-up from early
on. Nixon was doomed, and although it was against
everything he believed in, by early August he decided to
resign.
The morning after he delivered his resignation speech
to the country, Nixon addressed his staff one last time,
and fighting to control his emotions, he concluded,
“Never get discouraged, never be petty; always
remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you
don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy
yourself.” Along with his family, he then got into the
helicopter that was to take him into political exile.

• • •
Interpretation: For those who worked closely with
Richard Nixon, the man was an enigma. According to his
chief speechwriter, Ray Price, there were two Nixons,
one light, one dark. The light Nixon was “exceptionally
considerate, exceptionally caring, sentimental, generous
of spirit, kind.” The dark Nixon was “angry, vindictive,
ill-tempered, mean-spirited.” He saw both sides as being
“at constant war with one another.” But perhaps the
most perceptive observer of Nixon, the one closest to
figuring out the enigma, was Henry Kissinger, who made
a point of studying him closely so that he could manage
and even play him for his own purposes. And according
to Kissinger, the key to Nixon and his split personality
must somehow lie in his childhood. “Can you imagine,”
Kissinger once observed, “what this man would have
been like if somebody had loved him?”
As an infant, Nixon seemed to be unusually needy. He
was a notorious crybaby; it took great effort to soothe
him, and he was continually bursting into sobs. He
wanted more attention, more fussing after him, and he
was quite manipulative if he did not get these things. His
parents did not like this aspect of their child. Growing up
in the pioneer days of southern California, they preferred
to have a stoic, self-reliant child. Nixon’s father could be
physically abusive and cold. His mother was more caring
but frequently depressed and very moody. She had to
deal with the business failures of her husband and two
sickly brothers of Richard who died at young ages. She
had to frequently leave Richard alone for months to
attend to his brothers, which Richard must have
experienced as some kind of abandonment.
In dealing with his difficult parents, the personality of
Nixon was formed. Seeking to overcome and disguise his
vulnerabilities, he created a persona that served him
well, first with his family and later with the public. For
this persona he accentuated his own strengths and
developed new ones. He became supremely tough,
resilient, fierce, decisive, rational, and not someone to
mess with, particularly in debate. (According to
Kissinger, “There was nothing he feared more than to be
thought weak.”) But the weak and vulnerable child
within does not miraculously disappear. If its needs have
never been met or dealt with, its presence sinks into the
unconscious, into the shadows of the personality, waiting
to come out in strange ways. It becomes the dark side.
With Nixon, whenever he experienced stress or
unusual levels of anxiety, this dark side would stir from
deep within in the form of potent insecurities (“nobody
appreciates me”), suspicions (enemies everywhere),
sudden outbursts and tantrums, and powerful desires to
manipulate and harm those he believed had crossed him.
Nixon repressed and denied this side of himself with
vehemence, even up to the very end in his last words to
his staff. He frequently told people he never cried, or
held grudges, or cared what others thought of him—the
opposite of the truth. For much of the time he played his
role well as RN. But when the shadow stirred, strange
behavior emerged, giving people who saw him on a
regular basis the impression they were indeed dealing
with two Nixons. To Kissinger, it was like seeing the
unloved child come back to life.
Nixon’s dark side finally became something tangible
in form of the tapes. Nixon knew that everything he said
was being recorded, and yet he never held back or
filtered what he was saying. He insulted close friends
behind their backs, indulged in wild bouts of paranoia
and revenge fantasies, waffled over the simplest
decisions. He was a man who greatly feared the slightest
internal leak and suspected betrayal in almost anyone
around him, and yet he entrusted his fate to tapes that he
believed would never be made public in an unedited
form. Even when it seemed that they could become
public and he was advised to destroy them, he held on to
them, mesmerized by this other Nixon that had emerged.
It was as if he secretly desired his own punishment, the
child and the dark side taking revenge for being so
deeply denied.
Understand: The story of Nixon is closer to you and
your reality than you might like to imagine. Like Nixon,
you have crafted a public persona that accentuates your
strengths and conceals your weaknesses. Like him, you
have repressed the less socially acceptable traits you
naturally possessed as a child. You have become terribly
nice and pleasant. And like him, you have a dark side,
one that you are loath to admit or examine. It contains
your deepest insecurities, your secret desires to hurt
people, even those close to you, your fantasies of
revenge, your suspicions about others, your hunger for
more attention and power. This dark side haunts your
dreams. It leaks out in moments of inexplicable
depression, unusual anxiety, touchy moods, sudden
neediness, and suspicious thoughts. It comes out in
offhand comments you later regret.
And sometimes, as with Nixon, it even leads to
destructive behavior. You will tend to blame
circumstances or other people for these moods and
behavior, but they keep recurring because you are
unaware of their source. Depression and anxiety come
from not being your complete self, from always playing a
role. It requires great energy to keep this dark side at
bay, but at times unpleasant behavior leaks out as a way
to release the inner tension.
Your task as a student of human nature is to recognize
and examine the dark side of your character. Once
subjected to conscious scrutiny, it loses its destructive
power. If you can learn to detect the signs of it in yourself
(see the following sections for help on this), you can
channel this darker energy into productive activity. You
can turn your neediness and vulnerability into empathy.
You can channel your aggressive impulses into
worthwhile causes and into your work. You can admit
your ambitions, your desires for power, and not act so
guiltily and stealthily. You can monitor your suspicious
tendencies and the projection of your own negative
emotions onto others. You can see that selfish and
harmful impulses dwell within you as well, that you are
not as angelic or strong as you imagine. With this
awareness will come balance and greater tolerance for
others.
It might seem that only those who project continual
strength and saintliness can become successful, but that
is not at all the case. By playing a role to such an extent,
by straining to live up to ideals that are not real, you will
emit a phoniness that others pick up. Look at great
public figures such as Abraham Lincoln and Winston
Churchill. They possessed the ability to examine their
flaws and mistakes and laugh at themselves. They came
across as authentically human, and this was the source of
their charm. The tragedy of Nixon was that he had
immense political talent and intelligence; if only he had
also possessed the ability to look within and measure the
darker sides to his character. It is the tragedy that
confronts us all to the extent that we remain in deep
denial.
This longing to commit a madness stays with us throughout
our lives. Who has not, when standing with someone by an
abyss or high up on a tower, had a sudden impulse to push
the other over? And how is it that we hurt those we love
although we know that remorse will follow? Our whole being
is nothing but a fight against the dark forces within
ourselves. To live is to war with trolls in heart and soul. To
write is to sit in judgment on oneself.
—Henrik Ibsen

Keys to Human Nature

If we think about the people we know and see on a
regular basis, we would have to agree that they are
usually quite pleasant and agreeable. For the most part,
they seem pleased to be in our company, are relatively
up-front and confident, socially responsible, able to work
with a team, take good care of themselves, and treat
others well. But every now and then with these friends,
acquaintances, and colleagues, we glimpse behavior that
seems to contradict what we normally see.
This can come in several forms: Out of nowhere they
make a critical, even cruel comment about us, or express
a rather harsh assessment of our work or personality. Is
this what they really feel and were struggling to conceal?
For a moment they are not so nice. Or we hear of their
unpleasant treatment of family or employees behind
closed doors. Or out of the blue they have an affair with
the most unlikely man or woman, and it leads to bad
things. Or they put their money in some absurd and risky
financial scheme. Or they do something rash that puts
their career in jeopardy. Or we catch them in some lie or
manipulative act. We can also notice such moments of
acting out, or behaving against reputation, in public
figures and celebrities, who then go through lengthy
apologies for the strange moods that came over them.
What we glimpse in these moments is the dark side of
their character, what the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung
called the Shadow. The Shadow consists of all the
qualities people try to deny about themselves and
repress. This repression is so deep and effective that
people are generally unaware of their Shadow; it
operates unconsciously. According to Jung, this Shadow
has a thickness to it, depending on how deep the level of
repression and the number of traits that are being
concealed. Nixon would be said to have a particularly
thick Shadow. When we experience those moments when
people reveal the dark side, we can see something come
over their face; their voice and body language is altered—
almost as if another person is confronting us, the
features of the upset child suddenly becoming visible. We
feel their shadow as it stirs and emerges.
The Shadow lies buried deep within, but it becomes
disturbed and active in moments of stress, or when deep
wounds and insecurities are triggered. It also tends to
emerge more as people get older. When we are young,
everything seems exciting to us, including the various
social roles we must play. But later in life we tire of the
masks we have been wearing, and the leakage is greater.
Because we rarely see the Shadow, the people we deal
with are somewhat strangers to us. It is as if we only see
a two-dimensional, flattened image of people—their
pleasant social side. Knowing the contours of their
Shadow makes them come to life in three dimensions.
This ability to see the rounded person is a critical step in
our knowledge of human nature. Armed with this
knowledge, we can anticipate people’s behavior in
moments of stress, understand their hidden motives, and
not get dragged under by any self-destructive tendencies.
The Shadow is created in our earliest years and stems
from two conflicting forces that we felt. First, we came
into this world bursting with energy and intensity. We
did not understand the difference between acceptable
and unacceptable behavior; we only experienced natural
impulses. Some of these impulses were aggressive. We
wanted to monopolize our parents’ attention and receive
much more of it than our siblings. We experienced
moments of great affection but also powerful dislikes and
hatreds, even of our parents for not meeting our needs.
We wanted to feel superior in some way and appreciated
for it—in appearance, strength, or smartness. We could
be remarkably selfish if we were denied what we wanted,
and turn devious and manipulative to get it. We could
even find some pleasure in hurting people, or fantasize
about getting revenge. We experienced and expressed
the full gamut of emotions. We were not the innocent
angels people imagine children to be.
At the same time, we were completely vulnerable and
dependent on our parents for survival. This dependence
lasted for many years. We watched our parents with
eagle eyes, noting every signal of approval and
disapproval on their faces. They would chastise us for
having too much energy and wish we could sit still. They
sometimes found us too willful and selfish. They felt that
other people were judging them by the behavior of their
children, so they wanted us to be nice, to put on a show
for others, to act like the sweet angel. They urged us to be
cooperative and play fairly, even though at times we
wished to behave differently. They encouraged us to tone
down our needs, to be more of what they needed in their
stressful lives. They actively discouraged our tantrums
and any form of acting out.
 As we got older, these pressures to present a
particular front came from other directions—peers and
teachers. It was fine to show some ambition, but not too
much of it or we might seem antisocial. We could exude
confidence, but not too much or we would seem to be
asserting our superiority. The need to fit into the group
became a primary motivation, and so we learned to tamp
down and restrain the dark side of our personality. We
internalized all of the ideals of our culture—being nice,
having prosocial values. Much of this is essential for the
smooth functioning of social life, but in the process a
large part of our nature moved underground, into the
Shadow. (Of course, there are some who never learned to
control these darker impulses and end up acting them
out in real life—the criminals in our midst. But even
criminals struggle to appear nice a great deal of the time
and justify their behavior.)
Most of us succeed in becoming a positive social
animal, but at a price. We end up missing the intensity
that we experienced in childhood, the full gamut of
emotions, and even the creativity that came with this
wilder energy. We secretly yearn to recapture it in some
way. We are drawn toward what is outwardly forbidden
—sexually or socially. We may resort to alcohol or drugs
or any stimulant, because we feel our senses dulled, our
minds too restrained by convention. If we accumulate a
lot of hurts and resentments along the way, which we
strive to conceal from others, the Shadow grows thicker.
If we experience success in our lives, we become addicted
to positive attention, and in the inevitable down
moments when the drug of such attention wears off, the
Shadow will be disturbed and activated.
Concealing this dark side requires energy; it can be
draining to always present such a nice, confident front.
And so the Shadow wants to release some of the inner
tension and come back to life. As the poet Horace once
said, Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret
(“You can throw out Nature with a pitchfork, but she’ll
always come back”). You must become adept at
recognizing such moments of release in others and
interpreting them, seeing the outlines of the Shadow that
now come forward. The following are some of the most
notable signs of such release.
Contradictory behavior: This is the most eloquent
sign of all. It consists of actions that belie the carefully
constructed front that people present. For instance, a
person who preaches morals is suddenly caught out in a
very compromising situation. Or someone with a tough
exterior reveals insecurities and hysteria at the wrong
moment. Or a person who preaches free love and open
behavior suddenly becomes quite domineering and
authoritarian. The strange, contradictory behavior is a
direct expression of the Shadow. (For more on such signs
and how to interpret them, see the section on this page.)
Emotional outbursts: A person suddenly loses his
or her habitual self-control and sharply expresses deep
resentments or says something biting and hurtful. In the
aftermath of such a release, they may blame it on stress;
they may say they did not mean any of it, when in fact
the opposite is the case—the Shadow has spoken. Take
what they said at face value. On a less intense level,
people may suddenly become unusually sensitive and
touchy. Some of their deepest fears and insecurities from
childhood have somehow become activated, and this
makes them hyperalert to any possible slight and ripe for
smaller outbursts.
Vehement denial: According to Freud, the only way
that something unpleasant or uncomfortable in our
unconscious can reach the conscious mind is through
active denial. We express the very opposite of what is
buried within. This could be a person fulminating against
homosexuality, when in fact he or she feels the opposite.
Nixon engaged in such denials frequently, as when he
told others, in the strongest terms, that he never cried, or
held grudges, or gave in to weakness, or cared what
people thought of him. You must reinterpret the denials
as positive expressions of Shadow desires.
“Accidental” behavior: People might talk of
quitting some addiction, or not working so damned hard,
or staying away from a self-destructive relationship.
They then fall into the behavior they spoke of trying to
avoid, blaming it on an uncontrollable illness or
dependency. This salves their conscience for indulging
their dark side; they simply can’t help it. Ignore the
justifications and see the Shadow operating and
releasing. Also remember that when people are drunk
and behave differently, often it is not the alcohol that is
speaking but the Shadow.
Overidealization: This can serve as one of the most
potent covers for the Shadow. Let us say we believe in
some cause, such as the importance of transparency in
our actions, particularly in politics. Or we admire and
follow the leader of just such a cause. Or we decide that
some new type of financial investment—mortgage-
backed securities, for instance—represents the latest and
most sophisticated path to wealth. In these situations we
go much further than simple enthusiasm. We are
charged with powerful conviction. We gloss over any
faults, inconsistencies, or possible downsides. We see
everything in black-and-white terms—our cause is moral,
modern, and progressive; the other side, including
doubters, is evil and reactionary.
We now feel sanctioned to do everything for the cause
—lie, cheat, manipulate, spy, falsify scientific data, get
revenge. Anything the leader does is justified. In the case
of the investment, we feel justified in taking what
normally would be seen as great risks, because this time
the financial tool is different and new, not subject to the
usual rules. We can be as greedy as we like without
worrying about the consequences.
 We tend to be dazzled by the strength of people’s
convictions and interpret excessive behavior as simply
overzealousness. But we should look at it in another
light. By overidealizing a cause, person, or object, people
can give free rein to the Shadow. That is their
unconscious motivation. The bullying, the
manipulations, the greed that comes out for the sake of
the cause or product should be taken at face value, the
overly strong conviction providing simple cover for
repressed emotions to play themselves out.
Related to this, in arguments people will use their
powerful convictions as a perfect way to disguise their
desires to bully and intimidate. They trot out statistics
and anecdotes (which can always be found) to buttress
their case, then proceed to insult or impugn our
integrity. It’s just an exchange of ideas, they say. Pay
attention to the bullying tone, and do not be fooled.
Intellectuals might be subtler. They will lord it over us
with obscure language and ideas we cannot decode, and
we are made to feel inferior for our ignorance. In all
cases, see this as repressed aggression finding a way to
leak out.
Projection: This is by far the most common way of
dealing with our Shadow, because it offers almost daily
release. We cannot admit to ourselves certain desires—
for sex, for money, for power, for superiority in some
area—and so instead we project those desires onto
others. Sometimes we simply imagine and completely
project these qualities out of nothing, in order to judge
and condemn people. Other times we find people who
express such taboo desires in some form, and we
exaggerate them in order to justify our dislike or hatred.
For instance, we accuse another person in some
conflict of having authoritarian desires. In fact, they are
simply defending themselves. We are the ones who
secretly wish to dominate, but if we see it in the other
side first, we can vent our repressed desire in the form of
a judgment and justify our own authoritarian response.
Let us say we repressed early on assertive and
spontaneous impulses so natural to the child.
Unconsciously we wish to have back such qualities, but
we cannot overcome our internal taboos. We look out for
those who are less inhibited, more assertive and open
with their ambition. We exaggerate these tendencies.
Now we can despise them, and in thinking about them,
give vent to what we cannot admit to ourselves or about
ourselves.
The great nineteenth-century German composer
Richard Wagner frequently expressed anti-Semitic
sentiments. He blamed Jews for ruining Western music
with their eclectic tastes, sentimentality, and emphasis
on technical brilliance. He yearned for a more pure
German music, which he would create. Most of what he
blamed Jews for in music was completely made up. Yet
Wagner, strangely enough, had many of the same
qualities that he seemed to hate in Jews. His tastes were
quite eclectic. He had sentimental tendencies. Many of
the pianists and conductors he worked with were Jewish,
because of their technical proficiency.
Remember: behind any vehement hatred is often a
secret and very unpalatable envy of the hated person or
people. It is only through such hate that it can be
released from the unconscious in some form.
Consider yourself a detective when it comes to piecing
together people’s Shadow. Through the various signs you
pick up, you can fill in the outlines of their repressed
desires and impulses. This will allow you to anticipate
future leakage and odd Shadow-like behavior. Rest
assured such behavior never occurs just once, and it will
tend to pop up in different areas. If, for instance, you
pick up bullying tendencies in the way someone argues,
you will also see it in other activities.
You might entertain the notion that this concept of
the Shadow is somewhat antiquated. After all, we live in
a much more rational, scientifically oriented culture
today. People are more transparent and self-aware than
ever, we might say. We are much less repressed than our
ancestors, who had to deal with all sorts of pressures
from organized religion. The truth, however, might very
well be the opposite. In many ways we are more split
than ever between our conscious, social selves and our
unconscious Shadow. We live in a culture that enforces
powerful codes of correctness that we must abide by or
face the shaming that is now so common on social media.
We are supposed to live up to ideals of selflessness,
which are impossible for us because we are not angels.
All of this drives the dark side of our personalities even
further underground.
We can read signs of this in how deeply and secretly
we are all drawn to the dark side in our culture. We thrill
at watching shows in which various Machiavellian
characters manipulate, deceive, and dominate. We lap up
stories in the news of those who have been caught acting
out in some way and enjoy the ensuing shaming. Serial
killers and diabolical cult leaders enthrall us. With these
shows and the news we can always become moralistic
and talk of how much we despise such villains, but the
truth is that the culture constantly feeds us these figures
because we are hungry for expressions of the dark side.
All of this provides a degree of release from the tension
we experience in having to play the angel and seem so
correct.
These are relatively harmless forms of release, but
there are more dangerous ones, particularly in the realm
of politics. We find ourselves increasingly drawn to
leaders who give vent to this dark side, who express the
hostility and resentment we all secretly feel. They say
things we would dare not say. In the safety of the group
and rallied to some cause, we have license to project and
vent our spleen on various convenient scapegoats. By
idealizing the leader and the cause, we are now free to act
in ways we would normally shy away from as individuals.
These demagogues are adept at exaggerating the threats
we face, painting everything in black-and-white terms.
They stir up the fears, insecurities, and desires for
revenge that have gone underground but are waiting at
any moment to explode in the group setting. We will find
more and more such leaders as we experience greater
degrees of repression and inner tension.
The writer Robert Louis Stevenson expressed this
dynamic in the novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and
Mr. Hyde, published in 1886. The main character, Dr.
Jekyll, is a well-respected and wealthy doctor/scientist
with impeccable manners, so much like the paragons of
goodness in our culture. He invents a concoction that
transforms him into Mr. Hyde, the embodiment of his
Shadow, who proceeds to murder and rape and indulge
in the wildest of sensual pleasures. Stevenson’s idea is
that the more civilized and moral we outwardly become,
the more potentially dangerous is the Shadow, which we
so fiercely deny. As the character Dr. Jekyll describes it,
“My devil had long been caged, he came out roaring.”
The solution is not more repression and correctness.
We can never alter human nature through enforced
niceness. The pitchfork doesn’t work. Nor is the solution
to seek release for our Shadow in the group, which is
volatile and dangerous. Instead the answer is to see our
Shadow in action and become more self-aware. It is hard
to project onto others our own secret impulses or to
overidealize some cause, once we are made aware of the
mechanism operating within us. Through such self-
knowledge we can find a way to integrate the dark side
into our consciousness productively and creatively. (For
more on this, see the last section of this chapter.) In
doing so we become more authentic and complete,
exploiting to the maximum the energies we naturally
possess.
 Deciphering the Shadow: Contradictory
Behavior
In the course of your life you will come upon people who
have very emphatic traits that set them apart and seem
to be the source of their strength—unusual confidence,
exceptional niceness and affability, great moral rectitude
and a saintly aura, toughness and rugged masculinity, an
intimidating intellect. If you look closely at them, you
may notice a slight exaggeration to these traits, as if they
were performing or laying it on just a little too thick. As a
student of human nature, you must understand the
reality: the emphatic trait generally rests on top of the
opposite trait, distracting and concealing it from public
view.
We can see two forms of this: Early on in life some
people sense a softness, vulnerability, or insecurity that
might prove embarrassing or uncomfortable. They
unconsciously develop the opposite trait, a resilience or
toughness that lies on the outside like a protective shell.
The other scenario is that a person has a quality that they
feel might be antisocial—for instance, too much ambition
or an inclination to be selfish. They develop the opposite
quality, something very prosocial.
In both cases, over the years they hone and perfect
this public image. The underlying weakness or antisocial
trait is a key component of their Shadow—something
denied and repressed. But as the laws of human nature
dictate, the deeper the repression, the greater the
volatility of the Shadow. As they get older or experience
stress, there will be cracks in the façade. They are playing
a role to the extreme, and it is tiring. Their real self will
rebel in the form of moods, obsessions, secret vices, and
behavior that is quite contrary to their image and is often
self-destructive.
Your task is simple: be extra wary around people who
display such emphatic traits. It is very easy to get caught
up in the appearance and first impression. Watch for the
signs and emergence of the opposite over time. It is
much easier to deal with such types once you understand
them. The following are seven of the most common
emphatic traits that you must learn to recognize and
manage appropriately.
The Tough Guy: He projects a rough masculinity
that is intended to intimidate. He has a swagger and an
air that signals he is not to be messed with. He tends to
boast about past exploits—the women he has conquered,
the brawls, the times he’s outnegotiated opponents.
Although he seems extremely convincing in telling such
stories, they feel exaggerated, almost hard to believe. Do
not be fooled by appearances. Such men have learned to
conceal an underlying softness, an emotional
vulnerability from deep within that terrifies them. On
occasion you will see this sensitive side—they may cry, or
have a tantrum, or suddenly show compassion.
Embarrassed by this, they will quickly cover it up with a
tough or even cruel act or comment.
For the baseball player Reggie Jackson, Yankees
manager Billy Martin was just such a brawling type.
Jackson could recognize the softness behind the bluster
in Martin’s touchiness when it came to his ego, his
changing moods (not very masculine), and emotional
outbursts that revealed glaring insecurities. Such men
will often make terrible decisions under the impact of the
emotions that they have tried to conceal and repress but
that inevitably surface. Although they like to dominate
women, they will often end up with a wife who clearly
dominates them, a secret wish of theirs.
You must not let yourself be intimidated by the front,
but also be careful to not stir up their deep insecurities
by seeming to doubt their tall tales or masculine nature.
They are notoriously touchy and thin-skinned, and you
might detect a micropout on their face if you trigger their
insecurities, before they cover it up with a fierce scowl. If
they happen to be a rival, they are easy to bait into an
overreaction that reveals something less than tough.
The Saint: These people are paragons of goodness
and purity. They support the best and most progressive
causes. They can be very spiritual if that is the circle they
travel in; or they are above the corruption and
compromises of politics; or they have endless
compassion for every type of victim. This saintly exterior
developed early on as a way to disguise their strong
hunger for power and attention or their strong sensual
appetites. The irony is that often by projecting this
saintly aura to the nth degree they will gain great power,
leading a cult or political party. And once they are in
power, the Shadow will have space to operate. They will
become intolerant, railing at the impure, punishing them
if necessary. Maximilien Robespierre (nicknamed the
Incorruptible), who rose to power in the French
Revolution, was just such a type. Under his reign, the
guillotine was never busier.
They are also secretly drawn to sex, to money, to the
limelight, and to what is expressly taboo for their
particular saintliness. The strain and the temptations are
too much—they are the gurus who sleep with their
students. They will appear the saint in public, but their
family or spouse will see the demonic side in private.
(See the story of the Tolstoys in chapter 2.) There are
genuine saints out there, but they do not feel the need to
publicize their deeds or grab power. To distinguish
between the real and the fake, ignore their words and the
aura they project, focusing on their deeds and the details
of their life—how much they seem to enjoy power and
attention, the astonishing degree of wealth they have
accumulated, the number of mistresses, the level of self-
absorption. Once you recognize this type, do not become
a naive follower. Keep some distance. If they are
enemies, simply shine a light on the clear signs of
hypocrisy.
 As a variation on this, you will find people who
propound a philosophy of free love and anything goes;
but in fact they are after power. They prefer sex with
those who are dependent on them. And of course
anything goes, as long as it’s on their terms.
The Passive-Aggressive Charmer: These types
are amazingly nice and accommodating when you first
meet them, so much so that you tend to let them into
your life rather quickly. They smile a lot. They are upbeat
and always willing to help. At some point, you may
return the favor by hiring them for a job or helping them
in their careers. You will detect along the way some
cracks in the veneer—perhaps they make a somewhat
critical comment out of the blue, or you hear from
friends that they have been talking about you behind
your back. Then something ugly occurs—a blowup, some
act of sabotage or betrayal—so unlike that nice, charming
person you first befriended.
The truth is that these types realize early on in life
that they have aggressive, envious tendencies that are
hard to control. They want power. They intuit that such
inclinations will make life hard for them. Over many
years they cultivate the opposite façade—their niceness
has an almost aggressive edge. Through this stratagem
they are able to gain social power. But they secretly
resent having to play such a role and be so deferential.
They can’t maintain it. Under stress or simply worn out
by the effort, they will lash out and hurt you. They can do
this well now that they know you and your weak spots.
They will, of course, blame you for what ensues.
Your best defense is to be wary of people who are too
quick to charm and befriend, too nice and
accommodating at first. Such extreme niceness is never
natural. Keep your distance and look for some early
signs, such as passive-aggressive comments. If you notice
that—somewhat out of character—they indulge in
malicious gossip about someone, you can be sure the
Shadow is speaking and that you will be the target of
such gossip one day.
The Fanatic: You are impressed by their fervor, in
support of whatever cause. They speak forcefully. They
allow for no compromise. They will clean things up,
restore greatness. They radiate strength and conviction,
and because of this they gain followers. They have a flair
for drama and capturing attention. But at the key
moment when they could possibly deliver what they have
promised, they unexpectedly slip up. They become
indecisive at the wrong moment, or burn themselves out
and fall ill, or take such ill-conceived actions that it all
falls apart. It’s as if they have suddenly lost belief, or
secretly wanted to fail.
The truth is that such types have massive insecurities
from early on in life. They have doubts about their self-
worth. They never felt loved or admired enough. Riddled
with fears and uncertainty, they cover this up with the
mask of great belief, in themselves and in their cause.
You will notice in their past some shifts in their belief
system, sometimes radical. That is because it is not the
particular belief that matters but the intense conviction,
and so they will shift this around to fit the times. Belief in
something is like a drug for them. But the doubts return.
They secretly know they cannot deliver the goods. And so
under stress they become the opposite—indecisive and
secretly doubtful. They suddenly fire their assistants and
managers to give the impression of action, but
unconsciously they are sabotaging themselves with
unnecessary change. They have to blow it all up,
somehow and yet blame others.
Never be taken in by the strength of people’s
convictions and their flair for drama. Always operate by
the rule that the greater the stridency in what they say,
the deeper the underlying insecurities and doubts. Do
not become a follower. They will make a fool of you.
 The Rigid Rationalist: All of us have irrational
tendencies. It is the lasting legacy of our primitive
origins. We will never get rid of them. We are prone to
superstitions, to seeing connections between events that
have no connection. We are fascinated by coincidences.
We anthropomorphize and project our feelings onto
other people and the world around us. We secretly
consult astrology charts. We must simply accept this. In
fact, we often resort to irrationality as a form of
relaxation—silly jokes, meaningless activities, occasional
dabbling in the occult. Always being rational can be
tiresome. But for some people, this makes them terribly
uncomfortable. They experience this primitive thinking
as softness, as mysticism, as contrary to science and
technology. Everything must be clear and analytical in
the extreme. They become devout atheists, not realizing
that the concept of God cannot be proven or disproven. It
is a belief either way.
The repressed, however, always return. Their faith in
science and technology has a religious air to it. When it
comes to an argument, they will impose their ideas with
extra intellectual heft and even a touch of anger, which
reveals the stirring of the primitive within and the
hidden emotional need to bully. At the extreme, they will
indulge in a love affair that is most irrational and
contrary to their image—the professor running off with
the young model. Or they will make some bad career
choice, or fall for some ridiculous financial scheme, or
indulge in some conspiracy theory. They are also prone
to strange shifts in mood and emotional outbursts as the
Shadow stirs. Bait them into just such overreactions to
prick their bubble of intellectual superiority. True
rationality should be sober and skeptical about its own
powers and not publicize itself.
The Snob: These types have a tremendous need to
be different from others, to assert some form of
superiority over the mass of mankind. They have the
most refined aesthetic tastes when it comes to art, or film
criticism, or fine wines, or gourmet food, or vintage punk
rock records. They have amassed impressive knowledge
of these things. They put a lot of emphasis on
appearances—they are more “alternative” than others,
their tattoos are more unique. In many cases, they seem
to come from very interesting backgrounds, perhaps with
some exciting ancestry. Everything surrounding them is
extraordinary. Of course, it later comes out that they
were exaggerating or downright lying about their
background. Beau Brummell, the notorious snob and
dandy of the early nineteenth century, actually came
from a staunch middle-class background, the opposite of
what he peddled. The family of Karl Lagerfeld, the
current Chanel creative director, did not inherit its
money but made it in the most bourgeois fashion,
contrary to the stories he has told.
The truth is that banality is part of human existence.
Much of our lives is spent doing the most boring and
tedious tasks. For most of us, our parents had normal,
unglamorous jobs. We all have mediocre sides to our
character and skills. Snobs are especially sensitive about
this, greatly insecure about their origins and possible
mediocrity. Their way of dealing with this is to distract
and deceive with appearances (as opposed to real
originality in their work), surrounding themselves with
the extraordinary and with special knowledge.
Underneath it all is the real person waiting to come out—
rather ordinary and not so very different.
In any case, those who are truly original and different
do not need to make a great show of it. In fact, they are
often embarrassed by being so different and learn to
appear more humble. (As an example of this, see the
story of Abraham Lincoln in the section below.) Be extra
wary of those who go out of their way to make a show of
their difference.
 The Extreme Entrepreneur: At first glance these
types seem to possess very positive qualities, especially
for work. They maintain very high standards and pay
exceptional attention to detail. They are willing to do
much of the work themselves. If mixed with talent, this
often leads to success early on in life. But underneath the
façade the seeds of failure are taking root. This first
appears in their inability to listen to others. They cannot
take advice. They need no one. In fact, they mistrust
others who do not have their same high standards. With
success they are forced to take on more and more
responsibility.
If they were truly self-reliant, they would know the
importance of delegating on a lower level to maintain
control on the higher level, but something else is stirring
within—the Shadow. Soon the situation becomes chaotic.
Others must come in and take over the business. Their
health and finances are ruined and they become
completely dependent on doctors or outside financiers.
They go from complete control to total dependence on
others. (Think of the pop star Michael Jackson near the
end of his life.)
Often their outward show of self-reliance disguises a
hidden desire to have others take care of them, to regress
to the dependency of childhood. They can never admit
this to themselves or show any signs of such weakness,
but unconsciously they are drawn to creating enough
chaos that they break down and are forced into some
form of dependency. There are signs beforehand:
recurring health issues, the sudden microneeds to be
pampered by people in their daily lives. But the big sign
comes as they lose control and fail to take steps to halt
this. It is best to not get too entangled with such types
later on in their careers, as they have a tendency to bring
about much collateral damage.

The Integrated Human

In the course of our lives we inevitably meet people who
appear to be especially comfortable with themselves.
They display certain traits that help give this impression:
they are able to laugh at themselves; they can admit to
certain shortcomings in their character, as well as to
mistakes they have made; they have a playful, sometimes
impish edge to them, as if they have retained more of the
child within; they can play their role in life with a little
bit of distance (see the last section of chapter 3). At times
they can be charmingly spontaneous.
What such people signal to us is a greater
authenticity. If most of us have lost a lot of our natural
traits in becoming socialized adults, the authentic types
have somehow managed to keep them alive and active.
We can contrast them easily with the opposite type:
people who are touchy, who are hypersensitive to any
perceived slight, and who give the impression of being
somewhat uncomfortable with themselves and having
something to hide. We humans are masters at smelling
the difference. We can almost feel it with people in their
nonverbal behavior—the relaxed or tense body language,
the flowing or halting tone of voice; the way the eyes gaze
and let you in; the genuine smile or lack of it.
One thing is for certain: we are completely drawn to
the authentic types and unconsciously repulsed by their
opposite. The reason for this is simple: we all secretly
mourn for the child part of our character we have lost—
the wildness, the spontaneity, the intensity of experience,
the open mind. Our overall energy is diminished by the
loss. Those who emit that air of authenticity signal to us
another possibility—that of being an adult who has
managed to integrate the child and the adult, the dark
and the light, the unconscious and the conscious mind.
We yearn to be around them. Perhaps some of their
energy will rub off on us.
If Richard Nixon in many ways epitomizes the
inauthentic type, we find many examples of the opposite
to inspire us—in politics, men like Winston Churchill and
Abraham Lincoln; in the arts, people like Charlie Chaplin
and Josephine Baker; in science, someone like Albert
Einstein; in social life in general, someone like
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. And these types indicate
for us the path to follow, which largely centers on self-
awareness. Conscious of our Shadow, we can control,
channel, and integrate it. Aware of what we have lost, we
can reconnect to that part of ourselves that has sunk into
the Shadow.
The following are four clear and practical steps for
achieving this.
See the Shadow. This is the most difficult step in the
process. The Shadow is something we deny and repress.
It is so much easier to dig up and moralize about the
dark qualities of others. It is almost unnatural for us to
look inward at this side of ourselves. But remember that
you are only half a human if you keep this buried. Be
intrepid in this process.
The best way to begin is to look for indirect signs, as
indicated in the sections above. For instance, take note of
any particular one-sided, emphatic traits in yourself.
Assume that the opposite trait lies buried deep within,
and from there try to see more signs of this trait in your
behavior. Look at your own emotional outbursts and
moments of extreme touchiness. Somebody or
something has struck a chord. Your sensitivity to a
remark or imputation indicates a Shadow quality that is
stirring, in the form of a deep insecurity. Bring it into the
light.
Look deeply at your tendencies to project emotions
and bad qualities onto people you know, or even entire
groups. For instance, say you really loathe narcissistic
types or pushy people. What is happening is that you are
probably brushing up against your own narcissistic
tendencies and secret desire to be more assertive, in the
form of a vehement denial or hatred. We are particularly
sensitive to traits and weaknesses in others that we are
repressing in ourselves. Look at moments in your youth
(late teens, early twenties) in which you acted in a rather
insensitive or even cruel manner. When you were
younger, you had less control of the Shadow and it came
out more naturally, not with the repressed force of later
years.
Later in his career, the writer Robert Bly (born 1926)
began to feel depressed. His writing had become sterile.
He started to think more and more about the Shadow
side of his character. He was determined to find signs of
it and consciously scrutinize it. Bly was the bohemian
type of artist, very much active in the counterculture of
the 1960s. His artistic roots went back to the Romantic
artists of the early nineteenth century, men and women
who extolled spontaneity and naturalness. In much of
Bly’s own writing, he railed at advertising men and
businesspeople—as he saw it, they were so calculating,
planning everything to the extreme, afraid of the chaos of
life, and quite manipulative.
And yet, as he looked inward, Bly could catch
glimpses of such calculating, manipulative qualities in
himself. He too secretly feared moments of chaos in life,
liked to plan things out and control events. He could be
quite malicious with people he perceived to be so
different, but in fact there was a part of the stockbroker
and advertising man within him. Perhaps it was the
deeper part of himself. Others told him that they saw
him as rather classical in his taste and in his writing
(constructing things well), something that bothered him,
since he thought the opposite. But as he became
increasingly honest with himself, he realized they were
right. (People can often see our Shadow better than we
can, and it would be wise to elicit their frank opinions on
the subject.)
Step by step he unearthed the dark qualities within—
rigid, overly moralistic, et cetera—and in doing so he felt
reconnected with the other half of his psyche. He could
be honest with himself and channel the Shadow
creatively. His depression lifted, as well as the writer’s
block.
Take this process deeper by reexamining the earlier
version of yourself. Look at traits in childhood that were
drummed out of you by your parents and peers—certain
weaknesses or vulnerabilities or forms of behavior, traits
you were made to feel ashamed of. Perhaps your parents
did not like your introspective tendencies or your
interest in certain subjects that were not of their taste.
They instead steered you toward careers and interests
that suited them. Look at emotions you were once prone
to, things that sparked a sense of awe or excitement that
has gone missing. You have become more like others as
you have gotten older, and you must rediscover the lost
authentic parts of yourself.
Finally, look at your dreams as the most direct and
clear view of your Shadow. Only there will you find the
kinds of behavior you have carefully avoided in conscious
life. The Shadow is talking to you in various ways. Don’t
look for symbols or hidden meanings. Pay attention
instead to the emotional tone and overall feelings that
they inspire, holding on to them throughout the day.
This could be unexpected bold behavior on your part, or
intense anxiety spurred by certain situations, or
sensations of being physically trapped or of soaring
above it all, or exploring a place that is forbidden and
beyond the boundaries. The anxieties could relate to
insecurities you are not confronting; the soaring and
exploring are hidden desires trying to rise to
consciousness. Get in the habit of writing your dreams
down and paying deep attention to their feeling tone.
The more you go through this process and see the
outlines of your Shadow, the easier it will become. You
will find more signs as your tense muscles of repression
loosen up. At a certain point, the pain of going through
this turns into excitement at what you’re uncovering.
Embrace the Shadow. Your natural reaction in
uncovering and facing up to your dark side is to feel
uncomfortable and maintain only a surface awareness of
it. Your goal here must be the opposite—not only
complete acceptance of the Shadow but the desire to
integrate it into your present personality.
From an early age Abraham Lincoln liked to analyze
himself, and a recurrent theme in his self-examinations
was that he had a split personality—on the one hand an
ambitious almost cruel streak to his nature, and on the
other a sensitivity and softness that made him frequently
depressed. Both sides of his nature made him feel
uncomfortable and odd. On the rough side, for instance,
he loved boxing and thoroughly thrashing his opponent
in the ring. In law and politics he had a rather scathing
sense of humor.
Once he wrote some anonymous letters to a
newspaper, attacking a politician he thought of as a
buffoon. The letters were so effective that the target went
mad with rage. He found out that Lincoln was the source
of them and challenged him to a duel. This became the
talk of the town and proved quite embarrassing to
Lincoln. He managed to get out of the duel, but he vowed
to never indulge his cruel streak again. He recognized the
trait in himself and would not deny it. Instead he would
pour his aggressive, competitive energy into winning
debates and elections.
On his soft side, he loved poetry, felt tremendous
affection for animals, and hated witnessing any kind of
physical cruelty. He hated drinking and what it did to
people. At his worst, he was prone to fits of deep
melancholy and brooding over death. All in all, he felt
himself to be far too sensitive for the rough-and-tumble
world of politics. Instead of denying this side of himself,
he channeled it into incredible empathy for the public,
for the average man and woman. Caring deeply about the
loss of lives in the war, he put all his efforts into ending it
early. He did not project evil onto the South but rather
empathized with its plight and planned on a peace that
was not retributive.
He also incorporated it into a healthy sense of humor
about himself, making frequent jokes about his ugliness,
high-pitched voice, and brooding nature. By embracing
and integrating such opposing qualities into his public
persona, he gave the impression of tremendous
authenticity. People could identify with him in a way
never seen before with a political leader.
Explore the Shadow.Consider the Shadow as having
depths that contain great creative energy. You want to
explore these depths, which include more primitive
forms of thinking and the darkest impulses that come
out of our animal nature.
As children, our minds were much more fluid and
open. We would make the most surprising and creative
associations between ideas. But as we get older, we tend
to tighten this down. We live in a sophisticated, high-
tech world dominated by statistics and ideas gleaned
from big data. Free associations between ideas, images
from dreams, hunches, and intuitions seem irrational
and subjective. But this leads to the most sterile forms of
thinking. The unconscious, the Shadow side of the mind,
has powers we must learn to tap into. And in fact some of
the most creative people in our midst actively engage this
side of thinking.
Albert Einstein based one of his theories of relativity
on an image from a dream. The mathematician Jacques
Hadamard made his most important discoveries while
boarding a bus or taking a shower—hunches that came
out of nowhere, or what he claimed to be his
unconscious. Louis Pasteur made his great discovery
about immunization based on a rather free association of
ideas after an accident in his laboratory. Steve Jobs
claimed that his most effective ideas came from
intuitions, moments when his mind roamed most freely.
Understand: The conscious thinking we depend on
is quite limited. We can hold on to only so much
information in short- and long-term memory. But the
unconscious contains an almost limitless amount of
material from memories, experiences, and information
absorbed in study. After prolonged research or work on a
problem, when we relax our minds in dreams or while we
are performing unrelated banal activities, the
unconscious begins to go to work and associate all sorts
of random ideas, some of the more interesting ones
bubbling to the surface. We all have dreams, intuitions,
and free associations of ideas, but we often refuse to pay
attention to them or take them seriously. Instead you
want to develop the habit of using this form of thought
more often by having unstructured time in which you
can play with ideas, widen the options you consider, and
pay serious attention to what comes to you in less
conscious states of mind.
In a similar vein, you want to explore from within
your own darkest impulses, even those that might seem
criminal, and find a way to express them in your work or
externalize them in some fashion, in a journal for
instance. We all have aggressive and antisocial desires,
even toward those we love. We also have traumas from
our earliest years that are associated with emotions we
prefer to forget. The greatest art in all media somehow
expresses these depths, which causes a powerful reaction
in us all because they are so repressed. Such is the power
of the films of Ingmar Bergman or the novels of Fyodor
Dostoyevsky, and you can have the same power by
externalizing your dark side.
Show the Shadow.Most of the time we secretly suffer
from the endless social codes we have to adhere to. We
have to seem so nice and agreeable, always going along
with the group. We better not show too much confidence
or ambition. Seem humble and similar to everyone else;
that’s how the game is played. In following this path we
gain comfort by fitting in, but we also become defensive
and secretly resentful. Being so nice becomes a habit,
which easily turns into timidity, lack of confidence, and
indecision. At the same time, our Shadow will show
itself, but unconsciously, in explosive fits and starts, and
often to our detriment.
It would be wise to look at those who are successful in
their field. Inevitably we will see that most of them are
much less bound by these codes. They are generally more
assertive and overtly ambitious. They care much less
what others think of them. They flout the conventions
openly and proudly. And they are not punished but
greatly rewarded. Steve Jobs is a classic example. He
showed his rough, Shadow side in his way of working
with others. Our tendency in looking at people like Jobs
is to admire their creativity and subtract their darker
qualities as unnecessary. If only he had been nicer, he
would have been a saint. But in fact the dark side was
inextricably interwoven with his power and creativity.
His ability to not listen to others, to go his own way, and
be a bit rough about it were key parts of his success,
which we venerate. And so it is with many creative,
powerful people. Subtract their active Shadow, and they
would be like everyone else.
Understand: You pay a greater price for being so
nice and deferential than for consciously showing your
Shadow. First, to follow the latter path you must begin by
respecting your own opinions more and those of others
less, particularly when it comes to your areas of
expertise, to the field you have immersed yourself in.
Trust your native genius and the ideas you have come up
with. Second, get in the habit in your daily life of
asserting yourself more and compromising less. Do this
under control and at opportune moments. Third, start
caring less what people think of you. You will feel a
tremendous sense of liberation. Fourth, realize that at
times you must offend and even hurt people who block
your path, who have ugly values, who unjustly criticize
you. Use such moments of clear injustice to bring out
your Shadow and show it proudly. Fifth, feel free to play
the impudent, willful child who mocks the stupidity and
hypocrisy of others.
Finally, flout the very conventions that others follow
so scrupulously. For centuries, and still to this day,
gender roles represent the most powerful convention of
all. What men and women can do or say has been highly
controlled, to the point where it seems almost to
represent biological differences instead of social
conventions. Women in particular are socialized to be
extra nice and agreeable. They feel continual pressure to
adhere to this and mistake it for something natural and
biological.
Some of the most influential women in history were
those who deliberately broke with these codes—
performers like Marlene Dietrich and Josephine Baker,
political figures such as Eleanor Roosevelt,
businesswomen such as Coco Chanel. They brought out
their Shadow and showed it by acting in ways that were
traditionally thought of as masculine, blending and
confusing gender roles.
Even Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis gained great power
by playing against the type of the traditional political
wife. She had a pronounced malicious streak. When
Norman Mailer first met her in 1960 and she seemed to
poke fun at him, he saw that “something droll and hard
came into her eyes as if she were a very naughty eight-
year-old indeed.” When people displeased her, she
showed it rather openly. She seemed to care little what
others thought of her. And she became a sensation
because of the naturalness she exuded.
In general, consider this a form of exorcism. Once you
show these desires and impulses, they no longer lie
hidden in corners of your personality, twisting and
operating in secret ways. You have released your demons
and enhanced your presence as an authentic human. In
this way, the Shadow becomes your ally.
Unfortunately there is no doubt about the fact that man is, as
a whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be.
Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the
individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.
—Carl Jung
 10

Beware the Fragile Ego

The Law of Envy

W e humans are naturally compelled to compare ourselves

with one another. We are continually measuring
people’s status, the levels of respect and attention they
receive, and noticing any differences between what we have
and what they have. For some of us, this need to compare
serves as a spur to excel through our work. For others, it can
turn into deep envy—feelings of inferiority and frustration
that lead to covert attacks and sabotage. Nobody admits to
acting out of envy. You must recognize the early warning
signs—praise and bids for friendship that seem effusive and
out of proportion; subtle digs at you under the guise of good-
natured humor; apparent uneasiness with your success. It is
most likely to crop up among friends or your peers in the
same profession. Learn to deflect envy by drawing attention
away from yourself. Develop your sense of self-worth from
internal standards and not incessant comparisons.

Fatal Friends
In late 1820, Mary Shelley (1797–1851), author of the novel
Frankenstein, and her twenty-eight-year-old husband, the
poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, moved to Pisa, Italy, after having
spent several years traveling through the country. Mary had
had a rough time of it lately. Her two young children had both
died from fevers while in Italy. Mary had been particularly
close to her son William, and his death had pushed her into a
profound depression. She had recently given birth to another
child, a boy named Percy, but she felt continually anxious
about his health. The guilt and gloom she felt surrounding the
death of her children had finally caused some friction between
her and her husband. They had been so close, had experienced
so much together, that they could almost read each other’s
thoughts and moods. Now her husband was drifting away,
interested in other women. She was hoping that in Pisa they
could finally settle down, reconnect, and do some serious
writing.
In early 1821, a young English couple named Jane and
Edward Williams arrived in Pisa, and their first stop in town
was to visit the Shelleys. They were close friends with one of
Percy Shelley’s cousins. They were thinking of living in Pisa,
and they were clearly starstruck at meeting the famous couple.
Mary was used to these kinds of visitors; she and her husband
were so notorious that curious bohemians from all over
Europe would come to gawk at them and try to make their
acquaintance.
Certainly the Williamses, like all the other visitors, would
have known about the Shelleys’ past. They would have known
that Mary had two of the most illustrious intellectual parents
in all of England. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–
1797) was perhaps the first great feminist writer in history,
renowned for her books and scandalous love affairs. She had
died giving birth to Mary. Mary’s father was William Godwin
(1756–1836), a celebrated writer and philosopher who
advocated many radical ideas, including the end of private
property. Famous writers would come to see the child Mary,
for she was an object of fascination, with striking red hair like
her mother, the most intense eyes, and an intelligence and
imagination far beyond her years.
The Williamses would have almost certainly known about
her meeting the poet Percy Shelley when she was sixteen and
their infamous love affair. Shelley, of aristocratic origins and
due to inherit a fortune from his wealthy father, had married a
young beauty named Harriet, but he left her for Mary, and
along with Mary’s stepsister Claire, they traveled through
Europe, living together and creating a scandal everywhere they
went. Shelley was an ardent believer in free love and an
avowed atheist. His wife Harriet subsequently committed
suicide, which Mary would forever feel guilty about, even later
imagining that the children she had had with Shelley were
somehow cursed. Shortly after the death of Harriet, Mary and
Percy got married.
The Williamses would undoubtedly know about the
Shelleys’ relationship with the other great rebel of the time, the
poet Lord Byron. They had all spent time together in
Switzerland, and it was there, inspired by a midnight
discussion of horror stories, that Mary got the inspiration for
her great novel Frankenstein, written when she was nineteen.
Lord Byron had his own scandals and numerous love affairs.
The three of them became a magnet for endless rumors, Lord
Byron now living in Italy as well. The English press had
dubbed them “the League of Incest and Atheism.”
At first Mary paid scant attention to the new English couple
on the scene, even after a few dinners together. She found Jane
Williams a bit dull and pretentious. As Mary wrote to her
husband, who was away for a few weeks: “Jane is certainly very
pretty but she wants animation and sense; her conversation is
nothing particular and she speaks in a slow, monotonous
tone.” Jane was not well read. She loved nothing more than to
arrange flowers, play the pedal harp, sing songs from India,
where she had lived as a child, and pose rather prettily. Could
she be that superficial? Every now and then Mary would catch
Jane staring at her with an unpleasant look, which she quickly
covered over with a cheerful smile. More important, a common
friend who had known the Williamses in their travels across
Europe had warned Mary in a letter to keep her distance from
Jane.
Edward Williams, however, was quite charming. He seemed
to worship Shelley and to want to be like him. He had
aspirations to be a writer. He was so eager to please and be of
service. And then one day he told Mary the story of the
romance between him and Jane, and Mary was quite moved.
The Williamses were not actually married. Jane Cleveland,
who came from the middle class, had married a high-ranking
English soldier, only to find out he was an abusive brute. When
she met the handsome Edward Williams—a military man who
had lived in India, as Jane had—she fell instantly in love. In
1819, although Jane was still married to her first husband, she
and Edward left for the Continent, posing as a married couple.
Like the Shelleys, they also had lived in Switzerland and had
come to Italy for adventure and the good weather. Jane was
now expecting her second child with Edward, just as Mary was
now pregnant again. It seemed, in a fateful way, that they had
much in common. More important, Mary empathized deeply
with their love affair and how much they had sacrificed for
each other.
Then Jane had her second child. Now the two women could
bond as young mothers. Finally someone to talk to about the
difficulties of raising infants in a foreign land, something
Mary’s husband could care less about. Besides, the Shelleys
had no English friends, since English expatriates in Italy
avoided them like the plague. It would be such a relief to have
some daily companionship in this moment of turbulence in her
life. Mary quickly became dependent on Jane’s company and
forgot any misgivings she might have had about her.
Shelley seemed to warm up to the couple as well. Edward
was so officious in offering to help Shelley in any way. Edward
loved sailing and boasted of his navigational skills. Sailing was
an obsession of Shelley’s, despite the fact he had never learned
to swim. Perhaps Edward could help him design the perfect
sailing boat. And Jane began to intrigue him the more he spent
time around her. Jane was so different from Mary. She never
argued. She only looked at him admiringly and seconded
everything he said. She was so cheerful. He could be her
teacher, instructing her in poetry, and she could be his new
muse, a role his depressed wife could not fill anymore. He
bought Jane a guitar and loved to listen to the songs from
India she seemed to know so well. She had a beautiful voice.
He wrote poems in her honor and slowly became infatuated.
Mary noticed all this. She knew well her husband’s pattern.
He was always looking for a woman very different from the one
he was with to inspire him and break the monotony of a
relationship. His first wife, Harriet, had been more like Jane,
pretty and simple, and so he fell for the much more
complicated Mary. Now the pattern was repeating as he fell for
the simpler Jane. But how could she take Jane seriously as a
rival? She was so ordinary. He was simply poeticizing her; he
would eventually see her as she was and grow bored. Mary did
not fear losing him.
 In 1822 the Shelleys and Williamses, now rather
inseparable, decided to move together into a house further
north along the coast, overlooking the Bay of Lerici. From the
beginning Mary hated the place and begged her husband to
find something else. It was so isolated. It was not easy to find
supplies. The local peasants seemed rather brutal and
unfriendly. The two couples would be completely dependent
on their servants. Nobody besides Mary seemed interested in
running the household, least of all Jane, who had proven to be
quite lazy. But worse than everything, Mary had terrible
forebodings about the place. She feared greatly for the fate of
her child Percy, only three years old. She smelled disaster in
the walls of the isolated villa that they occupied. She became
nervous and hysterical. She knew she was putting everyone off
with her behavior, but she could not quell her anxiety. Shelley
reacted by spending more and more time with Jane.
Several months after settling at the villa, Mary had a
miscarriage and nearly died. Her husband attended to her for
several weeks, and she recovered. But just as quickly he
seemed to become enamored with a new plan that terrified
Mary. He and Edward had designed a boat, one that was
beautiful to look at, sleek, and fast. In June of that year some
old friends of the Shelleys had arrived in Italy—Leigh Hunt
and his wife. Hunt was a publisher who championed young
poets, and Shelley was his favorite. Shelley planned to sail up
the coast with Edward to meet the Hunts. Mary was desperate
for him not to go. Shelley tried to reassure her: Edward was an
expert navigator, and the boat he had built was more than
seaworthy. Mary did not believe this. The boat seemed flimsy
for the rough waters of the area.
Nevertheless Shelley and Edward left on July 1, with a third
crewmember. On July 8, as they started on their homeward
journey, they ran into one of the storms endemic to the region.
Their boat had indeed been badly designed, and went under. A
few days later the bodies of all three were found.
Almost immediately Mary was seized with remorse and
guilt. She played in her mind every angry word she had
addressed to her husband, every critique of his work, every
doubt she had instilled in him about her love. It was all too
much, and she determined then and there that she would
devote the rest of her life to making Shelley’s poetry famous.
At first Jane seemed extremely broken up by the tragedy,
but she recovered more quickly than Mary. She had to be
practical. Mary might have a nice inheritance from Shelley’s
family. Jane had nothing. She decided she would return to
London and somehow find a way to support her two children.
Mary empathized with her plight. She gave her a list of
important contacts in England, including Shelley’s best friend
from his youth, Thomas Hogg, a lawyer. Hogg had his own
issues—he was always falling in love with the people closest to
Shelley, first Shelley’s sister, then Shelley’s first wife, and
finally Mary herself, whom he tried to seduce. But that had
been years ago, they remained good friends, and as a lawyer
Hogg could be of some help to Jane.
Mary decided to stay in Italy. She had hardly any friends
left, but the Hunts were still in Italy. Much to her dismay,
however, Leigh Hunt had become surprisingly cold to her. In
this, her most vulnerable moment, he had apparently lost all
sympathy for her, and she could not figure out why. This only
added to her misery. Certainly he must know how deeply she
had loved her husband and the depth of her mourning? She
was not one to show her emotions as openly as Jane, but deep
inside she suffered more than anyone. Other former friends
were now acting cold as well. Only Lord Byron stood by her,
and they grew closer.
Soon it became apparent that Shelley’s parents, who had
been shocked by their son’s libertine ways, would not
recognize Percy as their grandson, certainly as long as he was
in the care of Mary. There would be no money for her. She
thought the only answer was to return to London. Perhaps if
the Shelley family met Percy and saw what a devoted mother
she was, they might change their minds. She wrote to Jane and
to Hogg for their advice. The two of them had now become
close friends. Hogg seemed to think she should wait before
returning; his letter was remarkably cold. Here was yet
another person who had suddenly become distant. But it was
the response of Jane that most surprised her. She advised
giving up Percy and not coming to England. As Mary tried to
explain how impossible that would be for her emotionally,
Jane became even more adamant in her opinion. She
expressed this in practical terms—Mary would not be
welcomed in London, the Shelley family would turn against
her even more—but it seemed so unsympathetic.
In the months together in Italy after the deaths of their
husbands, they had grown quite close. Jane was the last real
link to Mary’s husband left in her life. She had forgiven Jane
for any indiscretions with her husband. Losing Jane’s
friendship would be like experiencing another death. She
decided she would in fact return to London with her son and
rekindle the friendship with Jane.
Mary returned to London in August of 1823, only to find
that she had become quite a celebrity. Frankenstein had been
turned into a play that emphasized the horror elements in the
book. And it was quite a sensation. The story and the name
“Frankenstein” now had seeped into popular culture. Mary’s
father, who had become a bookseller and publisher, came out
with a new edition of Frankenstein, with Mary clearly
identified as the author. (The first edition was published
anonymously.) Mary, her father, and Jane went to see the play
version, and it was clear now to all of them what an object of
fascination Mary had become to the public—this was the slight,
very gentle woman who had written such a powerful horror
story?
When Lord Byron died in Greece shortly after Mary’s return
to London, Mary became even more famous, for she had been
one of Byron’s closest friends. All of the principal English
intellectuals wanted to meet her, to find out more about her,
Lord Byron, and her husband. Even Jane was now back to her
friendly self, although at times she seemed to withdraw from
Mary.
Despite her fame, Mary was unhappy. She did not want the
attention, because it came with endless gossip about her past
and insinuations about her morality. She was tired of being
looked at and judged. She wanted to hide herself and raise her
son. She decided she would move close to where Jane was
living, in a more remote part of London. There Percy would be
reunited with Jane’s children. They could live for each other
and share their memories, recapture the past. Jane was so
cheerful, and Mary needed cheering up. In return, she would
do whatever it took to take care of Jane.
In the summer of 1824 the two women saw much of each
other. It was now apparent that Hogg had been courting Jane,
but he was such an awkward and unpleasant man, Mary could
hardly imagine Jane reciprocating his attentions. Besides, it
was so soon after the death of her husband. But then one
evening in January it became clear to Mary that she had been
deceived for quite a while. It was somewhat late at night, at
Jane’s house. She and Percy had stuck around, Percy to play
some games with Jane’s children and Mary to talk some more.
Hogg had arrived and Jane finally exploded at Mary, with a
look Mary had never seen before on her friend’s face. She
asked Mary to leave so abruptly and rudely that it was clear
she and Hogg had been having an affair and Jane could no
longer conceal her irritation with Mary. She had noticed for
some time that Jane had become increasingly cold and less
interested in being with her. Now she understood this better.
They remained friends. Mary empathized with her plight as
a lonely widow, her need for a husband. Jane was now
pregnant with Hogg’s child. Mary struggled to get over her
resentment and to help Jane as best she could. They saw less
and less of each other.
To distract her from her loneliness, Mary befriended a
beautiful young woman named Isabel Robinson who needed
help—she had given birth to an illegitimate child and her
father would certainly disown her if he discovered the truth.
For weeks Mary conspired to help her, planning to send Isabel
to Paris to live with a “man” who would act as the father—the
man in this case being a woman known as Miss Dods, a
notorious lesbian who loved to dress as a man and could easily
pass for one.
Mary delighted in furthering this plot, but before
accompanying Isabel to Paris, one afternoon she received the
shock of her life: Isabel confided to her in complete detail the
stories that Jane had been telling her for months about Mary—
that Shelley had never really loved his wife; that he had
admired her but had had no feelings for her; that she was not
the woman he had needed or wanted; that Jane was in fact the
great love of his life. Jane had even hinted to Isabel that Mary
had made him so unhappy that he had secretly wanted to die
the day he left on his fatal sailing venture, and that Mary was
somehow responsible for his death.
Mary could hardly believe this, but Isabel had no reason to
make up such a story. And as she thought about it more
deeply, suddenly things began to make sense—the sudden
coldness of Hogg, Leigh Hunt, and others who must have
heard these stories; the looks Jane occasionally threw at Mary
when she was the center of attention in a group; that look on
her face when she threw Mary out of her house; the vehemence
with which she wanted Mary to stay away from London and
give up her child, which meant giving up their inheritance. All
these years she had been not a friend but a competitor, and
now it seemed clear that it was not Mary’s husband who had
pursued Jane but Jane who had actively seduced him with her
poses, her coquettish looks, her guitar, her put-on soft
manner. She was false to the core. It was, after the death of
Mary’s husband, the harshest blow of all.
Not only did Jane believe these monstrous stories, but she
had made others believe them. Mary knew how well her
husband had loved her over so many years, and after so many
shared experiences. To spread the story that she had somehow
caused his death was beyond hurtful; it was like a knife being
plunged into an old wound. She wrote in her journal: “My
friend has proved false & treacherous. Have I not been a fool?”
After several months of brooding over this, Mary finally
confronted her. Jane burst into tears, creating a scene. She
wanted to know who had spread this awful story of her
betrayal, which she denied. She accused Mary of being cold
and unaffectionate. But for Mary, it was as if she had finally
woken up from a dream. She could now see the fake outrage,
the phony love, the way Jane confused matters with her
drama. There was no going back.
Over the ensuing years Mary would not cut off ties with
Jane, but now their relationship was totally on her terms. Mary
could only feel some strange satisfaction to see Jane’s life
slowly fall apart, the relationship with Hogg turning into a
disaster. As Mary became more and more famous for her
novels and her publishing of Shelley’s poems, she mingled with
the greatest writers and politicians of her time and slowly cut
off contact with Jane. She could never trust her again. As she
wrote some years later about this affair in her journal: “Life is
not ill till we wish to forget. Jane first inspired me with that
miserable feeling, staining past years as she did—taking
sweetness from memory and giving it instead a serpent’s
tooth.”

• • •
Interpretation: Let us look at the many transformations that
envy causes in the mind, as we can clearly see in the example
of Jane Williams. When Jane first met Mary, she had
conflicting emotions. On the one hand, there was much to like
and admire about Mary. She had pleasant manners, was
clearly brilliant, and felt deeply attached to her son. She could
be quite generous. On the other hand, she made Jane feel
deeply inferior; Jane lacked so many of the things that Mary
had, but which she felt she deserved—attention for her own
talents, for her willingness to sacrifice for love, for her
charming nature. Inevitably, along with the attraction to Mary
came envy—the desire to have the same things as Mary, the
sense of being entitled to have them, but the apparent inability
to get them easily or legitimately. With envy comes the secret
desire to hurt, wound, or steal from the envied person, to right
the unfairness that comes with his or her supposed superiority.
There were many reasons for Jane to conceal and even
repress the envy stirring within her. First, it is socially toxic to
display envy. It reveals deep insecurity along with hostility, a
very ugly brew, which is certain to push people away. Second,
she and her husband depended on the Shelleys for their future
livelihood, since Jane was determined to get Edward attached
to Shelley as a friend, assistant, and sailing expert. Shelley was
notoriously generous with money. Acting in a hostile manner
toward Mary would have put that all in jeopardy. Finally, envy
is a painful emotion, an admission of our own inferiority,
something rather unbearable for us humans. It is not an
emotion we want to sit with and brood over. We like to conceal
it from ourselves and not be aware that it motivates our
actions.
Considering all this, Jane took the natural next step: she
befriended Mary, returning Mary’s friendly advances and then
some. A part of her liked the woman and felt flattered at the
attention shown to her by someone so famous. Jane was avid
for attention. How could she now imagine herself as feeling
envy toward Mary, if she had chosen to become her friend? But
the more time she spent around Mary, the more the imbalance
between them became apparent. It was Mary who had the
illustrious, handsome husband, the possible large inheritance,
the deep friendship with Lord Byron, and the rich imagination
that made her so talented. And so the more time she spent
with Mary, the stronger her envious feelings became.
To conceal this envy from herself and others now required
the next logical step: she had to mentally convert Mary into an
unsympathetic character. Mary was not so talented; she was
merely lucky; if it weren’t for her famous parents and the men
around her, she never would have gotten to her fortunate
position; she did not deserve her fame; she was an irritating
person to be around, moody, depressive, clinging, no fun; she
was not nice or loving toward her husband and was not much
of a woman. As Jane went through this process, hostility began
to overwhelm friendly feelings. She felt more than justified in
actively seducing Percy Shelley and concealing her true
feelings from Mary. Most devastating to Mary’s marital
relationship, every time her husband complained to Jane
about Mary, Jane would reinforce this with some new story or
observation, deepening the rift between them.
Of course, in turning Mary into someone so unlikable, Jane
had to willfully ignore the context—the recent loss of two
beloved children to illness, Shelley’s own coldness toward his
wife, and his pursuit of other women. But in order for enviers
to feel entitled to take harmful action, they must create a
narrative: everything the other person does reveals some
negative trait; they do not deserve their superior position. Now
Jane had what she had wanted—the adoring attention of Percy
Shelley along with the complete alienation of him from his
wife. Once Shelley died, she could vent her envy by spreading
the malicious story that Mary did not seem particularly sad at
the loss, something so troubling to those who heard this,
including Leigh Hunt, that they distanced themselves from
Mary.
 Once Jane was back in London and Mary joined her there,
the pattern repeated. A part of Jane was still drawn to Mary;
over the years they had shared much. But the more time she
spent around her, the more she had to see Mary’s growing
fame, her circle of illustrious friends, her generous nature
toward other women who had been mistreated, her total
devotion to her son and to the memory of her husband. None
of this jibed with the narrative, and so Jane had to take yet
another step in her mind: “Mary is false, still living off the
legacy of her husband and others, motivated by her neediness,
not by her generosity. If only other people could see this.” So
she stole Mary’s friend Hogg, a weaker imitation of the original
sin of stealing her husband. And she continued to spread
stories about Mary, but this time with the added vicious twist
that Jane was the last great love of Shelley’s life, that he had
never loved his wife, and that Mary had driven him to suicide.
Telling such lurid stories in London would do maximum
damage to Mary’s reputation.
It is hard to calculate the pain she inflicted over the years
on Mary—the quarrels with Mary’s husband exacerbated by
Jane, the sudden mysterious coldness of Mary’s closest
friends, the push and pull Jane played on Mary, always
stepping back when Mary wanted more closeness, and finally
the revelation of the ultimate betrayal, and the thought, which
would haunt Mary for years, that so many had believed Jane’s
story. Such can be the hidden pain inflicted by one great
envier.
Understand: Envy occurs most commonly and painfully
among friends. We assume that something in the course of the
relationship caused the friend to turn against us. Sometimes
all we experience is the betrayal, the sabotage, the ugly
criticisms they throw at us, and we never understand the
underlying envy that inspired these actions.
What we need to grasp is something paradoxical: people
who feel envy in the first place are often motivated to become
our friends. Like Jane, they feel a mix of genuine interest,
attraction, and envy, if we have some qualities that make them
feel inferior. Becoming our friend, they can disguise the envy
to themselves. They will often go even further, becoming extra
attentive and impatient to secure our friendship. But as they
draw closer, the problem gets worse. The underlying envy is
continually stirred. The very traits that might have stimulated
feelings of inferiority—the good position, the solid work ethic,
the likability—are now being witnessed on a daily basis.
And so as with Jane, a narrative is gradually constructed:
the envied person is lucky, overly ambitious, not nearly so
great. As our friends, enviers can discover our weak points and
what will wound the most. From within a friendship they are
better positioned to sabotage us, steal our spouse, spread
mayhem. Once they attack us, we tend to feel guilty and
confused: “Perhaps I deserve some of their criticisms.” If we
respond angrily, this only feeds the narrative of our unlikable
nature. Because we were friends, we feel doubly wounded and
betrayed, and the deeper the wound, the greater the
satisfaction for the envier. We can even speculate that the
envier is unconsciously drawn to befriending the envied
person in order to have this wounding power.
Although such fatal friends are elusive and tricky, there are
always warning signs. Learn to pay deeper attention to your
first impressions. (If only Mary had done so.) Often we intuit
that the other person is false but then forget this as they make
friendly overtures. We always feel better about people who
seem to like us, and enviers know this well. Rely upon the
opinions of friends and neutral third parties. Many friends of
Mary found Jane conniving and even a bit scary. The envy of
the friend will also tend to leak out in sudden looks and
disparaging comments. Enviers will give puzzling advice—
something that seems against our interests but well reasoned
on their part. They want us to make mistakes and will often try
to find a way to lead us into them. Any success or increase in
attention that we experience will cause greater leakage of their
true feelings.
It is not a question of becoming paranoid but simply of
being alert once you pick up some signs of possible envy. Learn
to spot the types particularly prone to feeling envy (see the
next section for more on this) before you become too
enmeshed in their drama. It is hard to measure what you will
gain by avoiding an envy attack, but think of it this way: the
pain inflicted by one envier friend can resonate and poison you
for years.
 Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.
—Gore Vidal

Keys to Human Nature

Of all the human emotions, none is trickier or more elusive
than envy. It is very difficult to actually discern the envy that
motivates people’s actions or to even know that we have
suffered an envy attack from another. This is what makes it so
frustrating to deal with and so dangerous.
The reason for this elusiveness is simple: we almost never
directly express the envy we are feeling. If we feel anger toward
people because of something they said or did, we may try to
disguise our anger for various reasons, but we are aware that
we are feeling hostile. Eventually the anger will leak out in
some nonverbal behavior. And if we act upon our anger, the
target will feel it for what it is and more often than not know
what caused the anger in that moment. But envy is very
different.
All of us feel envy, the sensation that others have more of
what we want—possessions, attention, respect. We deserve to
have as much as they do yet feel somewhat helpless to get such
things. But as discussed above, envy entails the admission to
ourselves that we are inferior to another person in something
we value. Not only is it painful to admit this inferiority, but it is
even worse for others to see that we are feeling this.
And so almost as soon as we feel the initial pangs of envy,
we are motivated to disguise it to ourselves—it is not envy we
feel but unfairness at the distribution of goods or attention,
resentment at this unfairness, even anger. Furthermore, the
other person is not really superior but simply lucky, overly
ambitious, or unscrupulous. That’s how they got to where they
are. Having convinced ourselves that envy is not motivating us
but something else, we also make it very difficult for others to
detect the underlying envy. They see only our anger,
indignation, hostile criticisms, poisonous praise, and so on.
In ancient times, those who felt intense envy might have
acted upon it through violence, forcefully taking what the other
had or even resorting to murder. In the Old Testament, Cain
murdered Abel out of envy; the brothers of Joseph threw him
in a ditch in the desert to die because their father seemed to
favor him; on several occasions King Saul tried to kill the
younger David, so handsome and naturally gifted, finally going
mad with envy.
Today, however, people are much more political and
indirect, able to control any overt aggressive impulses and
disguise what they’re feeling. Instead of violence, enviers are
likely to sabotage our work, ruin a relationship, sully our
reputation, torment us with criticisms that are aimed at our
most basic insecurities. This allows them to maintain their
social position while causing harm, their targets not even
suspecting envy as the motivation. They can justify these
actions to themselves as righting the perceived imbalance or
unfairness.
If someone is angry with us and acts on it, we can analyze
the anger this person is feeling and figure out a way to defuse it
or defend ourselves. But if we cannot see the underlying envy,
we are inevitably confused by the hostile action of the envier,
and this confusion doubles the pain we experience. “Why are
people suddenly being so cold to me?” “Why did that project
fail so unexpectedly?” “Why have I been fired?” “Why is this
person against me?”
Your task as a student of human nature is to transform
yourself into a master decoder of envy. You are ruthless in
your analysis and your determination to get to the root of what
motivates people. The signs that people emit of envy are
harder to discern, but they exist, and you can master the
language with some effort and subtle discernment. Think of it
as an intellectual challenge. By being able to decode it, you will
not feel so confused. You will understand in hindsight that you
suffered an envy attack, which will help you get over it. You
might be able to see in advance the warning signs of such an
attack and either defuse or deflect it. And knowing the hidden
pain that comes from one well-aimed envy attack, you will
spare yourself the emotional damage that can last for years.
This will not make you paranoid but only better able to weed
out the false and fatal friends (or colleagues) from the real
ones, the ones you can truly trust.
Before immersing yourself in the subtleties of the emotion,
it is important to distinguish between passive and active envy.
All of us in the course of a day will inevitably feel some pangs
of envy, as we unconsciously monitor the people around us
and sense that they might have more. It is a fact of social life
that there are always people who are superior to us in wealth,
intelligence, likability, and other qualities. If these pangs rise
to the level of consciousness and are a bit acute, we might say
something hurtful or mean-spirited as a way to vent the
emotion. But generally as we experience this passive form of
envy, we do not do anything that would in any meaningful way
harm the relationship with a friend or colleague. In detecting
signs of passive envy in others (for instance, little put-downs
and offhand comments), you should simply tolerate this as a
fact of being a social animal.
Sometimes, however, this passive envy turns active. The
underlying sense of inferiority is too strong, leading to hostility
that cannot be vented by a comment or put-down. Sitting with
one’s envy over a long period of time can be painful and
frustrating. Feeling righteous indignation against the envied
person, however, can be invigorating. Acting on envy, doing
something to harm the other person, brings satisfaction, as it
did to Jane, although the satisfaction is short-lived because
enviers always find something new to envy.
Your goal is to detect the signs of this more acute form of
envy before it turns dangerous. You can do this in three ways:
by learning the signs of envy that manage to leak through, by
being aware of the types of people who are more prone to
acting on envy, and by understanding the circumstances and
actions that might trigger active envy in people. You can never
see all of the actions motivated by envy; people are simply too
good at disguising it. But using all three decoding devices will
increase your chances of detection.

Signs of Envy
Although the signs are subtle, envious feelings tend to leak out
and can be detected if you are observant. Seeing one such sign
in isolation might indicate passive or weak envy. You want to
look for combinations or repetitions of the following signs, a
pattern, before moving to alert mode.
Microexpressions: When people first experience envy, they
have not yet fooled themselves into thinking it is something
else, and so they are more prone to leakage than later on. That
is why first impressions are often the most accurate and should
be given added weight in this case. Envy is most associated
with the eyes. The root of the Latin word for envy, invidia,
means “to look through, to probe with the eyes like a dagger.”
The early meaning of the word was associated with the “evil
eye” and the belief that a look could actually convey a curse
and physically harm someone.
The eyes are indeed a telling indicator, but the envious
microexpression affects the entire face. You will notice the
envier’s eyes momentarily boring into you, with a look that
suggests disdain and a touch of hostility. It is the look of a
child who feels cheated. With this look the corners of the
mouth will often be turned down, the nose in a sneering,
somewhat upturned position, the chin jutting out. Although
the look will be a little too direct and held a little too long, it
still will not last more than a second or two. It is usually
followed with a strained, fake smile. Often you will see the look
by accident, as you suddenly turn your head their direction, or
you will feel their eyes burning into you without directly
looking at them.
The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–
1860) devised a quick way to elicit these looks and test for
envy. Tell suspected enviers some good news about yourself—a
promotion, a new and exciting love interest, a book contract.
You will notice a very quick expression of disappointment.
Their tone of voice as they congratulate you will betray some
tension and strain. Equally, tell them some misfortune of yours
and notice the uncontrollable microexpression of joy in your
pain, what is commonly known as schadenfreude. Their eyes
light up for a fleeting second. People who are envious cannot
help feeling some glee when they hear of the bad luck of those
they envy.
If you see such looks in the first few encounters with
someone, as Mary did with Jane, and they happen more than
once, be on the lookout for a dangerous envier entering your
life.
Poisonous praise:A major envy attack is often preceded by
little envy bites—offhand comments expertly designed to get
under your skin. Confusing, paradoxical praise is a common
form of this. Let us say you have completed a project—a book,
a film, some creative venture—and the initial response from
the public is quite positive. Enviers will make a comment
praising the money you will now be making, implying that that
is the main reason you have worked on it. You want praise for
the work itself and the effort that went into it, and instead they
imply that you have done it for the money, that you have sold
out. You feel confused—they have praised you, but in a way
that makes you uncomfortable. These comments will also
come at moments chosen to cause maximum doubt and
damage, for instance just when you have heard the good news
and feel a flush of joy.
Similarly, in noting your success, they may bring up the
least likable parts of your audience, the kinds of fans or
consumers who do not reflect well on you. “Well, I’m sure Wall
Street executives are going to love this.” This is thrown in
among other normal comments, but the guilt by association
lingers in your mind. Or they will praise something once you
have lost it—a job, a house in a nice neighborhood, a spouse
who has left you. “That was such a beautiful house. What a
shame.” It’s all said in a way that seems compassionate but has
a discomforting effect. Poisonous praise almost always
indicates envy. They feel the need to praise, but what
dominates is the underlying hostility. If they have a habit of
praising in this way, if you experience it several times, it is
probably an indication of something more intense stirring
within them.
Backbiting: If people like to gossip a lot, particularly about
common acquaintances, you can be sure they will gossip about
you. And gossip is a frequent cover for envy, a convenient way
to vent it by sharing malicious rumors and stories. When they
talk about others behind their backs, you will see their eyes
light up and their voice become animated—it gives them a joy
comparable to schadenfreude. They will elicit any kind of
negative report about a common acquaintance. A frequent
theme in their gossip is that no one’s really that great, and
people aren’t what they pretend to be.
If you ever get wind of a story they have spread about you,
subtly or not so subtly negative, only one such instance should
be enough to raise your antennae. What indicates active envy
in this case is that they are your friend and they feel the need
to vent their underlying hostility to a third party rather than
keep it to themselves. If you notice that friends or colleagues
are suddenly cooler to you than before for no apparent reason,
such gossiping might be the source and would be worth
ferreting out. In any event, serial gossipers do not make loyal
and trustworthy friends.
The push and pull: As we saw in the Jane Williams story,
enviers often use friendship and intimacy as the best way to
wound the people they envy. They display unusual eagerness
to become your friend. They saturate you with attention. If you
are in any way insecure, this will have great effect. They praise
you a little too effusively too early on. Through the closeness
they establish they are able to gather material on you and find
your weak points. Suddenly, after your emotions are engaged,
they criticize you in pointed ways. The criticism is confusing,
not particularly related to anything you have done, but still you
feel guilty. They then return to their initial warmth. The
pattern repeats. You are trapped between the warm friendship
and the occasional pain they inflict.
In criticizing you, they are experts at picking out any
possible flaws in your character or words you might have
regretted, and giving them great emphasis. They are like
lawyers building a case against you. When you’ve had enough
and decide to defend yourself or criticize them or break off the
friendship, they can now ascribe to you a mean or even cruel
streak and tell others of this. You will notice in their past other
intense relationships with dramatic breakups, always the other
person’s fault. And at the source of this pattern, something
hard to discern, is that they choose to befriend people whom
they envy for some quality, then subtly torture them.
In general, criticism of you that seems sincere but not
directly related to anything you have actually done is usually a
strong sign of envy. People want to bully and overwhelm you
with something negative, both wounding you and covering any
tracks of envy.

Envier Types
According to the psychoanalyst Melanie Klein (1882–1960),
certain people are prone to feeling envy their entire lives, and
this begins in early infancy. In the first few weeks and months
of life, the mother and infant are almost never out of each
other’s presence. But as they get older, infants must deal with
the mother’s absence for longer periods of time, and this
entails a painful adjustment. Some infants, however, are more
sensitive to the mother’s occasional withdrawal. They are
greedy for more feeding and more attention. They become
aware of the presence of the father, with whom they must
compete for the mother’s attention. They may also become
aware of other siblings, who are seen as rivals. Klein, who
specialized in the study of infancy and early childhood, noticed
that some children feel greater degrees of hostility and
resentment toward the father and siblings for the attention
they are receiving at their (the enviers’) expense, and toward
the mother for not giving them enough.
Certainly there are parents who create or intensify such
envy by playing favorites, by withdrawing on purpose to make
the child more dependent. In any event, infants or children
experiencing such envy will not feel grateful and loved for the
attention they do get but instead feel continually deprived and
unsatisfied. A pattern is set for their entire lives—they are
children and later adults for whom nothing is ever quite good
enough. All potentially positive experiences are spoiled by the
sensation that they should have more and better. Something is
missing, and they can only imagine that other people are
cheating them out of what they should have. They develop an
eagle eye for what others have that they don’t. This becomes
their dominant passion.
Most of us experience moments in childhood in which we
feel another person is getting more of the attention that we
deserve, but we are able to counterbalance this with other
moments in which we experience undeniable love, and
gratitude for it. As we get older, we can transfer such positive
emotions to a series of people—siblings, teachers, mentors,
friends, lovers, and spouses. We alternate between wanting
more and feeling relatively satisfied and grateful. Those prone
to envy, however, do not experience life the same way. Instead,
they transfer their initial envy and hostility to a series of others
whom they see as disappointing or hurting them. Their
moments of satisfaction and gratitude are rare or nonexistent.
“I need, I want more,” they are always telling themselves.
Because envy is a painful sensation, these types will enact
lifelong strategies to mitigate or repress these feelings that
gnaw at them. They will denigrate anything or anyone good in
the world. This means there aren’t really people out there
worth envying. Or they will become extremely independent. If
they do not need people for anything, that will expose them to
fewer envy scenarios. At an extreme they will devalue
themselves. They don’t deserve good things in life and so have
no need to compete with others for attention and status.
According to Klein, these common strategies are brittle and
will break down under stress—a downturn in their career,
bouts of depression, wounds to their ego. The envy they
experienced in their earliest years remains continually latent
and ready to be directed at others. They are literally looking for
people to envy so they can reexperience the primal emotion.
Depending on their psychological makeup, they will tend to
conform to certain envying types. It is of great benefit to be
able to recognize such types early on, because they are the ones
most likely to turn active with their envy. The following are five
common varieties of enviers, how they tend to disguise
themselves, and their particular forms of attack.
The Leveler:When you first meet them, levelers can seem
rather entertaining and interesting. They tend to have a wicked
sense of humor. They are good at putting down those who are
powerful and deflating the pretentious. They also seem to have
a keen nose for injustice and unfairness in this world. But
where they differ from people with genuine empathy for
underdogs is that levelers cannot recognize or appreciate
excellence in almost anyone, except those who are dead. They
have fragile egos. Those who have achieved things in life make
them feel insecure. They are highly sensitive to feelings of
inferiority. The envy they initially feel for those who are
successful is quickly covered up by indignation. They rail at
high achievers for gaming the system, for being far too
ambitious, or simply for being lucky and not really deserving
praise. They have come to associate excellence with unfairness,
as a way to soothe their insecurities.
 You will notice that though they can put others down, they
do not take easily to any jokes at their expense. They often
celebrate low culture and trash, because mediocre work does
not stir their insecurities. Besides their cynical humor, you can
recognize this type by how they talk about their own life: they
love to tell stories of the many injustices inflicted on them;
they are always blameless. These types make excellent
professional critics—they can use this medium to tear down
those they secretly envy and be rewarded for it.
Their main goal is to bring everyone down to the same
mediocre level they occupy. This sometimes means leveling
not only achievers and the powerful but also those who are
having too good a time, who seem to be enjoying themselves
too much, or who have too great a sense of purpose, which
levelers lack.
Be wary around such types, particularly in the workplace,
because they will make you feel guilty for your own impulse to
excel. They will begin with passive-aggressive comments that
taint you with the ugly word “ambition.” You might be a part of
the oppressor class. They will criticize you in ugly and hurtful
ways. They may follow this up with active sabotage of your
work, which they justify to themselves as a form of retributive
justice.
The Self-entitled Slacker:In the world today many people
rightfully feel entitled to have success and the good things in
life, but they usually understand that this will require sacrifice
and hard work. Some people, however, feel they deserve
attention and many rewards in life as if these are naturally
due to them. These self-entitled slackers are generally quite
narcissistic. They will make the briefest outline for a novel or
screenplay they want to write, or an “idea” for a brilliant
business, and feel that that is enough to attract praise and
attention. But deep down, these slackers feel insecure about
their ability to get what they want; that is why they have never
really developed the proper discipline. When they find
themselves around high achievers who work very hard and
have earned true respect for their work, this will make them
aware of the doubts about themselves they have been trying to
repress. They will move quickly from envy to hostility.
 Christopher Wren (1632–1723) was one of the great
geniuses of his age, a renowned scientist and one of the leading
architects of the time, his most famous work being St. Paul’s
Cathedral in London. Wren was also generally beloved by
almost everyone who worked with him. His enthusiasm, his
obvious skill, and the long hours he gave on the job made him
popular with both the public and the workers on his projects.
One man, however, came to deeply envy him—William
Talman, a lower-level architect appointed as Wren’s assistant
on several important jobs. Talman believed that their roles
should have been reversed; he had an extremely high opinion
of himself, a rather sour attitude, and a pronounced lazy
streak.
When a couple of accidents occurred on two of Wren’s
projects, killing some workmen, Talman went into overdrive,
accusing his boss of being negligent. He dug up every other
possible misdeed in Wren’s long career, trying to make the
case that he did not deserve his lofty reputation. For years he
waged a campaign to besmirch Wren’s reputation, calling him
careless with lives and money and generally overrated. He so
muddied the waters that the king finally gave some important
commissions to the much less talented Talman, infuriating
Wren. Talman proceeded to steal and incorporate many of
Wren’s innovations. The ugly battle with Talman had a
debilitating emotional effect on Wren that lasted years.
Be extra careful in the work environment with those who
like to maintain their position through charm and being
political, rather than by getting things done. They are very
prone to envying and hating those who work hard and get
results. They will slander and sabotage you without any
warning.
The Status Fiend:As social animals we humans are very
sensitive to our rank and position within any group. We can
measure our status by the attention and respect we receive. We
are constantly monitoring differences and comparing
ourselves with others. But for some people status is more than
a way of measuring social position—it is the most important
determinant of their self-worth. You will notice such fiends by
the questions they ask about how much money you make,
whether you own your home, what kind of neighborhood it’s
in, whether you occasionally fly business class, and all of the
other petty things that they can use as points of comparison. If
you are of a higher social status than they are, they will conceal
their envy by appearing to admire your success. But if you are
a peer or happen to work with them, they will be sniffing for
any sign of favoritism or privileges they don’t have, and they
will attack you in underhanded ways, undermining your
position within the group.
For baseball Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson (b. 1946), his
Yankee teammate Graig Nettles fit this type. To Jackson,
Nettles seemed extremely attentive to the credit and accolades
others were getting that he was not. He was always discussing
and comparing salaries. What embittered Nettles was the size
of Jackson’s salary and the attention he got from the media.
Jackson had earned the salary and attention he received
through his batting prowess and colorful personality, but the
envious Nettles saw it differently. He thought Jackson simply
knew how to play the media and cozy up to the Yankees owner
George Steinbrenner. Jackson, he decided, was a manipulator.
His envy leaked out in wicked jokes at Jackson’s expense,
poisonous praise, and hostile looks. He turned much of the
Yankee clubhouse against Jackson and made his life miserable.
As Jackson wrote of him in his autobiography, “I always had
the feeling he was behind me, ready to turn the knife.” He also
felt there was some tacit racism in Nettles’s envy, as if a black
athlete could not possibly earn a salary that much larger than
his own.
Recognize status fiends by how they reduce everything to
material considerations. When they comment on the clothes
you wear or the car you drive, they seem to focus on the money
these things must have cost, and as they talk about such
things, you will notice something childish in their demeanor,
as if they were reliving a family drama in which they felt
cheated by a sibling who had something better. Don’t be fooled
by their driving an older car or dressing shabbily. These types
will often try to assert their status in the opposite direction, by
being the consummate monk, the idealistic hippie, while
secretly yearning for the luxuries they cannot get through hard
work. If you are around such types, try to downplay or conceal
what you have that might trigger envy, and talk up their
possessions, skills, and status in whatever way you can.
 The Attacher: In any court-like environment of power, you
will inevitably find people who are drawn to those who are
successful or powerful, not out of admiration but out of secret
envy. They find a way to attach themselves as friends or
assistants. They make themselves useful. They may admire
their boss for some qualities, but deep down they believe they
are entitled to have some of the attention he or she is getting,
without all the hard work. The longer they are around the high
achiever, the more this feeling gnaws at them. They have
talent, they have dreams—why should the person they work for
be so favored? They are good at concealing the undercurrent of
envy through excessive fawning. But these types attach
themselves because it gives them some kind of satisfaction to
spoil and wound the person who has more. They are drawn to
the powerful out of a desire to harm them in some way.
Yolanda Saldivar (b. 1960) is an extreme example of the
type. She started a major fan club for the popular Tejano
singer Selena, then ingratiated herself into Selena’s business
by becoming manager of her clothing stores and accumulated
more power. No one was more sycophantic to the singer. But
feeling deeply envious of the fame of Selena and turning quite
hostile, she began to embezzle funds from the business, which
she felt more than justified in doing. When confronted about
this by Selena’s father, her response was to plot to murder
Selena herself, which she finally did in 1995.
These types have a trait that is quite common to all enviers:
they lack a clear sense of purpose in their life (see chapter 13
for more on this). They do not know their calling; they could
do many things, they think, and often try different jobs. They
wander around and feel empty inside. They naturally envy
those who act with a sense of purpose, and will go so far as to
attach themselves to such a person’s life, partly wishing to get
some of what they themselves are missing and partly desiring
to harm the other person.
In general, be wary of those who are too eager to attach
themselves to your life, too impatient to make themselves
useful. They try to draw you into a relationship not by their
experience and competence but by the flattery and attention
they give you. Their form of attack is to gather information on
you that they can leak out or spread as gossip, harming your
reputation. Learn to hire and work with those who have
experience rather than just a pleasing manner.
The Insecure Master: For some people, reaching a high
position validates their self-opinion and boosts their self-
esteem. But there are some who are more anxious. Holding a
high position tends to increase their insecurities, which they
are careful to conceal. Secretly they doubt whether they are
worthy of the responsibility. They look at others who might
have more talent, even those below them, with an envious eye.
You will work for such bosses under the assumption that
they are self-assured and confident. How else could they have
become the boss? You will work extra hard to impress them,
show them you’re a person on the way up, only to find yourself
after several months suddenly demoted or fired, which makes
little sense, since you had clearly delivered results. You did not
realize you were dealing with the insecure variety and had
inadvertently triggered their self-doubts. They secretly envy
your youth, your energy, your promise, and the signs of your
talent. Even worse if you are socially gifted and they are not.
They will justify the firing or demotion with some narrative
they have concocted; you will never discover the truth.
Michael Eisner, all-powerful CEO of Disney for twenty
years, is just such a type. In 1995 he fired his number two man,
Jeffrey Katzenberg, head of the film studio, ostensibly because
of his abrasive personality, saying he was not a team player. In
truth, Katzenberg had had far too much success in his
position; the films he oversaw became the main source of
Disney’s revenue. He had the golden touch. Never admitting
this to himself, Eisner clearly envied Katzenberg for his talent
and transmuted this into hostility. This pattern repeated itself
time and again with new creative people he brought in.
Pay attention to those above you for signs of insecurity and
envy. They will inevitably have a track record of firing people
for strange reasons. They will not seem particularly happy with
that excellent report you turned in. Always play it safe by
deferring to bosses, making them look better, and earning
their trust. Couch your brilliant ideas as their ideas. Let them
get all the credit for your hard work. Your time to shine will
come, but not if you inadvertently stimulate their insecurities.
 Envy Triggers
Although certain types are more prone to envy, you must also
be aware that there are circumstances that will tend to trigger
envy in almost anyone. You must be extra alert in such
situations.
The most common trigger is a sudden change in your
status, which alters your relationship to friends and peers. This
is particularly true among people in your own profession. This
has been known for a long time. As Hesiod noted in the eighth
century BC, “The potter envies the potter, the craftsman the
craftsman, the writer the writer.” If you experience success,
those in your field who have similar aspirations but who are
still struggling will naturally feel envious. You should be
reasonably tolerant of this because if the tables were reversed,
you would probably feel the same. Do not take so personally
their faint praise and veiled criticisms. But be aware that
among some of these peers envy can turn active and
dangerous.
Renaissance artists who suddenly got commissions became
targets for envious rivals, who could turn quite vicious.
Michelangelo clearly envied the younger and talented Raphael
and did what he could to sully his reputation and block his
commissions. Writers are notoriously envious of other writers,
particularly those with more lucrative deals.
The best you can do in such situations is to have some self-
deprecating humor and to not rub people’s faces in your
success, which, after all, might contain some elements of luck.
In fact, when discussing your success with others who might
envy you, always emphasize or play up the element of luck. For
those closest to you, offer to help them in their struggles as
best you can, without appearing patronizing. In a similar vein,
never make the mistake of praising a writer in front of another
writer, or an artist in front of an artist, unless the person being
praised is dead. If you detect signs of a more active envy in
peers, get as far away from them as possible.
Keep in mind that people who are getting older, with their
careers on the decline, have delicate egos and are quite prone
to experiencing envy.
 Sometimes it is people’s natural gifts and talents that will
stir up the most intense forms of envy. We can strive to
become proficient in a field, but we cannot reengineer our
physiology. Some people are born with better looks, more raw
athletic skill, an unusually vivid imagination, or an open and
generous nature. If people with natural gifts also possess a
good work ethic and have some luck in life, envy will follow
them wherever they go. Often making it worse for such types,
they also tend to be quite naive. They themselves do not feel
envy toward others, so they cannot understand the emotion at
all. Unaware of the dangers, they naturally display their talents
and attract even more envy. Mary Shelley was all of this—
gifted with a brilliant imagination and superior intellectual
capabilities, and also quite naive. What is worse, envying types
secretly loathe those who are immune to feeling envy. It makes
their envious nature doubly apparent to themselves and stirs
the desire to hurt and wound.
If you have any natural gifts that elevate you above others,
you must be aware of the dangers and avoid flaunting such
talents. Instead you want to strategically reveal some flaws to
blunt people’s envy and mask your natural superiority. If you
are gifted in the sciences, make it clear to others how you wish
you had more social skills. Show your intellectual clumsiness
at subjects outside your expertise.
John F. Kennedy seemed almost too perfect to the
American public. So handsome, intelligent, and charismatic,
and with such a beautiful wife—it was hard to identify with or
like him. As soon as he made his big mistake in the failed
invasion of Cuba (known as the Bay of Pigs) early on in his
administration, and took full responsibility for the debacle, his
poll numbers skyrocketed. The mistake had humanized him.
Although this was not done by design, you can have a similar
effect by discussing the mistakes you have made in the past
and showing some selective awkwardness in certain areas that
do not diminish your overall reputation.
Women who achieve success and fame are more prone to
attracting envy and hostility, although this will always be
veiled as something else—such women are said to be too cold,
or ambitious, or unfeminine. Oftentimes we choose to admire
people who achieve great things, admiration being the
opposite of envy. We do not feel personally challenged or
insecure in the face of their excellence. We might also emulate
them, use them as spurs toward trying to achieve more. But
unfortunately this is rarely the case with successful women. A
high-achieving woman inflicts greater feelings of inferiority in
both other women and men (“I’m inferior to a woman?”),
which leads to envy and hostility, not admiration.
Coco Chanel, the most successful businesswoman of her
era, especially considering her origins as an orphan (see
chapter 5), suffered from such envy her entire life. In 1931, at
the height of her power, she met Paul Iribe, an illustrator and
designer whose career was on the decline. Iribe was an expert
seducer and they had much in common. But several months
into their relationship, he began to criticize her for her
extravagance and torment her about her other flaws as he saw
them. He wanted to control all aspects of her life. Lonely and
desperate for a relationship, she hung on, but she later wrote
of Iribe, “My growing celebrity eclipsed his declining glory. . . .
Iribe loved me with the secret hope of destroying me.” Love
and envy are not mutually exclusive.
Successful women will have to bear this burden until such
entrenched underlying values are changed. In the meantime,
they will have to be even more adept at deflecting envy and
playing the humble card.
Robert Rubin (b. 1938), two-term secretary of the treasury
under Bill Clinton, was a grand master when it came to
masking his excellence and defusing envy. He had begun his
career at Goldman Sachs in 1966, slowly rising through the
ranks to become its cohead in 1990. He was one of the key
figures who transformed Goldman Sachs into the most
powerful investment bank on Wall Street. He was a hard
worker and brilliant at finance, but as he became more
powerful within Goldman, he also became more deferential in
all of his interactions. In meetings in which he was clearly the
most knowledgeable person, he would make a point of asking
for the opinions of the most junior associate in attendance,
and of listening to what he or she had to say with rapt
attention. When people who worked for him asked him what
should be done in relation to some crisis or problem, he would
look at them calmly and ask first, “What do you think?” He
would take their answer quite seriously.
As one colleague at Goldman later said of him, “There is no
one better at the humility shtick than Bob. The line, ‘just one’s
man opinion’ was something he would utter a dozen times a
day.” What is remarkable is how Rubin earned the admiration
of so many people and how few had anything bad to say about
him, considering the competitive environment within the
company. This reveals the power you have to short-circuit envy
by placing attention on other people instead of yourself and
engaging with them on a meaningful level.
If you find yourself under an envy attack, your best strategy
is to control your emotions. It is much easier to do this once
you realize that envy is the source. The envier feeds upon your
overreaction as material to criticize you, justify their actions,
and entangle you in some further drama. At all costs, maintain
your composure. If possible, get some physical distance as well
—fire them, cut off contact, whatever is possible. Do not
imagine you can somehow repair the relationship. Your
generosity in trying this will only intensify their feelings of
inferiority. They will strike again. By all means defend yourself
from any public attacks or gossip that they spread, but do not
harbor revenge fantasies. The envier is miserable. The best
strategy is let to them stew in their “cold poison” from a
distance, without any future means of wounding you, as Mary
did to Jane. Their chronic unhappiness is punishment enough.
Finally, you might imagine that envy is a somewhat rare
occurrence in the modern world. After all, it is a primitive,
childish emotion, and we live in such sophisticated times.
Furthermore, not many people discuss or analyze envy as a
major social factor. But the truth is that envy is more prevalent
now than ever before, largely because of social media.
Through social media we have a continual window into the
lives of friends, pseudofriends, and celebrities. And what we
see is not some unvarnished peek into their world but a highly
idealized image that they present. We see only the most
exciting images from their vacations, the happy faces of their
friends and children, accounts of their continual self-
improvement, the fascinating people they are meeting, the
great causes and projects they are involved in, the examples of
success in their endeavors. Are we having as much fun? Are
our lives as seemingly fulfilled as theirs? Are we perhaps
missing out on something? We generally believe, and for good
reason, that we are all entitled to share in the good life, but if
our peers seem to have more, someone or something must be
to blame.
What we experience in this case is a generalized feeling of
dissatisfaction. Low-grade envy sits inside us, waiting to be
triggered into the more acute variety if something we read or
see intensifies our insecurities. Such diffuse envy among large
groups of people can even become a political force, as
demagogues can stir it against certain individuals or groups of
people who have or seem to have it easier than others. People
can be unified through their underlying envy, but as with the
personal variety, nobody will admit to this, nor will it ever be
seen as such. Public envy can be quickly turned against public
figures, especially in the form of schadenfreude when they
experience some misfortune. (Witness the piling on of hostility
toward Martha Stewart once she seemed to run afoul of the
law.) Gossip about the powerful becomes an industry.
What this means is simple: we will find more and more
people around us prone to feeling passive envy that can turn
into the virulent form if we are not careful. We must be
prepared to feel its effects coming from friends, colleagues,
and the public if we are in the public eye. In such an
overheated social environment, learning to recognize the signs
and being able to identify envier types is an absolutely critical
skill to develop. And since we are now all more susceptible to
feeling envy ourselves, we must also learn how to manage this
emotion within ourselves, transforming it into something
positive and productive.

Beyond Envy
Like most humans, you will tend to deny that you ever
experience envy, at least strong enough to act on. You are
simply not being honest with yourself. As described above, you
are only conscious of the indignation or resentment you feel
that covers up the initial pangs of envy. You need to overcome
the natural resistance to seeing the emotion as it first stirs
within you.
We all compare ourselves with others; we all feel unsettled
by those who are superior in some area that we esteem; and we
all react to this by feeling some form of envy. (It is wired into
our nature; studies have shown that monkeys feel envy.) You
can begin with a simple experiment: next time you hear or
read about the sudden success of someone in your field, notice
the inevitable feeling of wanting the same (the pang) and the
subsequent hostility, however vague, toward the person you
envy. It happens quickly and you can easily miss the transition,
but try to catch it. It is natural to go through this emotional
sequence and there should be no guilt attached. Monitoring
yourself and seeing more such instances will only help you in
the slow process of moving beyond envy.
Let us be realistic, however, and realize that it is almost
impossible to rid ourselves of the compulsion to compare
ourselves with others. It is too ingrained in our nature as a
social animal. Instead, what we must aspire to is to slowly
transform our comparing inclination into something positive,
productive, and prosocial. The following are five simple
exercises to help you in achieving this.
Move closer to what you envy.Envy thrives on relative
closeness—in a corporate environment where people see each
other every day, in a family, in a neighborhood, in any group of
peers. But people tend to hide their problems and to put their
best face forward. We only see and hear of their triumphs,
their new relationships, their brilliant ideas that will land them
a gold mine. If we moved closer—if we saw the quarrels that go
on behind closed doors or the horrible boss that goes with that
new job—we would have less reason to feel envy. Nothing is
ever so perfect as it seems, and often we would see that we are
mistaken if we only looked closely enough. Spend time with
that family you envy and wish you had as your own, and you
will begin to reassess your opinion.
If you envy people with greater fame and attention, remind
yourself that with such attention comes a lot of hostility and
scrutiny that is quite painful. Wealthy people are often
miserable. Read any account of the last ten years of the life of
Aristotle Onassis (1906–1975), one of the wealthiest men in
history, married to the glamorous Jacqueline Kennedy, and
you will see that his wealth brought him endless nightmares,
including the most spoiled and unloving of children.
The process of moving closer is twofold: on the one hand,
try to actually look behind the glittering façades people
present, and on the other hand, simply imagine the inevitable
disadvantages that go along with their position. This is not the
same as leveling them down. You are not diminishing the
achievements of those who are great. You are mitigating the
envy you might feel for things in people’s personal lives.
Engage in downward comparisons. You normally focus on those
who seem to have more than you, but it would be wiser to look
at those who have less. There are always plenty of people to
use for such a comparison. They live in harsher environments,
deal with more threats to their lives, and have deeper levels of
insecurity about the future. You can even look at friends who
have it much worse than you. This should stimulate not only
empathy for the many who have less but also greater gratitude
for what you actually possess. Such gratitude is the best
antidote to envy.
As a related exercise, you can write up all the positive things
in your life that you tend to take for granted—the people who
have been kind and helpful to you, the health that you
presently enjoy. Gratitude is a muscle that requires exercise or
it will atrophy.
Practice Mitfreude. Schadenfreude, the experience of
pleasure in the pain of other people, is distinctly related to
envy, as several studies have demonstrated. When we envy
someone, we are prone to feel excitement, even joy, if they
experience a setback or suffer in some way. But it would be
wise to practice instead the opposite, what the philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche called Mitfreude—“joying with.” As he
wrote, “The serpent that stings us means to hurt us and
rejoices as it does so; the lowest animal can imagine the pain
of others. But to imagine the joy of others and to rejoice at it is
the highest privilege of the highest animals.”
This means that instead of merely congratulating people on
their good fortune, something easy to do and easily forgotten,
you must instead actively try to feel their joy, as a form of
empathy. This can be somewhat unnatural, as our first
tendency is to feel a pang of envy, but we can train ourselves to
imagine how it must feel to others to experience their
happiness or satisfaction. This not only cleans our brain of
ugly envy but also creates an unusual form of rapport. If we are
the targets of Mitfreude, we feel the other person’s genuine
excitement at our good fortune, instead of just hearing words,
and it induces us to feel the same for them. Because it is such a
rare occurrence, it contains great power to bond people. And in
internalizing other people’s joy, we increase our own capacity
to feel this emotion in relation to our own experiences.
Transmute envy into emulation.We cannot stop the comparing
mechanism in our brains, so it is best to redirect it into
something productive and creative. Instead of wanting to hurt
or steal from the person who has achieved more, we should
desire to raise ourselves up to his or her level. In this way, envy
becomes a spur to excellence. We may even try to be around
people who will stimulate such competitive desires, people
who are slightly above us in skill level.
To make this work requires a few psychological shifts. First,
we must come to believe that we have the capacity to raise
ourselves up. Confidence in our overall abilities to learn and
improve will serve as a tremendous antidote to envy. Instead
of wishing to have what another has and resorting to sabotage
out of helplessness, we feel the urge to get the same for
ourselves and believe we have the ability to do so. Second, we
must develop a solid work ethic to back this up. If we are
rigorous and persistent, we will be able to overcome almost
any obstacle and elevate our position. People who are lazy and
undisciplined are much more prone to feeling envy.
Related to this, having a sense of purpose, a feel for your
calling in life, is a great way to immunize yourself against envy.
You are focused on your own life and plans, which are clear
and invigorating. What gives you satisfaction is realizing your
potential, not earning attention from the public, which is
fleeting. You have much less need to compare. Your sense of
self-worth comes from within, not from without.
Admire human greatness.Admiration is the polar opposite of
envy—we are acknowledging people’s achievements,
celebrating them, without having to feel insecure. We are
admitting their superiority in the arts or sciences or in
business without feeling pain from this. But this goes further.
In recognizing the greatness of someone, we are celebrating
the highest potential of our species. We are experiencing
Mitfreude with the best in human nature. We share the pride
that comes from any great human achievement. Such
admiration elevates us above the pettiness of our day-to-day
life and will have calming effect.
Although it is easier to admire without any taint of envy
those who are dead, we must try to include at least one living
person in our pantheon. If we are young enough, such objects
of admiration can also serve as models to emulate, at least to
some degree.
Finally, it is worth cultivating moments in life in which we
feel immense satisfaction and happiness divorced from our
own success or achievements. This happens commonly when
we find ourselves in a beautiful landscape—the mountains, the
sea, a forest. We do not feel the prying, comparing eyes of
others, the need to have more attention or to assert ourselves.
We are simply in awe of what we see, and it is intensely
therapeutic. This can also occur when we contemplate the
immensity of the universe, the uncanny set of circumstances
that had to come together for us to be born, the vast reaches of
time before us and after us. These are sublime moments, and
as far removed from the pettiness and poisons of envy as
possible.
For not many men . . . can love a friend who fortune prospers
without envying; and about the envious brain
cold poison clings and doubles all the pain
life brings him. His own woundings he must nurse,
and feel another’s gladness like a curse.
—Aeschylus
 11

Know Your Limits

The Law of Grandiosity

W e humans have a deep need to think highly of

ourselves. If that opinion of our goodness,
greatness, and brilliance diverges enough from reality,
we become grandiose. We imagine our superiority.
Often a small measure of success will elevate our
natural grandiosity to even more dangerous levels. Our
high self-opinion has now been confirmed by events. We
forget the role that luck may have played in the success,
or the contributions of others. We imagine we have the
golden touch. Losing contact with reality, we make
irrational decisions. That is why our success often does
not last. Look for the signs of elevated grandiosity in
yourself and in others—overbearing certainty in the
positive outcome of your plans; excessive touchiness if
criticized; a disdain for any form of authority.
Counteract the pull of grandiosity by maintaining a
realistic assessment of yourself and your limits. Tie any
feelings of greatness to your work, your achievements,
and your contributions to society.

The Success Delusion

By the summer of 1984, Michael Eisner (b. 1942),
president of Paramount Pictures, could no longer ignore
the restlessness that had been plaguing him for months.
He was impatient to move on to a bigger stage and shake
the foundations of Hollywood. This restlessness had
been the story of his life. He had begun his career at
ABC, and never settling too comfortably within one
department, after nine years of various promotions he
had risen to the position of head of prime-time
programming. But television began to seem small and
constricting to him. He needed a larger, grander stage. In
1976 Barry Diller—a former boss at ABC and now the
chairman of Paramount Pictures—offered him the job of
heading Paramount’s film studio, and he jumped at the
chance.
Paramount had long been in the doldrums, but
working with Diller, Eisner transformed it into the
hottest studio in Hollywood, with a string of remarkably
successful films—Saturday Night Fever, Grease,
Flashdance, and Terms of Endearment. Although Diller
certainly played a part in this turnaround, Eisner saw
himself as the main driving force behind the studio’s
success. After all, he had invented a surefire formula for
creating profitable films.
The formula depended on keeping costs down, an
obsession of his. To do so, a film had to begin with a
great concept, one that was original, easy to summarize,
and dramatic. Executives could hire the most expensive
writers, directors, and actors for a film, but if the
underlying concept was weak, all the money in the world
would be wasted. Films with a strong concept, however,
would market themselves. A studio could churn these
relatively inexpensive films out in volume, and even if
they were only moderate hits, they would ensure a steady
flow of income. This thinking went against the grain of
the blockbuster mentality of the late 1970s, but who
could argue with the undeniable profits Eisner had
generated for Paramount? Eisner immortalized this
formula in a memo that soon spread around Hollywood
and became gospel.
 But after so many years of sharing the limelight with
Diller at Paramount, trying to please corporate CEOs,
and pushing back against marketing directors and
finance people, Eisner had had enough. If only he could
run his own studio, unfettered. With the formula he had
created and with his relentless ambition, he could forge
the greatest and most profitable entertainment empire in
the world. He was tired of other people piggybacking on
his ideas and success. Operating on top and alone, he
could control the show and take all the credit.
As Eisner contemplated this next critical move in his
career that summer of ’84, he finally settled upon the
perfect target for his ambitions—the Walt Disney
Company. At first glance, this would seem a puzzling
choice. Since the death of Walt Disney in 1966, the Walt
Disney film studio seemed frozen in time, getting
weirder with each passing year. The place operated more
like a stodgy men’s club. Many executives stopped
working after lunch and spent their afternoons in card
games, or would lounge about in the steam room on site.
Hardly anyone was ever fired. The studio produced one
animated film about every four years and in 1983
produced a meager three live-action films. They had not
had a single hit film since The Love Bug in 1968. The
Disney lot in Burbank almost seemed like a ghost town.
The actor Tom Hanks, who worked on the lot in 1983,
described it as “a Greyhound bus station in the 1950s.”
Given its dilapidated condition, however, this would
be the perfect place for Eisner to work his magic. The
studio and the corporation could only move up. Its board
members were desperate to turn it around and avoid a
hostile takeover. Eisner could dictate the terms of his
leadership position. Presenting himself to Roy Disney
(Walt’s nephew and the largest shareholder of Disney
stock) as the company’s savior, he laid out a detailed and
inspiring plan for a dramatic turnaround (greater than
Paramount’s), and Roy was won over. With Roy’s
blessing the board approved the choice, and in
September 1984 Eisner was named chairman and CEO of
the Walt Disney Company. Frank Wells, the former head
of Warner Bros., was named president and chief
operating officer. Wells would focus on the business side.
In all matters Eisner was the boss; Wells was there to
help and serve him.
Eisner wasted no time. He embarked on a major
restructuring of the company, which led to the departure
of over a thousand employees. He started filling the
executive ranks with Paramount people, most notably
Jeffrey Katzenberg (b. 1950), who had worked as Eisner’s
right-hand man at Paramount and was now named
chairman of Walt Disney Studios. Katzenberg could be
abrasive and downright rude, but no one in Hollywood
was more efficient or worked harder. He simply got
things done.
Within months Disney began to churn out a
remarkable series of hits, adhering to Eisner’s formula.
Fifteen of its first seventeen films (such as Down and
Out in Beverly Hills and Who Framed Roger Rabbit)
generated profits, a run of success almost unheard of for
any studio in Hollywood.
One day, as Eisner explored the Burbank lot with
Wells, they entered the Disney library and discovered
hundreds of cartoons from the golden era that had never
been shown. There on endless shelves were stored all of
the great Disney classic animated hits. Eisner’s eyes lit
up at the sight of this treasure. He could reissue all of
these cartoons and animated films on video (the home
video market was in the midst of exploding) and it would
be pure profit. Based on these cartoons, the company
could create stores to market the various Disney
characters. Disney was a virtual gold mine waiting to be
exploited, and Eisner would make the most of this.
Soon the stores opened, the videos sold like crazy, the
film hits kept pumping profit into the company, and
Disney’s stock price soared. It had replaced Paramount
as the hottest film studio in town. Wanting to cultivate a
more public presence, Eisner decided to revive the old
The Wonderful World of Disney, an hourlong television
show from the fifties and sixties hosted by Walt Disney
himself. This time Eisner would be the host. He was not
a natural in front of the camera, but he felt audiences
would grow to like him. He could be comforting to
children, like Walt himself. In fact, he began to feel the
two of them were somehow magically connected, as if he
were more than just the head of the corporation but
rather the natural son and successor to Walt Disney
himself.
Despite all his success, however, the old restlessness
returned. He needed a new venture, a bigger challenge,
and soon he found it. The Walt Disney Company had
plans to create a new theme park in Europe. The last one
to open, Tokyo Disneyland in 1983, had been a success.
Those in charge of theme parks had settled upon two
potential sites for the new Disneyland—one near
Barcelona, Spain, the other near Paris. Although the
Barcelona site made more economic sense, since the
weather there was much better, Eisner chose the French
site. This was going to be more than a theme park. This
was going to be a cultural statement. He would hire the
best architects in the world. Unlike the usual fiberglass
castles at the other theme parks, at Euro Disney—as it
came to be known—the castles would be built out of pink
stone and feature handcrafted stained-glass windows
with scenes from various fairy tales. It would be a place
even snobby French elites would be excited to visit.
Eisner loved architecture, and here he could be a
modern-day Medici.
As the years went by, the cost of Euro Disney
mounted. Letting go of his usual obsession with the
bottom line, Eisner felt that if he built it right, the crowds
would come and the park would eventually pay for itself.
But when it finally opened as planned in 1992, it quickly
became clear that Eisner had not understood French
tastes and vacation habits. The French were not so
willing to wait in line for rides, particularly in bad
weather. As in the other theme parks, no beer or wine
was served on the premises, and that seemed like
sacrilege to the French. The hotel rooms were too
expensive for a family to stay there more than a night.
And despite all the attention to detail, the pink stone
castles still looked like kitschy versions of the originals.
Attendance was only half of what Eisner had
anticipated. The debts Disney had incurred in the
construction had ballooned, and the money coming in
from visitors could not even service the interest on them.
It was shaping up to be a disaster, the first ever in his
glorious career. As he finally came to terms with this
reality, he decided that Frank Wells was to blame. It was
his job to oversee the financial health of the project, and
he had failed. Whereas before Eisner had only had the
best things to say about their working relationship, now
he often complained about his second-in-command and
contemplated firing him.
In the middle of this growing debacle, Eisner felt a
new threat on the horizon—Jeffrey Katzenberg. He had
once referred to Katzenberg as his golden retriever—so
loyal and hardworking. It was Katzenberg who had
overseen the string of early hits for the studio, including
the biggest hit of all, Beauty and the Beast, the film that
had initiated the renaissance of Disney’s animation
department. But something about Katzenberg was
making him increasingly nervous. Perhaps it was the
memo that Katzenberg had written in 1990, in which he
dissected the string of flops Disney had recently
produced in live action. “Since 1984, we have slowly
drifted away from our original vision of how to run a
business,” he wrote. Katzenberg criticized the studio’s
decision to go for bigger-budget films such as Dick
Tracy, trying to make “event movies.” Disney had fallen
for “the blockbuster mentality” and had lost its soul in
the process.
The memo made Eisner uncomfortable. Dick Tracy
was Eisner’s own pet project. Was Katzenberg indirectly
criticizing his boss? When he thought about it, it seemed
like this was a clear imitation of his own infamous memo
at Paramount, in which he had advocated for less
expensive, high-concept films. Now it occurred to him
that Katzenberg saw himself as the next Eisner. Maybe
he was angling to take Eisner’s job, to subtly undermine
his authority. This began to eat away at him. Why was
Katzenberg now cutting him out of story meetings?
The animation department soon became the primary
generator of profits for the studio, with new hits such as
Aladdin and now The Lion King, which had been
Katzenberg’s baby—he had come up with the story idea
and developed it from start to finish. Magazine articles
now began to feature Katzenberg as if he were the
creative genius behind Disney’s resurgence in the genre.
What about Roy Disney, the vice chairman of animation?
What about Eisner himself, who was in charge of
everything? To Eisner, Katzenberg was now playing the
media, building himself up. An executive had reported to
Eisner that Katzenberg was going around saying, “I’m
the Walt Disney of today.” Suspicion soon turned into
hatred. Eisner could not stand to be around him.
Then, in March of 1994, Frank Wells was killed in a
helicopter accident while on a skiing trip. To reassure
shareholders and Wall Street, Eisner soon announced
that he would take over Wells’s position as president. But
suddenly here was Katzenberg pestering him with phone
calls and memos, reminding Eisner that he had promised
him the president’s job if Wells ever left the company.
How insensitive, so soon after the tragedy. He stopped
returning Katzenberg’s phone calls.
 Finally, in August 1994, Eisner fired Jeffrey
Katzenberg, shocking almost everyone in Hollywood. He
had fired the most successful studio executive in town.
The Lion King had become one of the most profitable
films in Hollywood history. It was Katzenberg who was
behind Disney’s acquisition of Miramax, considered a
great coup with the ensuing success of Pulp Fiction. It
seemed like madness on his part, but Eisner did not care.
Finally freed of Katzenberg’s shadow, he could relax and
now take Disney to the next level, on his own and with
no more distractions.
To prove he had not lost his touch, he soon dazzled
the entertainment world by engineering Disney’s
purchase of ABC. The sheer audacity of this coup once
again made him the center of attention. Now he was
forging an entertainment empire beyond what anyone
had ever attempted or imagined. This move, however,
created a problem for him. The company had virtually
doubled in size. It was too complex, too big for one man.
Only a year earlier he had undergone open-heart surgery,
and he could not handle the added stress.
He needed another Frank Wells, and his thoughts
soon turned to his old friend Michael Ovitz, one of the
founders and the head of Creative Artists Agency. Ovitz
was the greatest deal maker in Hollywood history,
perhaps the most powerful man in town. Together they
could dominate the field. Many within the business
warned him against this hire—Ovitz was not like Frank
Wells; he was not a finance guy or a master of detail, as
Ovitz himself would have admitted. Eisner ignored such
advice. People were being too conventional in their
thinking. He decided to lure Ovitz away from CAA with a
very lucrative package and offer him the title of
president. He assured Ovitz in several discussions that
although Ovitz would be second in command, they would
eventually run the company as coleaders.
 In a phone call Ovitz finally agreed to all of the terms,
but the moment Eisner hung up, he realized he had
made the biggest mistake of his life. What had he been
thinking? They might have been the closest of friends,
but how would two such larger-than-life men ever be
able to work together? Ovitz was power hungry. This
would be the Katzenberg problem times two. It was too
late, however. He had gotten the board’s approval for the
hire. His own reputation, his decision-making process as
a CEO, was at stake. He would have to make it work.
He quickly decided upon a strategy—he would narrow
Ovitz’s responsibilities, keep a tight leash on him, and
make him prove himself as president. By doing so Ovitz
could earn Eisner’s trust and get more power. From day
one Eisner wanted to signal to Ovitz who was boss.
Instead of moving him into Frank Wells’s old office on
the sixth floor at Disney headquarters, next to Eisner’s,
Eisner put him in a rather unimpressive office on the
fifth floor. Ovitz liked to spread money around with gifts
and lavish parties to charm people; Eisner had his team
monitor every penny that Ovitz spent on such things, and
watch his every move. Was Ovitz contacting other
executives behind Eisner’s back? He would not nurture
another Katzenberg at his breast.
Soon the following dynamic developed: Ovitz would
approach him with some potential deal, and Eisner
would not discourage him from exploring it. But once it
came time to agree to the deal, Eisner would give a firm
no. Slowly word spread through the industry that Ovitz
had lost his touch and could no longer close a deal. Ovitz
began to panic. He wanted desperately to prove he had
been worthy of the choice. He offered to move to New
York to help manage ABC, since the merger of the two
companies was not working out so smoothly, but Eisner
said no. He told his lieutenants to keep their distance
from Ovitz. He was not a man to be trusted—he was the
son of a liquor salesman in the San Fernando Valley, and
like his father, Ovitz was just a smooth salesman. He was
addicted to attention from the media. Within the
company, Ovitz had become completely isolated.
As the months dragged on in this saga, Ovitz could see
what was happening, and he complained bitterly to
Eisner. He had left his agency for Disney; he had staked
his reputation on what he would do as president, and
Eisner was destroying his reputation. Nobody respected
him any longer in the business. Eisner’s treatment of
Ovitz was downright sadistic. In Eisner’s mind, however,
Ovitz had failed the test he had laid out; he had not
proven himself to be patient; he was no Frank Wells. In
December of 1996, after a mere fourteen months on the
job, Ovitz was fired, taking with him an enormous
severance package. It was a dizzying and rapid fall from
grace.
Finally liberated from this great mistake, Eisner
began to consolidate power within the company. ABC
was not doing so well. He would have to intervene and
take some control. He began to attend programming
meetings; he talked of his own golden days at ABC and of
the great shows he had created there, such as Laverne &
Shirley and Happy Days. ABC needed to go back to that
earlier philosophy and create high-concept shows for the
family.
As the internet began to take off, Eisner had to get
involved in a big way. He nixed the purchase of Yahoo!,
pushed by his executives. Instead Disney would start its
own internet portal, called Go. Over the years he had
learned the lesson—it was always best to design and run
your own show. Disney would dominate the internet. He
had proven himself a turnaround genius twice before,
and with Disney now in a slump, he would do it a third
time.
Soon, however, a wave of disasters hit the
corporation, one after another. After being fired,
Katzenberg had sued Disney for the bonus—based on
performance—he was due under his contract. When he
had been president, Ovitz had tried to settle the suit
before it went to court and had gotten Katzenberg to
agree to $90 million, but at the last minute Eisner had
nixed this, certain he did not owe Katzenberg anything.
In 2001 the judge ruled in Katzenberg’s favor, and they
had to settle for a whopping $280 million. Disney had
poured vast resources into the creation of Go, and it was
a terrific flop that had to be shut down. The costs from
Euro Disney were still bleeding the company. Disney had
a partnership with Pixar, and together they had
produced such hits as Toy Story. But now the CEO of
Pixar, Steve Jobs, made it clear he would never work
with Disney again, deeply resenting Eisner’s
micromanaging. ABC was underperforming. Most of the
movies Disney produced were not just flops but
expensive flops, culminating in the biggest one of all,
Pearl Harbor, which opened in May of 2001.
Suddenly it seemed that Roy Disney had lost faith in
Eisner. The stock price was plummeting. He told Eisner
it would be best for him to resign. What ingratitude,
what hubris! He, Eisner, was the man who had
singlehandedly brought the company back from the
dead. He had saved Roy from disaster and made him a
fortune, Roy who had been considered Walt’s idiot
nephew. And now, in Eisner’s darkest hour, Roy was
going to betray him? Eisner had never felt more enraged.
He quickly struck back, forcing Roy to resign from the
board. This only seemed to embolden Roy. He organized
a shareholder revolt known as Save Disney, and in March
of 2004 the shareholders voted a stinging rebuke of
Eisner’s leadership.
Soon the board decided to strip Eisner of his position
as chairman of the board. The empire he had forged was
falling apart. In September of 2005, with hardly an ally
to lean on and feeling alone and betrayed, Eisner
officially resigned from Disney. How had it all unraveled
so quickly? They would come to miss him, he told
friends, and he meant all of Hollywood; there would
never be another like him.

• • •
Interpretation: We can say that at a certain point in
his career Michael Eisner succumbed to a form of
delusion when it came to power, his thinking so divorced
from reality that he made business decisions with
disastrous consequences. Let us follow the progress of
this particular form of delusion as it emerged and took
over his mind.
At the beginning of his career at ABC, young Eisner
had a solid grasp on reality. He was fiercely practical. He
understood and exploited to the maximum his strengths
—his ambitious and competitive nature, his intense work
ethic, his keen sense for the entertainment tastes of the
average American. Eisner had a quick mind and the
ability to encourage others to think creatively. Leaning
on these strengths, he rose quickly up the ladder. He
possessed a high degree of confidence in his talents, and
the series of promotions he received at ABC confirmed
this self-opinion. He could afford to be a little cocky,
because he had learned a lot on the job and his skills as a
programmer had improved immensely. He was on a fast
track toward the top, which he reached at the age of
thirty-four by being named head of prime-time
programming at ABC.
As a person of high ambition, he soon felt that the
world of television was somewhat constricting. There
were limits to the kinds of entertainment he could
program. The film world offered something looser,
greater, and more glamorous. It was natural, then, for
him to accept the position at Paramount. But at
Paramount something occurred that began the subtle
process of the unbalancing of his mind. Because the
stage was bigger and he was the head of the studio, he
began to receive attention from the media and the public.
He was featured on the cover of magazines as the hottest
film executive in Hollywood. This was qualitatively
different from the attention and satisfaction that had
come from the promotions at ABC. Now he had millions
of people admiring him. How could their opinions be
wrong? To them he was a genius, a new kind of hero
altering the landscape of the studio system.
This was intoxicating. It inevitably elevated his
estimation of his skills. But it came with a great danger.
The success that Eisner had had at Paramount was not
completely of his own doing. When he had arrived at the
studio, several films were already in preproduction,
including Saturday Night Fever, which would spark the
turnaround. Barry Diller was the perfect foil to Eisner.
He would argue with him endlessly about his ideas,
forcing Eisner to sharpen them. But puffed up by the
attention he was receiving, Eisner had to imagine that he
deserved the accolades he received strictly for his own
efforts, and so naturally he subtracted from his success
the elements of good timing and the contributions of
others. Now his mind was subtly divorcing itself from
reality. Instead of rigorously focusing on the audience
and how to entertain people, he started to increasingly
focus on himself, believing in the myth of his greatness
as promulgated by others. He imagined he had the
golden touch.
At Disney the pattern repeated and grew more
intense. He basked in the glow of his amazing success
there, quickly forgetting the incredible good luck he had
had in inheriting the Disney library at the time of the
explosion of home video and family entertainment. He
discounted the critical role that Wells had played in
balancing him out. With his sense of grandeur growing,
he faced a dilemma. He had become addicted to the
attention that came from creating a splash, doing
something big. He could not content himself with simple
success and rising profits. He had to add to the myth to
keep it alive. Euro Disney would be the answer. He
would show the world he was not just a corporate
executive but rather a renaissance man.
In building the park, he refused to listen to
experienced advisers who recommended the Barcelona
site and advocated a modest theme park to keep the costs
down. He did not pay attention to French culture but
directed everything from Burbank. He operated under
the belief that his skills as the head of a film studio could
be transferred to theme parks and architecture. He was
certainly overestimating his creative powers, and now his
business decisions revealed a large enough detachment
from reality to qualify as delusional. Once this mental
imbalance takes hold, it can only get worse, because to
come back down to earth is to admit that one’s earlier
high self-opinion was wrong, and the human animal will
almost never admit that. Instead, the tendency is to
blame others for every failure or setback.
In the grips now of his delusion, he made his most
serious mistake of all—the firing of Jeffrey Katzenberg.
The Disney system depended on a steady flow of new
animated hits, which fed the stores and theme parks with
new characters, merchandise, rides, and avenues for
publicity. Katzenberg clearly had developed the knack for
creating such hits, exemplified by the unprecedented
success of The Lion King. Firing him put the entire
assembly line at risk. Who would take over? Certainly
not Roy Disney or Eisner himself? Furthermore, he had
to know that Katzenberg would take his skills elsewhere,
which he did when he cofounded a new studio,
DreamWorks. There he churned out more animated hits.
The new studio drove up the price for skilled animators,
vastly increasing the cost of producing an animated film
and threatening Disney’s entire profit system. But
instead of a firm grip on this reality, Eisner was more
focused on the competition for attention. Katzenberg’s
rise threatened his elevated self-opinion, and he had to
sacrifice profit and practicality to soothe his ego.
The downward spiral had begun. The acquisition of
ABC, under the belief that bigger is better, revealed his
growing detachment from reality. Television was a dying
business model in the age of new media. It was not a
realistic business decision but a play for publicity. He
had created an entertainment behemoth, a blob without
any clear identity. The hiring and firing of Ovitz revealed
an even greater level of delusion. People had become
mere instruments for Eisner to use. Ovitz was considered
the most feared and powerful man in Hollywood.
Perhaps Eisner was unconsciously driven by the desire to
humiliate Ovitz. If he had the power to make Ovitz beg
for crumbs, he must be the most powerful man in
Hollywood.
Soon all of the problems that stemmed from his
delusional thought process began to cascade—the
continually rising costs of Euro Disney, the Katzenberg
bonus, the lack of hits in both film divisions, the
continual drain on resources from ABC, the Ovitz
severance package. The board members could no longer
ignore the falling stock price. The firing of Katzenberg
and Ovitz made Eisner the most hated man in
Hollywood, and as his fortunes fell, all of his enemies
came out of the woodwork to hasten his destruction. His
fall from power was fast and spectacular.
Understand: The story of Michael Eisner is much
closer to you than you think. His fate could easily be
yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale. The reason is
simple: we humans possess a weakness that is latent in
us all and will push us into the delusional process
without our ever being aware of the dynamic. The
weakness stems from our natural tendency to
overestimate our skills. We normally have a self-opinion
that is somewhat elevated in relation to reality. We have
a deep need to feel ourselves superior to others in
something—intelligence, beauty, charm, popularity, or
saintliness. This can be a positive. A degree of confidence
impels us to take on challenges, to push past our
supposed limits, and to learn in the process. But once we
experience success on any level—increased attention
from an individual or group, a promotion, funding for a
project—that confidence will tend to rise too quickly, and
there will be an ever-growing discrepancy between our
self-opinion and reality.
Any success that we have in life inevitably depends on
some good luck, timing, the contributions of others, the
teachers who helped us along the way, the whims of the
public in need of something new. Our tendency is to
forget all of this and imagine that any success stems from
our superior self. We begin to assume we can handle new
challenges well before we are ready. After all, people
have confirmed our greatness with their attention, and
we want to keep it coming. We imagine we have the
golden touch and that we can now magically transfer our
skills to some other medium or field. Without realizing
it, we become more attuned to our ego and our fantasies
than to the people we work for and our audience. We
grow distant from those who are helping us, seeing them
as tools to be used. And with any failures that occur we
tend to blame others. Success has an irresistible pull to it
that tends to cloud our minds.
Your task is the following: After any kind of success,
analyze the components. See the element of luck that is
inevitably there, as well as the role that other people,
including mentors, played in your good fortune. This will
neutralize the tendency to inflate your powers. Remind
yourself that with success comes complacency, as
attention becomes more important than the work and
old strategies are repeated. With success you must raise
your vigilance. Wipe the slate clean with each new
project, starting from zero. Try to pay less attention to
the applause as it grows louder. See the limits to what
you can accomplish and embrace them, working with
what you have. Don’t believe bigger is better;
consolidating and concentrating your forces is often the
wiser choice. Be wary of offending with your growing
sense of superiority—you will need your allies.
Compensate for the drug-like effect of success by keeping
your feet planted firmly on the ground. The power you
will build up in this slow and organic way will be more
real and lasting. Remember: the gods are merciless with
those who fly too high on the wings of grandiosity, and
they will make you pay the price.
Existence alone had never been enough for him; he had
always wanted more. Perhaps it was only from the force of
his desires that he had regarded himself as a man to whom
more was permitted than to others.
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

Keys to Human Nature

Let us say that you have a project to realize, or an
individual or group of people you wish to persuade to do
something. We could describe a realistic attitude toward
reaching such goals in the following way: Getting what
you want is rarely easy. Success will depend on a lot of
effort and some luck. To make your project work, you
will probably have to jettison your previous strategy—
circumstances are always changing and you need to keep
an open mind. The people you are trying to reach never
respond exactly as you might have imagined or hoped. In
fact, people will generally surprise and frustrate you in
their reactions. They have their own needs, experiences,
and particular psychology that are different from your
own. To impress your targets, you will have to focus on
them and their spirit. If you fail to accomplish what you
want, you will have to examine carefully what you did
wrong and strive to learn from the experience.
You can think of the project or task ahead of you as a
block of marble you must sculpt into something precise
and beautiful. The block is much larger than you and the
material is quite resistant, but the task is not impossible.
With enough effort, focus, and resiliency you can slowly
carve it into what you need. You must begin, however,
with a proper sense of proportion—goals are hard to
reach, people are resistant, and you have limits to what
you can do. With such a realistic attitude, you can
summon up the requisite patience and get to work.
Imagine, however, that your brain has succumbed to a
psychological disease that affects your perception of size
and proportion. Instead of seeing the task you are facing
as rather large and the material resistant, under the
influence of this disease you perceive the block of marble
as relatively small and malleable. Losing your sense of
proportion, you believe it won’t take long to fashion the
block into the image you have in your mind of the
finished product. You imagine that the people you are
trying to reach are not naturally resistant but quite
predictable. You know how they’ll respond to your great
idea—they’ll love it. In fact, they need you and your work
more than you need them. They should seek you out. The
emphasis is not on what you need to do to succeed but
on what you feel you deserve. You can foresee a lot of
attention coming your way with this project, but if you
fail, other people must be to blame, because you have
gifts, your cause is the right one, and only those who are
malicious or envious could stand in your way.
We can call this psychological disease grandiosity. As
you feel its effects, the normal realistic proportions are
reversed—your self becomes larger and greater than
anything else around it. That is the lens through which
you view the task and the people you need to reach. This
is not merely deep narcissism (see chapter 2), in which
everything must revolve around you. This is seeing
yourself as enlarged (the root of the word grandiosity
meaning “big” or “great”), as superior and worthy of not
only attention but of being adored. It is a feeling of being
not merely human but godlike.
 You may think of powerful, egotistical leaders in the
public eye as the ones who contract such a disease, but
you would be very wrong in that assumption. Certainly
we find many influential people, such as Michael Eisner,
with high-grade versions of grandiosity, where the
attention and accolades they receive create a more
intense enlargement of the self. But there is a low-grade,
everyday version of the disease that is common to almost
all of us because it is a trait embedded in human nature.
It stems from our deep need to feel important, esteemed
by people, and superior to others in something.
You are rarely aware of your own grandiosity because
by its nature it alters your perception of reality and
makes it hard to have an accurate assessment of yourself.
And so you are unaware of the problems it might be
causing you at this very moment. Your low-grade
grandiosity will cause you to overestimate your own
skills and abilities and to underestimate the obstacles
that you face. And so you will take on tasks that are
beyond your actual capacity. You will feel certain that
people will respond to your idea in a particular way, and
when they don’t, you will become upset and blame
others.
You may become restless and suddenly make a career
change, not realizing that grandiosity is at the root—your
present work is not confirming your greatness and
superiority, because to be truly great would require more
years of training and the development of new skills.
Better to quit and be lured by the possibilities a new
career offers, allowing you to entertain fantasies of
greatness. In this way, you never quite master anything.
You may have dozens of great ideas that you never
attempt to execute, because that would cause you to
confront the reality of your actual skill level. Without
being aware of it, you might become ever so slightly
passive—you expect other people to understand you, give
you what you want, treat you well. Instead of earning
their praise, you feel entitled to it.
In all of these cases, your low-grade grandiosity will
prevent you from learning from your mistakes and
developing yourself, because you begin with the
assumption that you are already large and great, and it is
too difficult to admit otherwise.
Your task as a student of human nature is threefold:
First, you must understand the phenomenon of
grandiosity itself, why it is so embedded in human
nature, and why you will find many more grandiose
people in the world today than ever before. Second, you
need to recognize the signs of grandiosity and know how
to manage the people who display them. And third and
most important, you must see the signs of the disease in
yourself and learn not only how to control your
grandiose tendencies but also how to channel this energy
into something productive (see “Practical Grandiosity,”
on this page, for more on this).
According to the renowned psychoanalyst Heinz
Kohut (1913–1981), grandiosity has its roots in the
earliest years of our life. In our first months, most of us
bonded completely with our mother. We had no sense of
a separate identity. She met our every need. We came to
believe that the breast that gave us food was actually a
part of ourselves. We were omnipotent—all we had to do
was feel hungry or feel any need, and the mother was
there to meet it, as if we had magical powers to control
her. But then, slowly, we had to go through a second
phase of life in which we were forced to confront the
reality—our mother was a separate being who had other
people to attend to. We were not omnipotent but rather
weak, quite small, and dependent. This realization was
painful and the source of much of our acting out—we had
a deep need to assert ourselves, to show we were not so
helpless, and to fantasize about powers we did not
possess. (Children will often imagine the ability to see
through walls, to fly, or to read people’s minds, and that
is why they are drawn to stories of superheroes.)
As we get older, we may not be physically small
anymore, but our sense of insignificance only gets worse.
We come to realize we are one person not just in a larger
family, school, or city but in an entire globe filled with
billions of people. Our lives are relatively short. We have
limited skills and brainpower. There is so much we
cannot control, particularly with our careers and global
trends. The idea that we will die and be quickly
forgotten, swallowed up in eternity, is quite intolerable.
We want to feel significant in some way, to protest
against our natural smallness, to expand our sense of
self. What we experienced at the age of three or four
unconsciously haunts us our entire lives. We alternate
between moments of sensing our smallness and trying to
deny it. This makes us prone to finding ways to imagine
our superiority.
Some children do not go through that second phase in
early childhood in which they must confront their
relative smallness, and these children are more
vulnerable to deeper forms of grandiosity later in life.
They are the pampered, spoiled ones. The mother and
the father continue to make such children feel like they
are the center of the universe, shielding them from the
pain of confronting the reality. Their every wish becomes
a command. If ever attempts are made to instill the
slightest amount of discipline, the parents are met with a
tantrum. Furthermore, such children come to disdain
any form of authority. Compared with themselves and
what they can get, the father figure seems rather weak.
This early pampering marks them for life. They need
to be adored. They become masters at manipulating
others to pamper them and shower them with attention.
They naturally feel greater than anyone above them. If
they have any talent, they might rise quite far, as their
sense of being born with a crown on their head becomes
a self-fulfilling prophecy. Unlike others, they never really
alternate between feelings of smallness and greatness;
they know only the latter. Certainly Eisner came from
such a background, as he had a mother who met his
every need, completed his homework for him, and
sheltered him from his cold and sometimes cruel father.
In the past, we humans were able to channel our
grandiose needs into religion. In ancient times, our sense
of smallness was not just something bred into us by the
many years we spent dependent on our parents; it also
came from our weakness in relation to the hostile powers
in nature. Gods and spirits represented these elemental
powers of nature that dwarfed our own. By worshipping
them we could gain their protection. Connected to
something much larger than ourselves, we felt enlarged.
After all, the gods or God cared about the fate of our tribe
or city; they cared about our individual soul, a sign of our
own significance. We did not merely die and disappear.
Many centuries later, in a similar manner, we channeled
this energy into worshipping leaders who represented a
great cause and promoted a future utopia, such as
Napoleon Bonaparte and the French Revolution, or Mao
Zedong and communism.
Today, in the Western world, religions and great
causes have lost their binding power; we find it hard to
believe in them and to satisfy our grandiose energy
through identification with a greater power. The need to
feel larger and significant, however, does not simply
disappear; it is stronger than ever. And absent any other
channels, people will tend to direct this energy toward
themselves. They will find a way to expand their sense of
self, to feel great and superior. Although rarely conscious
of this, what they are choosing to idealize and worship is
the self. Because of this, we find more and more
grandiose individuals among us.
Other factors have also contributed to increases in
grandiosity. First, we find more people who experienced
pampering attention in their childhood than ever in the
past. Feeling like they were once the center of the
universe becomes a hard thing to shake. They come to
believe that anything they do or produce should be seen
as precious and worthy of attention. Second, we find
increasing numbers of people who have little or no
respect for authority or experts of any kind, no matter
the experts’ level of training and experience, which they
themselves lack. “Why should their opinion be any more
valid than my own?” they might tell themselves.
“Nobody’s really that great; people with power are just
more privileged.” “My writing and music are just as
legitimate and worthy as anyone else’s.” Without a sense
of anyone rightly being above them and deserving
authority, they can position themselves among the
highest.
Third, technology gives us the impression that
everything in life can be as fast and simple as the
information we can glean online. It instills the belief that
we no longer have to spend years learning a skill;
instead, through a few tricks and with a few hours a week
of practice we can become proficient at anything.
Similarly, people believe that their skills can easily be
transferred: “My ability to write means I can also direct a
film.” But more than anything it is social media that
spreads the grandiosity virus. Through social media we
have almost limitless powers to expand our presence, to
create the illusion that we have the attention and even
adoration of thousands or millions of people. We can
possess the fame and ubiquity of the kings and queens in
the past, or even of the gods themselves.
With all of these elements combined, it is harder than
ever for any of us to maintain a realistic attitude and a
proportionate sense of self.
In looking at the people around you, you must realize
that their grandiosity (and yours) can come in many
different forms. Most commonly people will try to satisfy
the need by gaining social prestige. People may claim
they are interested in the work itself or in contributing to
humanity, but often deep down what is really motivating
them is the desire to have attention, to have their high
self-opinion confirmed by others who admire them, to
feel powerful and inflated. If they are talented, such
types can get the attention they need for several years or
longer, but inevitably, as in the story of Eisner, their
need for accolades will lure them into overreaching.
If people are disappointed in their careers yet still
believe they are great and unrecognized, they may turn
to various compensations—drugs, alcohol, sex with as
many partners as possible, shopping, a superior,
mocking attitude, et cetera. Those with unsatisfied
grandiosity will often become filled with manic energy—
one moment telling everyone about the great screenplays
they will write or the many women they will seduce, and
the next moment falling into depression as reality
intrudes.
People still tend to idealize leaders and worship them,
and you must see this as a form of grandiosity. By
believing someone else will make everything great,
followers can feel something of this greatness. Their
minds can soar along with the rhetoric of the leader.
They can feel superior to those who are not believers. On
a more personal level, people will often idealize those
they love, elevating them to god or goddess status and by
extension feeling some of this power reflected back on
them.
In the world today, you will also notice the prevalence
of negative forms of grandiosity. Many people feel the
need to disguise their grandiose urges not only from
others but also from themselves. They will frequently
make a show of their humility—they are not interested in
power or feeling important, or so they say. They are
happy with their small lot in life. They do not want a lot
of possessions, do not own a car, and disdain status. But
you will notice they have a need to display this humility
in a public manner. It is grandiose humility—their way to
get attention and to feel morally superior.
A variation on this is the grandiose victim—they have
suffered a lot and been the victim numerous times.
Although they may like to frame it as being simply
unlucky and unfortunate, you will notice that they often
have a tendency to fall for the worst types in intimate
relationships, or put themselves in circumstances in
which they are certain to fail and suffer. In essence, they
are compelled to create the drama that will turn them
into a victim. As it turns out, any relationship with them
will have to revolve around their needs; they have
suffered too much in the past to attend to your needs.
They are the center of the universe. Feeling and
expressing their misfortune gives them their sense of
importance, of being superior in suffering.
You can measure the levels of grandiosity in people in
several simple ways. For instance, notice how people
respond to criticism of them or their work. It’s normal
for any of us to feel defensive and a bit upset when
criticized. But some people become enraged and
hysterical, because we have called into doubt their sense
of greatness. You can be sure that such a person has high
levels of grandiosity. Similarly, such types might conceal
their rage behind a martyred, pained expression meant
to make you feel guilty. The emphasis is not on the
criticism itself and what they need to learn but on their
sense of grievance.
If people are successful, notice how they act in more
private moments. Are they able to relax and laugh at
themselves, letting go of their public mask, or have they
so overidentified with their powerful public image that it
carries over into their private life? In the latter case, they
have come to believe in their own myth and are in the
grip of powerful grandiosity.
 Grandiose people are generally big talkers. They take
credit for anything that is even tangential to their work;
they invent past successes. They talk of their prescience,
how they foresaw certain trends or predicted certain
events, none of which can be verified. All such talk
should make you doubly dubious. If people in the public
eye suddenly say something that gets them into trouble
for being insensitive, you can ascribe that to their potent
grandiosity. They are so attuned to their own great
opinions that they assume everyone else will interpret
them in the right spirit and agree with them.
Higher grandiose types generally display low levels of
empathy. They are not good listeners. When the
attention is not on them, they have a faraway look in
their eyes and their fingers twitch with impatience. Only
when the spotlight is on them do they become animated.
They tend to see people as extensions of themselves—
tools to be used in their schemes, sources of attention.
Finally, they exhibit nonverbal behavior that can only be
described as grandiose. Their gestures are big and
dramatic. At a meeting, they take up a lot of personal
space. Their voice tends to be louder than others, and
they speak at a fast pace, giving no one else time to
interrupt.
With those who exhibit moderate amounts of
grandiosity, you should be indulgent. Almost all of us
alternate between periods in which we feel superior and
great and others in which we come back down to earth.
Look for such moments of realism in people as signs of
normalcy. But with those whose self-opinion is so high
they cannot allow for any doubts, it is best to avoid
relationships or entanglements. In intimate
relationships, they will tend to demand adoring one-
sided attention. If they are employees, business partners,
or bosses, they will oversell their skills. Their levels of
confidence will distract you from the deficiencies in their
ideas, work habits, and character. If you cannot avoid
such a relationship, be aware of their tendency to feel
certain about the success of their ideas, and maintain
your skepticism. Look at the ideas themselves and don’t
get caught up in their seductive self-belief. Don’t
entertain the illusion that you can confront them and try
to bring them down to earth; you may trigger a rage
response.
If such types happen to be your rivals, consider
yourself lucky. They are easy to taunt and bait into
overreactions. Casting doubts on their greatness will
make them apoplectic and doubly irrational.
Finally, you will need to manage your own grandiose
tendencies. Grandiosity has some positive and
productive uses. The exuberance and high self-belief that
come from it can be channeled into your work and help
inspire you. (See “Practical Grandiosity,” on this page,
for more on this.) But in general it would be best for you
to accept your limitations and work with what you have,
rather than fantasize about godlike powers you can never
attain. The greatest protection you can have against
grandiosity is to maintain a realistic attitude. You know
what subjects and activities you are naturally attracted
to. You cannot be skilled at everything. You need to play
to your strengths and not imagine you can be great at
whatever you put your mind to. You must have a
thorough understanding of your energy levels, of how far
you can reasonably push yourself, and of how this
changes with age. And you must have a solid grasp on
your social position—your allies, the people with whom
you have the greatest rapport, the natural audience for
your work. You cannot please everyone.
This self-awareness has a physical component to it
that you must be sensitive to. When you are doing
activities that mesh with your natural inclinations, you
feel ease in the effort. You learn faster. You have more
energy and you can withstand the tedium that comes
with learning anything important. When you take on too
much, more than you can handle, you feel not only
exhausted but also irritable and nervous. You are prone
to headaches. When you have success in life, you will
naturally feel a touch of fear, as if the good fortune could
disappear. You sense with this fear the dangers that can
come from rising too high (almost like vertigo) and
feeling too superior. Your anxiety is telling you to come
back down to earth. You want to listen to your body as it
signals to you when you are working against your
strengths.
In knowing yourself, you accept your limits. You are
simply one person among many in the world, and not
naturally superior to anyone. You are not a god or an
angel but a flawed human like the rest of us. You accept
the fact that you cannot control the people around you
and no strategy is ever foolproof. Human nature is too
unpredictable. With this self-knowledge and acceptance
of limits you will have a sense of proportion. You will
search for greatness in your work. And when you feel the
pull to think more highly of yourself than is reasonable,
this self-knowledge will serve as a gravity mechanism,
pulling you back down and directing you toward the
actions and decisions that will best serve your particular
nature.
Being realistic and pragmatic is what makes us
humans so powerful. It is how we overcame our physical
weakness in a hostile environment so many thousands of
years ago, and learned to work with others and form
powerful communities and tools for survival. Although
we have veered away from this pragmatism, as we no
longer have to rely on our wits to survive, it is in fact our
true nature as the preeminent social animal on the
planet. In becoming more realistic, you are simply
becoming more human.

The Grandiose Leader

If people with high levels of grandiosity also possess
some talent and a lot of assertive energy, they can rise to
positions of great power. Their boldness and confidence
attract attention and give them a larger-than-life
presence. Mesmerized by their image, we often fail to see
the underlying irrationality in their decision-making
process and so follow them straight into some disaster.
They can be very destructive.
You must realize a simple fact about these types—they
depend on the attention we give them. Without our
attention, without being adored by the public, they
cannot have their high self-opinion validated, and in
such cases the very confidence they depend on withers.
To awe us and distract us from the reality, they employ
certain theatrical devices. It is imperative for us to see
through their stage tricks, to demythologize them and
scale them back down to human size. In doing so, we can
resist their allure and avoid the dangers they represent.
The following are six common illusions they like to
create.
I am destined.Grandiose leaders often try to give the
impression that they were somehow destined for
greatness. They tell stories of their childhood and youth
that indicate their uniqueness, as if fate had singled them
out. They highlight events that showed from early on
their unusual toughness or creativity, either making such
stories up or reinterpreting the past. They relate tales
from earlier in their career in which they overcame
impossible odds. The future great leader was already in
gestation at a young age, or so they make it seem. When
you hear such things you must become skeptical. They
are trying to forge a myth, which they themselves
probably have come to believe in. Look for the more
mundane facts behind the tales of destiny and, if
possible, publicize them.
I’m the common man/woman. In some cases grandiose
leaders may have risen from the lower classes, but in
general they either come from relatively privileged
backgrounds or because of their success have lived
removed from the cares of everyday people for quite
some time. Nevertheless it is absolutely essential to
present themselves to the public as highly representative
of the average man and woman out there. Only through
such a presentation can they attract the attention and the
adoration of large enough numbers to satisfy themselves.
Indira Gandhi, the prime minister of India from 1966
to 1977 and 1980 to 1984, came from political royalty,
her father Jawaharlal Nehru having been the first prime
minister of the country. She was educated in Europe and
lived for most of her life far apart from the poorer
segments of India. But as a grandiose leader who later
became quite dictatorial, she positioned herself as one
with the people, their voice speaking through her. She
altered her language when speaking in front of large
crowds and used homely metaphors when she visited
small villages. She would wear her sari as local women
wore them and would eat with her fingers. She liked to
present herself as “Mother Indira,” who ruled over India
in a familiar, motherly manner. And this style she
assumed was highly effective in winning elections, even
though it was pure stagecraft.
The trick grandiose leaders play is to place the
emphasis on their cultural tastes, not on the actual class
they come from. They may fly first class and wear the
most expensive suits, but they counteract this by
seeming to have the same culinary tastes as the public,
enjoy the same movies as others, and avoid at all costs
the whiff of cultural elitism. In fact, they will go out of
their way to ridicule the elites, even though they
probably depend on such experts to guide them. They are
simply just like the common folk out there, but with a lot
more money and power. The public can now identify
with them despite the obvious contradictions. But the
grandiosity of this goes beyond merely gaining more
attention. These leaders become vastly enlarged by this
identification with the masses. They are not merely one
man or woman but embody an entire nation or interest
group. To follow them is to be loyal to the group itself. To
criticize them is to want to crucify the leader and betray
the cause.
Even in the prosaic corporate world of business we
find such religious-style identification: Eisner, for
instance, liked to present himself as embodying the
entire Disney spirit, whatever that meant. If you notice
such paradoxes and primitive forms of popular
association, stand back and analyze the reality of what is
going on. You will find at the core something quasi-
mystical, highly irrational, and quite dangerous in that
the grandiose leader now feels licensed to do whatever he
or she wants in the name of the public.
These types often rise to power in
I will deliver you.
times of trouble and crisis. Their self-confidence is
comforting to the public or to shareholders. They will be
the ones to deliver the people from the many problems
they are facing. In order to pull this off, their promises
have to be large yet vague. By being large they can
inspire dreams; by being vague, nobody can hold the
person to account if they don’t come to pass, since there
are no specifics to get hold of. The more grandiose the
promises and visions of the future, the more grandiose
the faith they will inspire. The message must be simple to
digest, reducible to a slogan, and promising something
large that stirs the emotions. As part of this strategy
these types require convenient scapegoats, often the
elites or outsiders, to tighten the group identification and
to stir the emotions even further. The movement around
the leader begins to crystallize around hatred of these
scapegoats, who begin to stand for every bit of pain and
injustice each person in the crowd has ever experienced.
The leader’s promise to bring these invented enemies
down increases the leader’s power exponentially.
 What you will find here is that they are creating a cult
more than leading a political movement or a business.
You will see that their name, image, and slogans must be
reproduced in large numbers and assume a godlike
ubiquity. Certain colors, symbols, and perhaps music are
used to bind the group identity and appeal to the basest
human instincts. People who now believe in the cult are
doubly mesmerized and ready to excuse any kind of
action. At such a point nothing will dissuade true
believers, but you must maintain your internal distance
and analytic powers.
A secret wish of humans is to do
I rewrite the rules.
without the usual rules and conventions in place in any
field—to gain power just by following our own inner
light. When grandiose leaders claim to have such powers,
we are secretly excited and wish to believe them.
Michael Cimino was the director of the Academy
Award–winning film The Deer Hunter (1978). To those
who worked with and for him, however, he was not
simply a film director but rather a special genius on a
mission to disrupt the rigid, corporate Hollywood
system. For his next film, Heaven’s Gate (1980), he
negotiated a contract that was completely unique in
Hollywood history, one that allowed him to increase the
budget as he saw fit and to create precisely the film he
had envisioned, with no strings attached. On the set,
Cimino spent weeks rehearsing the actors in the right
kind of roller-skating he needed for one scene. One day
he waited hours before rolling cameras, just so the
perfect kind of cloud could pass into frame. The costs
soared and the film he initially turned in was over five
hours long. In the end, Heaven’s Gate was one of the
greatest disasters in Hollywood history, and it virtually
destroyed Cimino’s career. It seemed that the traditional
contract had actually served a purpose—to rein in the
natural grandiosity of any film director and make him or
her work within limits. Most rules do have common
sense and rationality behind them.
As a variation on this, grandiose leaders will often rely
on their intuitions, disregarding the need for focus
groups or any form of scientific feedback. They have a
special inside connection to the truth. They like to create
the myth that their hunches have led to fantastic
successes, but close scrutiny will reveal that their
hunches miss as often as they hit. When you hear leaders
present themselves as the consummate maverick, able to
do away with rules and science, you must see this only as
a sign of madness, not divine inspiration.
I have the golden touch.Those with heightened
grandiosity will try to create the legend that they have
never really failed. If there were failures or setbacks in
their career, it was always the fault of others who
betrayed them. U.S. Army general Douglas MacArthur
was a genius at deflecting blame; to hear him say it, in
his long career he had never lost a battle, although in fact
he had lost many. But by trumpeting his successes and
finding endless excuses, such as betrayals, for his losses,
he created the myth of his magical battlefield powers.
Grandiose leaders inevitably resort to such marketing
magic.
Related to this is the belief that they can easily
transfer their skills—a movie executive can become a
theme park designer, a businessman can become the
leader of a nation. Because they are magically gifted, they
can try their hand at anything that attracts them. This is
often a fatal move on their part, as they attempt things
beyond their expertise and quickly become overwhelmed
with the complexity and chaos that come from their lack
of experience. In dealing with such types, look carefully
at their record and notice how many glaring failures they
have had. Although people under the influence of their
grandiosity will probably not listen, publicize the truth of
their record in as neutral a manner as possible.
 I’m invulnerable.The grandiose leader takes risks. This
is what often attracts attention in the first place, and
combined with the success that often attends the bold,
they seem larger than life. But this boldness is not really
under control. They must take actions that create a
splash in order to keep the attention coming that feeds
their high self-opinion. They cannot rest or retreat,
because that would cause a lapse in publicity. To make
things worse, they come to feel invulnerable because so
many times in the past they have gotten away with risky
maneuvers, and if they faced setbacks, they managed to
overcome them through more audacity. Furthermore,
these daring activities make them feel alive and on edge.
It becomes a drug. They need bigger stakes and rewards
to maintain the feeling of godlike invulnerability. They
can work twenty hours a day when under this form of
pressure. They can walk through fire.
In fact they are rather invulnerable, until that fatal
hubristic maneuver in which they finally go too far and it
all crashes down. This could be MacArthur’s grandiose
tour of the United States after the Korean War, in which
his irrational need for attention became painfully
apparent; or Mao’s fatal decision to unleash the Cultural
Revolution; or Stan O’Neal, CEO of Merrill Lynch,
sticking with mortgage-backed securities when everyone
else was getting out, essentially destroying one of the
oldest financial institutions in the country. Suddenly the
aura of being invulnerable is shattered. This occurs
because their decisions are determined not by rational
considerations but by the need for attention and glory,
and eventually reality catches up, in one hard blow.
In general, in dealing with the grandiose leader, you
want to try to deflate the sacred, glorious image they
have forged. They will overreact and their followers will
become rabid, but slowly a few followers may have
second thoughts. Creating a viral disenchantment is your
best hope.
 Practical Grandiosity
Grandiosity is a form of primal energy we all possess. It
impels us to want something more than we have, to be
recognized and esteemed by others, and to feel
connected to something larger. The problem is not with
the energy itself, which can be used to fuel our
ambitions, but with the direction it takes. Normally
grandiosity makes us imagine we are greater and more
superior than is actually the case. We can call this
fantastical grandiosity because it is based on our
fantasies and the skewed impression we get from any
attention we receive. The other form, which we shall call
practical grandiosity, is not easy to achieve and does not
come naturally to us, but it can be the source of
tremendous power and self-fulfillment.
Practical grandiosity is based not on fantasy but on
reality. The energy is channeled into our work and our
desire to reach goals, to solve problems, or to improve
relationships. It impels us to develop and hone our skills.
Through our accomplishments we can feel greater. We
attract attention through our work. The attention we
receive in this way is gratifying and keeps us energized,
but the greater sense of gratification comes from the
work itself and from overcoming our own weaknesses.
The desire for attention is under control and
subordinate. Our self-esteem is raised, but it is tied to
real achievements, not to nebulous, subjective fantasies.
We feel our presence enlarged through our work,
through what we contribute to society.
Although the precise way to channel the energy will
depend on your field and skill level, the following are five
basic principles that are essential for attaining the high
level of fulfillment that can come from this reality-based
form of grandiosity.
You need to
Come to terms with your grandiose needs.
begin from a position of honesty. You must admit to
yourself that you do want to feel important and be the
center of attention. This is natural. Yes, you want to feel
superior. You have ambitions like everyone else. In the
past, your grandiose needs may have led you into some
bad decisions, which you can now acknowledge and
analyze. Denial is your worst enemy. Only with this self-
awareness can you begin to transform the energy into
something practical and productive.
Concentrate the energy. Fantastical grandiosity will
make you flit from one fantastic idea to another,
imagining all the accolades and attention you’ll receive
but never realizing any of them. You must do the
opposite. You want to get into the habit of focusing
deeply and completely on a single project or problem.
You want the goal to be relatively simple to reach, and
within a time frame of months and not years. You will
want to break this down into mini steps and goals along
the way. Your objective here is to enter a state of flow, in
which your mind becomes increasingly absorbed in the
work, to the point at which ideas come to you at odd
hours. This feeling of flow should be pleasurable and
addicting. You don’t allow yourself to engage in fantasies
about other projects on the horizon. You want to absorb
yourself in the work as deeply as possible. If you do not
enter this state of flow, you are inevitably multitasking
and stopping the focus. Work on overcoming this.
This could be a project you work on outside your job.
It is not the number of hours you put in but the intensity
and consistent effort you bring to it.
Related to this, you want this project to involve skills
you already have or are in the process of developing.
Your goal is to see continual improvement in your skill
level, which will certainly come from the depth of your
focus. Your confidence will rise. That should be enough
to keep you advancing.
Your project begins with
Maintain a dialogue with reality.
an idea, and as you try to hone this idea, you let your
imagination take flight, being open to various
possibilities. At some point you move from the planning
phase to execution. Now you must actively search for
feedback and criticism from people you respect or from
your natural audience. You want to hear about the flaws
and inadequacies in your plan, for that is the only way to
improve your skills. If the project fails to have the results
you imagined, or the problem is not solved, embrace this
as the best way to learn. Analyze what you did wrong in
depth, being as brutal as possible.
Once you have feedback and have analyzed the
results, you then return to this project or start a new one,
letting your imagination loose again but incorporating
what you have learned from the experience. You keep
cycling endlessly through this process, noticing with
excitement how you are improving by doing so. If you
stay too long in the imagination phase, what you create
will tend to be grandiose and detached from reality. If
you only listen to feedback and try to make the work a
complete reflection of what others tell you or want, the
work will be conventional and flat. By maintaining a
continual dialogue between reality (feedback) and your
imagination, you will create something practical and
powerful.
If you have any success with your projects, that is
when you must step back from the attention you are
receiving. Look at the role that luck may have played, or
the help you received from others. Resist falling for the
success delusion. As you now focus on the next idea, see
yourself back at square one. Each new project represents
a new challenge and a fresh approach. You might very
well fail. You need the same level of focus as you had on
the last project. Never rest on your laurels or let up in
your intensity.
The problem with
Seek out calibrated challenges.
fantastical grandiosity is that you imagine some great
new goal you will achieve—that brilliant novel you will
write, that lucrative start-up you will create. The
challenge is so great that you may start, but you will soon
peter out as you realize you are not up to it. Or if you are
the ambitious, assertive type, you might try to go all the
way, but you will end up in the Euro Disney syndrome,
overwhelmed, failing in a large fashion, blaming others
for the fiasco, and never learning from the experience.
Your goal with practical grandiosity is to continually
look for challenges just above your skill level. If the
projects you attempt are below or at your skill level, you
will become easily bored and less focused. If they are too
ambitious, you will feel crushed by your failure.
However, if they are calibrated to be more challenging
than the last project, but to a moderate degree, you will
find yourself excited and energized. You must be up to
this challenge so your focus levels will rise as well. This is
the optimum path toward learning. If you fail, you will
not feel overwhelmed and you will learn even more. If
you succeed, your confidence increases, but it is tied to
your work and to having met the challenge. Your sense of
accomplishment will satisfy your need for greatness.
Let loose your grandiose energy.Once you have tamed
this energy, made it serve your ambitions and goals, you
should feel safe to let it loose upon occasion. Think of it
as a wild animal that needs to roam free now and then or
it will go mad from restlessness. What this means is that
you occasionally allow yourself to entertain ideas or
projects that represent greater challenges than you have
considered in the past. You feel increasingly confident
and you want to test yourself. Consider developing a new
skill in an unrelated field, or writing that novel you once
considered a distraction from the real work. Or simply
give freer rein to your imagination when in the planning
process.
If you are in the public eye and must perform before
others, let go of the restraint you have developed and let
your grandiose energy fill you with high levels of self-
belief. This will animate your gestures and give you
greater charisma. If you are a leader and your group is
facing difficulties or a crisis, let yourself feel unusually
grandiose and confident in the success of your mission,
to lift up and inspire the troops. That was the kind of
grandiosity that made Winston Churchill such an
effective leader during World War II.
In any event, you can allow yourself to feel ever so
godlike because you have come so far with your
improved skills and actual achievements. If you have
taken the time to properly work through the other
principles, you will naturally return back down to earth
after a few days or hours of grandiose exuberance.

—
Finally, at the source of our infantile grandiosity was a
feeling of intense connection to the mother. This was so
complete and satisfying that we spend much of our time
trying to recapture that feeling in some way. It is the
source of our desire to transcend our banal existence, to
want something so large we cannot express what it is. We
have glimmers of that original connection in intimate
relationships and in moments of unconditional love, but
these are rare and fleeting. Entering a state of flow with
our work or cultivating deeper levels of empathy with
people (see chapter 2) will give us more such moments
and satisfy the urge. We feel oneness with the work or
with other people. We can take this even further by
experiencing a deeper connection to life itself, what
Sigmund Freud called “the oceanic feeling.”
Consider this in the following way: The formation of
life itself on the planet Earth so many billions of years
ago required a concatenation of events that were highly
improbable. The beginning of life was a tenuous
experiment that could have expired at any moment early
on. The evolution since then of so many forms of life is
astounding, and at the end point of that evolution is the
only animal we know to be conscious of this entire
process, the human.
Your being alive is an equally unlikely and uncanny
event. It required a very particular chain of events
leading to the meeting of your parents and your birth, all
of which could have gone very differently. At this
moment, as you read this, you are conscious of life along
with billions of others, and only for a brief time, until you
die. Fully taking in this reality is what we shall call the
Sublime. (For more on this, see chapter 18.) It cannot be
put into words. It is too awesome. Feeling a part of that
tenuous experiment of life is a kind of reverse
grandiosity—you are not disturbed by your relative
smallness but rather ecstatic at the sense of being a drop
in this ocean.
Then, overwhelmed by the afflictions I suffered in
connection with my sons, I sent again and inquired of the
god what I should do to pass the rest of my life most happily;
and he answered me: “Knowing thyself, O Croesus—thus
shall you live and be happy.” . . . [But] spoiled by the wealth I
had and by those who were begging me to become their
leader, by the gifts they gave me and by the people who
flattered me, saying that if I would consent to take command
they would all obey me and I should be the greatest of men—
puffed up by such words, when all the princes round about
chose me to be their leader in the war, I accepted the
command, deeming myself fit to be the greatest; but, as it
seems, I did not know myself. For I thought I was capable of
carrying on war against you; but I was no match for you. . . .
Therefore, as I was thus without knowledge, I have my just
deserts.
—Xenophon, The Education of Cyrus
 12

Reconnect to the Masculine

or Feminine Within You

The Law of Gender Rigidity

A ll of us have masculine and feminine qualities—some of this

is genetic, and some of it comes from the profound influence
of the parent of the opposite sex. But in the need to present a
consistent identity in society, we tend to repress these qualities,
overidentifying with the masculine or feminine role expected of
us. And we pay a price for this. We lose valuable dimensions to
our character. Our thinking and ways of acting become rigid.
Our relationships with members of the opposite sex suffer as we
project onto them our own fantasies and hostilities. You must
become aware of these lost masculine or feminine traits and
slowly reconnect to them, unleashing creative powers in the
process. You will become more fluid in your thinking. In
bringing out the masculine or feminine undertone to your
character, you will fascinate people by being authentically
yourself. Do not play the expected gender role, but rather create
the one that suits you.

The Authentic Gender

As a young girl, Caterina Sforza dreamed of great deeds that she
would be a part of as a member of the illustrious Sforza family of
Milan. Born in 1463, Caterina was the daughter out of wedlock of
a beautiful Milanese noblewoman and Galeazzo Maria Sforza,
who became Duke of Milan upon the death of his father in 1466.
As duke, Galeazzo ordered that his daughter be brought into the
castle, Porta Giovia, where he lived with his new wife, and that
she be raised like any legitimate member of the Sforza family. His
wife, Caterina’s stepmother, treated her as one of her own. The
girl was to have the finest education. The man who had served as
Galeazzo’s tutor, the famous humanist Francesco Filelfo, would
now serve as Caterina’s tutor. He taught her Latin, Greek,
philosophy, the sciences, and even military history.
Often alone, Caterina would wander almost daily into the vast
castle library, one of the largest in Europe. She had her favorite
books that she would read over and over. One of these was a
history of the Sforza family, written by Filelfo himself in the style
of Homer. There, in this enormous volume with its elaborate
illustrations, she would read about the remarkable rise to power
of the Sforza family, from condottiere (captains in mercenary
armies) to ruling the duchy of Milan itself. The Sforzas were
renowned for their cleverness and bravery in battle. Along with
this, she loved to read books that recounted the chivalric tales of
real-life knights in armor, and the stories of great leaders in the
past; among these, one of her favorites was Illustrious Women by
Boccaccio, which related the deeds of the most celebrated women
in history. And as she whiled away her time in the library, all of
these books converging in her mind, she would daydream about
the future glory of the family, somehow herself in the midst of it
all. And at the center of these fantasies was the image of her
father, a man who to her was as great and legendary as anyone
she had read about.
Although the encounters with her father were often brief, to
Caterina they were intense. He treated her as an equal, marveling
at her intelligence and encouraging her in her studies. From early
on, she identified with her father—experiencing his traumas and
triumphs as if they were her own. As were all the Sforza children,
girls included, Caterina was taught sword fighting and underwent
rigorous physical training. As part of this side of her education,
she would go on hunting expeditions with the family in the
nearby woods of Pavia. She was trained to hunt and kill wild
boars, stags, and other animals. On these excursions she would
watch her father with awe. He was a superior horseman, riding
with such impetuosity, as if nothing could harm him. In the hunt,
taking on the largest animals, he showed no signs of fear. At
court, he was the consummate diplomat yet always maintained
the upper hand. He confided in her his methods—think ahead,
plot several moves in advance, always with the goal of seizing the
initiative in any situation.
There was another side to her father, however, that deepened
her identification with him. He loved spectacle; he was like an
artist. She would never forget the time the family toured the
region and visited Florence. They brought with them various
theater troupes, the actors wearing outlandish costumes. They
dined in the country inside the most beautifully colored tents. On
the march, the brightly caparisoned horses and the accompanying
soldiers—all decked in the Sforza colors, scarlet and white—would
fill the landscape. It was a hypnotic and thrilling sight, all
orchestrated by her father. He delighted in always wearing the
latest in Milanese fashions, with his elaborate and bejeweled silk
gowns. She came to share this interest, clothes and jewels
becoming her passion. He might seem so virile in battle, but she
would see him crying like a baby as he listened to his favorite
choral music. He had an endless appetite for all aspects of life,
and her love and admiration for him knew no bounds.
And so in 1473, when her father informed the ten-year-old
Caterina of the marriage he had arranged for her, her only
thought was to fulfill her duty as a Sforza and please her father.
The man Galeazzo had chosen for her was Girolamo Riario, the
thirty-year-old nephew of Pope Sixtus IV, a marriage that would
forge a valuable alliance between Rome and Milan. As part of the
arrangement, the pope purchased the city of Imola, in Romagna,
which the Sforzas had taken decades before, christening the new
couple the Count and Countess of Imola. Later the pope would
add the nearby town of Forlì to their possessions, giving them
control of a very strategically located part of northeastern Italy,
just south of Venice.
In her initial encounters with him, Caterina’s husband seemed
a most unpleasant man. He was moody, self-absorbed, and high-
strung. He appeared interested in her only for sex and could not
wait for her to come of age. Fortunately, he continued to live in
Rome and she stayed in Milan. But a few years later some
disgruntled noblemen in Milan murdered her beloved father, and
the power of the Sforzas seemed in jeopardy. Her position as the
marriage pawn solidifying the partnership with Rome was now
more important than ever. She quickly installed herself in Rome.
There she would have to play the exemplary wife and keep on the
good side of her husband. But the more she saw of Girolamo, the
less she respected him. He was a hothead, making enemies
wherever he turned. She had not imagined that a man could be so
weak, and compared with her father he failed by every measure.
She turned her attention to the pope. She worked hard to gain
his favor and that of his courtiers. Caterina was now a beautiful
young woman with blond hair, a novelty in Rome. She ordered
the most elaborate gowns to be sent from Milan. She made sure to
never be seen wearing the same outfit twice. If she sported a
turban with a long veil, it suddenly became the latest craze. She
reveled in the attention she received as the most fashionable
woman in Rome, Botticelli using her as a model for some of his
greatest paintings. Being so well read and cultivated, she was the
delight of the artists and writers in town, and the Romans began
to warm up to her.
Within a few years, however, everything unraveled. Her
husband instigated a feud with one of the leading families in Italy,
the Colonnas. Then in 1484 the pope suddenly died, and without
his protection Caterina and her husband were in grave danger.
The Colonnas were plotting their revenge. The Romans hated
Girolamo. And it was almost a certainty that the new pope would
be a friend of the Colonnas, in which case Caterina and her
husband would lose everything, including the towns of Forlì and
Imola. Considering the weak position of her own family in Milan,
the situation began to look desperate.
Until a new pope was elected, Girolamo was still the captain of
the papal armies, now stationed just outside Rome. For days
Caterina watched her husband, who was paralyzed with fear and
unable to make a decision. He dared not enter Rome, fearing
battle with the Colonnas and their many allies in the crowded
streets. He would wait it out, but with time their options seemed
to narrow, and the news kept getting worse—mobs had sacked the
palace they lived in; what few allies they had in Rome had now
deserted them; the cardinals were congregating to elect the new
pope.
It was August and the sweltering heat made Caterina—seven
months pregnant with her fourth child—feel faint and continually
nauseated. But as she contemplated the impending doom, the
thought of her father began to occupy her mind; it was as if she
could feel his spirit inhabiting her. Thinking as he would think
about the predicament she faced, she felt a rush of excitement as
she formulated an audacious plan. Without telling a soul of her
intentions, in the dark of night she mounted a horse and snuck
out of camp, riding as fast as she could to Rome.
As she had expected, in her condition no one recognized her
and she was allowed to enter the city. She headed straight for the
Castel Sant’Angelo, the most strategic point in Rome—just across
the Tiber River from the city center and close to the Vatican. With
its impregnable walls and its cannons that could be aimed at all
parts of Rome, the person who controlled the castle controlled the
city. Rome was in tumult, mobs filling the streets everywhere. The
castle was still held by a lieutenant loyal to Girolamo. Identifying
herself, Caterina was let into Sant’Angelo.
Once inside, in the name of her husband she took possession
of the castle, throwing out the lieutenant, whom she did not trust.
Sending word out through the castle to soldiers who swore loyalty
to her, she managed to smuggle in more troops. With the cannons
of Sant’Angelo now pointing at all roads leading to the Vatican,
she made it impossible for the cardinals to meet in one location
and elect the new pope. To make her threats real, she had her
soldiers fire the cannons as a warning. She meant business. Her
terms for surrendering the castle were simple—that all of the
property of the Riarios be guaranteed to remain in their hands,
including Forlì and Imola.
A few evenings after she had taken over Sant’Angelo, wearing
some armor over her gown, she marched along the ramparts of
the castle. It gave her a feeling of great power, so far above the
city, looking down at the frantic men below, helpless to fight
against her, a single woman hobbled by pregnancy. When an
envoy of the cardinal who was organizing the conclave to elect the
new pope was sent to negotiate with her and seemed reluctant to
agree to her conditions of surrender, she shouted down from the
ramparts, so all could hear, “So [the cardinal] wants a battle of
wits with me, does he? What he doesn’t understand is that I have
the brains of Duke Galeazzo and I am as brilliant as he!”
As she waited for their response, she knew she controlled the
situation. Her only fear was that her husband would surrender
and betray her, or that the August heat would make her too ill to
wait it out. Finally, sensing her resolve, a group of cardinals came
to the castle to negotiate, and they acceded to her demands. The
following morning, as the drawbridge was lowered to let the
countess leave the castle, she noticed an enormous crowd pushing
close to her. Romans of all classes had come to catch a glimpse of
the woman who had controlled Rome for eleven days. They had
taken the countess for a rather frivolous young woman addicted
to clothes, the pope’s little pet. Now they stared at her in
astonishment—she was wearing one of her silk gowns, with a
heavy sword dangling from a man’s belt, her pregnancy more
than evident. They had never seen such a sight.
Their titles now secure, the count and countess moved to Forlì
to rule their domain. With no more funds coming from the
papacy, Girolamo’s main concern was how to get more money.
And so he increased the taxes on his subjects, stirring up much
discontent in the process. He quickly made enemies of the
powerful Orsi family in the region. Fearing plots against his life,
the count holed himself up in their palace. Slowly Caterina took
over much of the day-to-day ruling of their realm. Thinking
ahead, she installed a trusted ally as the new commander of the
castle Ravaldino, which dominated the area. She did everything
she could to ingratiate herself with the locals, but in a few short
years her husband had done too much damage.
On April 14, 1488, a group of men, clad in armor and led by
Ludovico Orsi, stormed into the palace and stabbed the count to
death, throwing his body out the window and into the city square.
The countess, dining with her family in a nearby room, heard the
shouts and quickly shuffled her six children into a safer room in
the palace’s tower. She bolted the door and from a window, under
which several of her most trusted allies had gathered, she shouted
instructions to them: they were to notify the Sforzas in Milan and
her other allies in the region and urge them to send armies to
rescue her; under no circumstances should the keeper of
Ravaldino ever surrender the castle. Within minutes the assassins
had broken into her room, taking her and her children captive.
Several days later, Ludovico Orsi and his fellow conspirator
Giacomo del Ronche marched Caterina up to Ravaldino—she was
to order the castle’s commander to surrender it to the assassins.
As the commander she had installed, Tommaso Feo, looked down
from the ramparts, Caterina seemed to fear for her life. Her voice
breaking with emotion, she begged Feo to give up the fortress, but
he refused.
As the two of them continued their dialogue, Ronche and Orsi
sensed the countess and Feo were playing some sort of game,
talking in code. Ronche had had enough of this. Pressing the
sharp edge of his lance tight against her chest, he threatened to
run her through unless she got Feo to surrender, and he gave her
the sternest glare. Suddenly the countess’s expression changed.
She leaned further into the blade, her face inches from Ronche,
and with a voice dripping with disdain, she told him, “Oh,
Giacomo del Ronche, don’t you try to frighten me. . . . You can
hurt me, but you can’t scare me, because I am the daughter of a
man who knew no fear. Do what you want: you have killed my
lord, you can certainly kill me. After all, I’m just a woman!”
Confounded by her words and demeanor, Ronche and Orsi
decided they had to find other means to pressure her.
Several days later Feo communicated with the assassins that
he would indeed hand over the fortress, but only if the countess
would pay him his back wages and sign a letter absolving him of
any guilt for such surrender. Once again, Orsi and Ronche led her
to the castle and watched her closely as she seemed to negotiate
with Feo. Finally Feo insisted that the countess enter the fortress
to sign the document. He feared the assassins were trying to trick
him and he insisted she enter alone. Once the letter was signed,
he would do as he had promised.
The conspirators, feeling they had no choice, granted his
request but gave the countess a brief time frame to conclude the
business. For a fleeting moment, just as she disappeared over the
drawbridge into Ravaldino, she turned with a sneer and gave the
Italian equivalent of “the finger” to Ronche and Orsi. The entire
drama of the past few days had been planned and staged by her
and Feo, with whom she had communicated through various
messengers. She knew that the Milanese had sent an army to
rescue her and she only had to play for time. A few hours later
Feo stood on the ramparts and yelled down that he was holding
the countess hostage and that was that.
The enraged assassins had had enough. The next day they
returned to the castle with her six children and called Caterina to
the ramparts. With daggers and spears pointed at them in the
most menacing fashion, and with the children wailing and
begging for mercy, they ordered Caterina to surrender the fortress
or they would kill them all. Surely they had already proven they
were more than willing to shed blood. She might be fearless and
the daughter of a Sforza, but no mother could possibly watch her
children die before her eyes. Caterina wasted no time. She
shouted down: “Do it then, you fools! I am already pregnant with
another child by Count Riario and I have the means to make
more!” at which she lifted her skirts, as if to emphasize her
meaning.
Caterina had foreseen the maneuver with the children and had
calculated that the assassins were weak and indecisive—they
should have killed her and her family on that first day, amid the
mayhem. Now they would not dare to kill them in cold blood: the
assassins knew that the Sforzas, on their way to Forlì, would take
terrible revenge on them if they ever did such a deed. And if she
surrendered now, she and her children would all be imprisoned,
and some poison would find its way into their food. She didn’t
care what they thought of her as a mother. She had to keep
stalling. To emphasize her resolve, after refusing to surrender, she
had the cannons of the castle fire at the Orsi palace.
Ten days later a Milanese army arrived to rescue her, and the
assassins scattered. The countess was quickly restored to power,
the new pope himself confirming her rule as regent until her
eldest son, Ottaviano, came of age. And as word of all that she had
done—and what she had yelled down to the assassins from the
ramparts of Ravaldino—spread throughout Italy, the legend of
Caterina Sforza, the beautiful warrior countess of Forlì, began to
take on a life of its own.
Within a year after the death of her husband, the countess had
taken a lover, Giacomo Feo, the brother of the commander she
had installed in Ravaldino. Giacomo was seven years younger
than Caterina, and he was the polar opposite of Girolamo—
handsome and virile, he had come from the lower classes, having
served as the stable boy to the Riario family. Most important, he
not only loved Caterina, he worshipped her and showered her
with attention. The countess had spent her whole life mastering
her emotions and subordinating her personal interests to
practical matters. Suddenly feeling herself overwhelmed by
Giacomo’s affection, she lost her habitual self-control and fell
hopelessly in love.
She made Giacomo the new commander of Ravaldino. As he
now had to live in the castle, she built a palace for herself inside it
and soon barely left its confines. Giacomo was decidedly insecure
about his status. Caterina had him knighted, and in a secret
ceremony they married. To allay his self-doubts, she increasingly
handed over to him governing powers of Forlì and Imola, and
began to retire from public affairs. She ignored the warnings of
courtiers and diplomats that Giacomo was out for himself and
was in over his head. She did not listen to her sons, who feared
Giacomo had plans to get rid of them. In her eyes, her husband
could do no wrong. Then one day in 1495, as she and Giacomo left
the castle for a picnic, a group of assassins surrounded her
husband and killed him before her eyes.
Caught off guard by this action, Caterina reacted with fury. She
rounded up the conspirators and had them executed and their
families imprisoned. In the months after this, she fell into a deep
depression, even contemplating suicide. What had happened to
her over the past few years? How had she lost her way and given
up her power? What had happened to her girlhood dreams and
the spirit of her father that was her own? Something had clouded
her mind. She turned to religion and she returned to ruling her
realm. Slowly she recovered.
Then one day she received a visit from Giovanni de’ Medici, a
thirty-year-old member of the famous family and one of
Florence’s leading businessmen. He had come to forge
commercial ties between the cities. More than anyone else, he
reminded her of her father. He was handsome, clever, extremely
well read, and yet there was a softness to his character. Finally
here was a man who was her equal in knowledge, power, and
refinement. The admiration was mutual. Soon they were
inseparable, and in 1498 they married, uniting two of the most
illustrious families in Italy.
Now she could finally dream of creating a great regional
power, but events beyond her control would spoil her plans. That
same year Giovanni died from illness. And before she had time to
grieve for him, she had to deal with the latest and most dangerous
threat of all to her realm: The new pope, Alexander VI (formerly
known as Roderigo Borgia), had his eye on Forlì. He wanted to
extend the papal domains through conquest, his son Cesare
Borgia serving as the commander of the papal forces. Forlì would
be a key acquisition for the pope, and he began to maneuver to
politically isolate Caterina from her allies.
To prepare for the imminent invasion, Caterina forged a new
alliance with the Venetians and built an elaborate series of
defenses within Ravaldino. The pope tried to pressure her to
surrender her domain, making her all kinds of promises in return.
She knew better than to trust a Borgia. But by the fall of 1499, it
seemed that the end had finally come. The pope had allied
himself with France, and Cesare Borgia had appeared in the
region with an army of twelve thousand, fortified by the addition
of two thousand experienced French soldiers. They quickly took
Imola and easily entered the city of Forlì itself. All that remained
was Ravaldino, which by late December was surrounded by
Borgia’s troops.
On December 26, Cesare Borgia himself rode up to the castle
on his white horse, dressed all in black—quite a sight. As Caterina
looked down from the ramparts and contemplated the scene, she
thought of her father. It was the anniversary of his assassination.
He represented everything she valued, and she would not
disappoint him. She was the most like him of all his children. As
he would have done, she had thought ahead—her plan was to play
for time until her remaining allies could come to her defense. She
had cleverly fortified Ravaldino in a way that would allow her to
keep retreating behind barricades if the walls were breached. In
the end, they would have to take the castle from her by force, and
she was more than prepared to die in defense of it, sword in hand.
As she listened to Borgia address her, it was clear he had come
to flatter and flirt—everyone knew his reputation as a devilish
seducer, and many in Italy thought Caterina had rather loose
morals. She listened and smiled, occasionally reminding him of
her past deeds and her reputation as a Sforza—if he wanted her to
surrender, he would have to do better. He persisted in his
courtship and asked to parley with her personally.
She appeared to finally succumb to his charm; she was a
woman, after all. She ordered the drawbridge to be lowered and
started walking toward him. He continued to press his case, and
she gave him certain looks and smiles that indicated she was
falling under his spell. Now only inches away, he reached for her
arm, and she playfully withdrew it. They should discuss matters
in the castle, she said with a coy expression, and began to walk
back, inviting him to follow. As he stepped onto the drawbridge to
catch up with her, it began to rise, and he leaped back to the other
side just in time. Enraged and embarrassed by the trick she had
tried to play, he swore revenge.
During the next few days he unleashed a torrent of cannon fire
at the castle walls, finally opening a breach. Borgia’s troops
flooded in, led by the more experienced French. It was now hand-
to-hand combat, and at the front of her remaining troops was
Caterina. The head of the French troops, Yves d’Allegre, stared at
her in amazement as the beautiful countess—her ornamented
cuirass over her dress—charged at his men from the front line,
handling her sword deftly, without a trace of fear.
She and her men were about to withdraw further into the
castle, hoping to prolong the battle for days, as she had planned,
when one of her own soldiers grabbed her from behind and, his
sword at her throat, marched her over to the other side. Borgia
had put a price on her head, and the soldier had betrayed her for
the reward. The siege was over, and Borgia himself took
possession of his great prize. That night he raped her and kept her
confined in his rooms, trying to make it seem to the world that
the infamous warrior countess had willingly succumbed to his
charms.
 Even under duress she refused to sign away her domain, and
so she was brought to Rome and soon thrown into the dreaded
prison at Castel Sant’Angelo. For one long year, in a small and
windowless cell, she endured her loneliness and the endless
tortures devised by the Borgias. Her health deteriorated and she
seemed destined to die in prison, defiant to the end, but the
chivalric French captain Yves d’Allegre had fallen under her spell.
He persisted in demanding, in the name of the French king, to
have her freed, and he finally succeeded, getting her safe passage
to Florence.
In retirement from public life, Caterina began to receive letters
from men from all parts of Europe. Some had seen her over the
years; most had only heard of her. They obsessed over her story,
confessed their love, and begged for some memento, some relic to
worship. One man who had caught a glimpse of her when she had
first come to Rome wrote to her, “If I sleep, it seems that I am
with you; if I eat, I leave my food and talk to you. . . . You are
engraved in my heart.”
Weakened by her year in prison, the countess died in 1509.

• • •
Interpretation: In Caterina Sforza’s time, the roles that a
woman could play were severely restricted. Her primary role was
to be the good mother and wife, but if unmarried, she could
devote her life to religion, or in rare cases she could become a
courtesan. It was as if a circle had been drawn around each and
every woman, and she dared not explore beyond that circle. It was
in a woman’s earliest years and education that she internalized
these restrictions. If she studied only a limited number of subjects
and practiced only certain skills, she couldn’t expand her role
even if she wanted to. Knowledge was power.
Caterina stands out as a remarkable exception, and it was
because she benefited from a unique confluence of circumstances.
The Sforzas were new to power. They had discovered in their rise
to the top that a strong and capable wife could be of great
assistance. They developed the practice of training their
daughters in hunting and sword fighting as a way to toughen
them up and make them fearless—important qualities to have as
marriage pawns. Caterina’s father, however, took this further.
Perhaps he saw in his daughter a female reflection of himself.
Giving her his own tutor signaled some sort of identification he
felt between them.
 And so a unique experiment began in the castle at Porta
Giovia. Isolated from the outside world and allowed a tremendous
degree of freedom, Caterina could develop herself in any direction
she desired. Intellectually she could explore all forms of
knowledge. She could indulge herself in all of her natural
interests—in her case, fashion and the arts. In her physical
training, she could give free rein to her own bold and adventurous
spirit. In this early education, she could bring out the many
different sides of her character.
And so when she entered public life at the age of ten, she
naturally drifted beyond that restricted circle imposed on women.
She could play many roles. As a dutiful Sforza, she could be the
loyal wife. Naturally empathetic and caring, she could be the
devoted mother. She felt great pleasure in being the most
fashionable and beautiful young woman at the papal court. But
when the actions of her husband appeared to doom her and her
family, she felt herself called to play another role. Trained to
think for herself and inspired by her father, she could turn into
the daring soldier, bringing an entire city under her control. She
could become the keen strategist, plotting several moves ahead in
a crisis. She could lead her troops, sword in hand. As a young girl
she had fantasized about playing these various roles, and it felt
natural and deeply satisfying to do so in real life.
We could say of Caterina that she had a feminine spirit with a
pronounced masculine undertone, the reverse of her father. And
these feminine and masculine traits were blended together, giving
her a unique style of thinking and acting. When it came to ruling,
she displayed a high degree of empathy, something quite unusual
for the time. When plague struck Forlì, she comforted the sick, at
great risk to her own life. She was willing to suffer the worst
conditions in prison to safeguard the inheritance for her children,
a rare act of self-sacrifice for a person of power. But at the same
time she was a shrewd and tough negotiator, and she had no
tolerance for the incompetent or the weak. She was ambitious and
proud of it.
In conflicts, she always strategized to outwit her aggressive
male opponents and avoid bloodshed. With Cesare Borgia, she
tried to lure him onto the drawbridge using her feminine wiles;
later, she tried to lure him deeper and deeper into the castle,
trapping him in a protracted battle, giving her allies plenty of
time to rescue her. She nearly succeeded in both efforts.
 This ability to play many different roles, to blend the
masculine with the feminine, was the source of her power. The
only time she relinquished this was in her marriage to Giacomo
Feo. When she fell in love with Feo, she was in a highly vulnerable
position. The pressures on her had been immense—dealing with a
hopeless and abusive husband, surviving the numerous
pregnancies that had worn her down, holding together the
tenuous political alliances she had built up. And so suddenly
experiencing Feo’s adoring attention, it was natural for her to
seek a respite from her burdens, to relinquish power and control
for love. But in narrowing herself down to the role of the devoted
wife, she had to repress her naturally expansive character. She
had to expend her energy in placating her husband’s insecurities.
In the process she lost all initiative and paid the price,
experiencing a deep depression that nearly killed her. She learned
her lesson and afterward would remain true to herself for the rest
of her life.
Perhaps what is most surprising about the story of Caterina
Sforza is the effect she had on the men and women of her time.
We would expect that people would have condemned her as a
witch or virago and shunned her for all her flouting of gender
conventions. Instead, she fascinated almost everyone who came
in contact with her. Women admired her strength. Isabella d’Este,
the ruler of Mantua and her contemporary, found her inspiring
and wrote after her capture by Borgia, “If the French criticize the
cowardliness of our men, at least they should praise the daring
and valor of the Italian woman.” Men of all types—artists,
soldiers, priests, nobility, servants—obsessed over her. Even those
who wanted to destroy her, like Cesare Borgia, felt an initial
attraction and the desire to possess her.
Men could talk battle and strategy with her and feel like they
were talking to an equal, not like the other women in their lives,
with whom they could barely converse. But more important, they
sensed a freedom in her that was exciting. They also had to play a
gender role, one that was not as constricting as a woman’s role
but had its disadvantages. They were expected to be always in
control, tough and indomitable. Secretly they were drawn to this
dangerous woman with whom they could lose control. She was
not a feminine doll, all passive and existing only to please men.
She was unrepressed and authentic, which inspired in them the
desire to let go as well, to move past their own constricted roles.
 Understand: You might like to imagine that much has
changed when it comes to gender roles, that the world of Caterina
Sforza is too distant from our own to be relevant. But in thinking
so you would be greatly mistaken. The specific details of gender
roles might fluctuate according to culture and time period, but
the pattern is essentially the same and is as follows: We are all
born as complete beings, with many sides to us. We have qualities
of the opposite sex, both genetically and from the influence of the
parent of the other gender. Our character has natural depths and
dimensions to it. When it comes to boys, studies have shown that
an early age they are actually more emotionally reactive than
girls. They have high degrees of empathy and sensitivity. Girls
have an adventurous and exploratory spirit that is natural to
them. They have powerful wills, which they like to exert in
transforming their environment.
As we get older, however, we have to present to the world a
consistent identity. We have to play certain roles and live up to
certain expectations. We have to trim and lop off natural
qualities. Boys lose their rich range of emotions and, in the
struggle to get ahead, repress their natural empathy. Girls have to
sacrifice their assertive sides. They are supposed to be nice,
smiling, deferential, always considering other people’s feelings
before their own. A woman can be a boss, but she must be tender
and pliant, never too aggressive.
In this process, we become less and less dimensional; we
conform to the expected roles of our culture and time period. We
lose valuable and rich parts to our character. Sometimes we can
realize this only when we encounter those who are less repressed
and we feel fascination with them. Certainly Caterina Sforza had
such an effect. There are also many male counterparts to this in
history—the nineteenth-century British prime minister Benjamin
Disraeli, Duke Ellington, John F. Kennedy, David Bowie, all men
who displayed an unmistakable feminine undertone and
intrigued people all the more for this.
Your task is to let go of the rigidity that takes hold of you as
you overidentify with the expected gender role. Power lies in
exploring that middle range between the masculine and the
feminine, in playing against people’s expectations. Return to the
harder or softer sides of your character that you have lost or
repressed. In relating to people, expand your repertoire by
developing greater empathy, or by learning to be less deferential.
When confronting a problem or resistance from others, train
yourself to respond in different ways—attacking when you
normally defend, or vice versa. In your thinking, learn to blend
the analytical with the intuitive in order to become more creative
(see the final section of this chapter for more on this).
Do not be afraid to bring out the more sensitive or ambitious
sides to your character. These repressed parts of you are yearning
to be let out. In the theater of life, expand the roles that you play.
Don’t worry about people’s reactions to any changes in you they
sense. You are not so easy to categorize, which will fascinate them
and give you the power to play with their perceptions of you,
altering them at will.
It is the terrible deception of love that it begins by engaging us in play
not with a woman of the external world but with a doll fashioned in
our brain—the only woman moreover that we have always at our
disposal, the only one we shall ever possess.
—Marcel Proust

Keys to Human Nature

We humans like to believe that we are consistent and mature, and
that we have reasonable control over our lives. We make decisions
based on rational considerations, on what will benefit us the
most. We have free will. We know who we are, more or less. But
in one particular aspect of life these self-opinions are all easily
shattered—when we fall in love.
When in love, we become prey to emotions we cannot control.
We make choices of partners we cannot rationally explain, and
often these choices end up being unfortunate. Many of us will
have at least one successful relationship in our lives, but we will
tend to have many more that were decidedly unsuccessful, that
ended unhappily. And often we repeat the same types of bad
choices of partners, as if compelled by some inner demon.
We like to tell ourselves in retrospect that when we were in
love, a type of temporary madness overcame us. We think of such
moments as representing the exception, not the rule, to our
character. But let us entertain for the moment the opposite
possibility—in our conscious day-to-day life, we are sleepwalking,
unaware of who we really are; we present a front of
reasonableness to the world, and we mistake the mask for reality.
When we fall in love, we are actually being more ourselves. The
mask slips off. We realize then how deeply unconscious forces
determine many of our actions. We are more connected to the
reality of the essential irrationality in our nature.
 Let us look at some of the common changes that occur when
we are in love.
Normally our minds are in a state of distraction. The deeper
we fall in love, however, the more our attention is completely
absorbed in one person. We become obsessive.
We like to present a particular appearance to the world, one
that highlights our strengths. When in love, however, opposite
traits often come to the fore. A person who is normally strong and
independent can suddenly become rather helpless, dependent,
and hysterical. A nurturing, empathetic person can suddenly
become tyrannical, demanding, and self-absorbed.
As adults we feel relatively mature and practical, but in love we
can suddenly regress to behavior that can only be seen as childish.
We experience fears and insecurities that are greatly exaggerated.
We feel terror at the thought of being abandoned, like a baby who
has been left alone for a few minutes. We have wild mood swings
—from love to hate, from trust to paranoia.
Normally we like to imagine that we are good judges of other
people’s character. Once infatuated or in love, however, we
mistake the narcissist for a genius, the suffocator for a nurturer,
the slacker for the exciting rebel, the control freak for the
protector. Others can often see the truth and try to disabuse us of
our fantasies, but we won’t listen. And what is worse, we will
often continue to make the same types of mistaken judgments
again and again.
In looking at these altered states, we might be tempted to
describe them as forms of possession. We are normally rational
person A, but under the influence of an infatuation, irrational
person B begins to emerge. At first, A and B can fluctuate and
even blend into each other, but the deeper we fall in love, the
more it is person B who dominates. Person B sees qualities in
people that are not there, acts in ways that are counterproductive
and even self-destructive, is quite immature, with unrealistic
expectations, and makes decisions that are often mysterious later
on to person A.
When it comes to our behavior in these situations, we never
really completely understand what is happening. Too much of our
unconscious is at play, and we have no rational access to its
processes. But the eminent psychologist Carl Jung—who analyzed
over the course of his very long career thousands of men and
women with stories of painful love affairs—offered perhaps the
most profound explanation for what happens to us when we fall
in love. According to Jung, we are actually possessed in such
moments. He gave the entity (person B) that takes hold of us the
name anima (for the male) and animus (for the female). This
entity exists in our unconscious but comes to the surface when a
person of the opposite sex fascinates us. The following is the
origin of the anima and the animus, and how they operate.
We all possess hormones and genes of the opposite sex. These
contrasexual traits are in the minority (to a greater or lesser
extent, depending on the individual), but they are within us all
and they form a part of our character. Equally significant is the
influence on our psyche of the parent of the opposite sex, from
whom we absorb feminine or masculine traits.
In our earliest years we were completely open and susceptible
to the influence of others. The parent of the opposite sex was our
first encounter with someone dramatically different from us. As
we related to their alien nature, much of our personality was
formed in response, becoming more dimensional and
multifaceted. (With the parent of the same sex there is often a
level of comfort and immediate identification that does not
require the same adaptive energy).
For instance, small boys are often comfortable expressing
emotions and traits that they’ve learned from the mother, such as
overt affection, empathy, and sensitivity. Small girls, conversely,
are often comfortable expressing traits they’ve learned from the
father, such as aggression, boldness, intellectual rigor, and
physical prowess. Each child may also naturally possess these
opposite-gender traits in him- or herself. In addition, each parent
will also have a shadow side that the child must assimilate or deal
with. For instance, a mother may be narcissistic rather than
empathetic, and a father may be domineering or weak rather than
protective and strong.
Children must adapt to this. In any event, the boy and the girl
will internalize the positive and the negative qualities of the
parent of the opposite sex in ways that are unconscious and
profound. And the association with the parent of the opposite sex
will be charged with all kinds of emotions—physical and sensual
connections, tremendous feelings of excitement, fascination, or
disappointment at what one was not given.
Soon, however, comes a critical period in our early lives in
which we must separate from our parents and forge our identity.
And the simplest and most powerful way to create this identity is
around gender roles, the masculine and the feminine. The boy
will tend to have an ambivalent relationship to his mother that
will mark him for life. On the one hand he craves the security and
adoring attention she gives him; on the other hand he feels
threatened by her, as if she might suffocate him in her femininity
and he would lose himself. He fears her authority and her power
over his life. From a certain age forward, he feels the need to
differentiate himself. He needs to establish his own sense of
masculine identity. Certainly the physical changes that occur as
he gets older will fuel this identity with the masculine, but in the
process he will tend to overidentify with the role (unless he
identifies with the feminine role instead), playing up his
toughness and independence to emphasize his separation from
the mother. The other sides to his character—the empathy, the
gentleness, the need for connection, which he absorbed from the
mother or were naturally a part of him—will tend to become
repressed and sink into the unconscious.
The girl may have an adventurous spirit and may incorporate
the willpower and determination of her father into her own
personality. But as she gets older, she will most likely feel
pressure to conform to certain cultural norms and to forge her
identity around what is considered feminine. Girls are supposed
to be nice, sweet, and deferential. They are supposed to put the
interests of others before their own. They are supposed to tame
any wild streaks, to look pretty and to be objects of desire. For the
individual girl, these expectations turn into voices she hears in
her head, continually judging her and making her doubt her self-
worth. These pressures may be subtler in our day and age, but
they still exert a powerful influence. The more exploratory,
aggressive, and darker sides of her character—both naturally
occurring and absorbed from the father—will tend to become
repressed and sink into the unconscious, if she adopts a more
traditionally feminine role.
The unconscious feminine part of the boy and the man is what
Jung calls the anima. The unconscious masculine part of the girl
and woman are the animus. Because they are parts of ourselves
that are deeply buried, we are never really aware of them in our
daily life. But once we become fascinated with a person of the
opposite sex, the anima and animus stir to life. The attraction we
feel toward another might be purely physical, but more often the
person who draws our attention unconsciously bears some
resemblance—physical or psychological—to our mother or father.
Remember that this primal relationship is full of charged energy,
excitement, and obsessions that are repressed but yearning to
come out. A person who triggers these associations in us will be a
magnet for our attention, even though we are not aware of the
source of our attraction.
If the relationship to the mother or father was mostly positive,
we will tend to project onto the other person the desirable
qualities that our parent had, in the hope of reexperiencing that
early paradise. Take, for instance, a young man whose mother
nurtured and adored him. He may have been a sweet, loving little
boy, devoted to his mother and reflecting her nurturing energy,
but he repressed these traits in himself as he grew into an
independent man with a masculine image to uphold. In the
woman who triggers an association with his mother he will see
the capacity to adore him that he secretly craves. This feeling of
getting what he wants will intensify his excitement and physical
attraction. She will supply him the qualities he never developed in
himself. He is falling in love with his own anima, in the form of
the desired woman.
If the feelings toward the mother or father were mostly
ambivalent (their attention inconsistent), we will often try to fix
the original relationship by falling in love with someone who
reminds us of our imperfect parent figure, in the hope that we can
subtract their negative qualities and get what we never quite got
in our earliest years. If the relationship was mostly negative, we
may go in search of someone with the opposite qualities to that
parent, often of a dark, shadowy nature. For instance, a girl who
had a father who was too strict, distant, and critical perhaps had
the secret desire to rebel but didn’t dare to. As a young woman
she might be drawn to a rebellious, unconventional young man
who represents the wild side she was never able to express, and is
the polar opposite of her father. The rebel is her animus, now
externalized in the form of the young man.
In any case, whether the association is positive, negative, or
ambivalent, powerful emotions are triggered, and feeling
ourselves transported to the primal relationship in our childhood,
we act in ways that are often contrary to the persona we present.
We become hysterical, needy, obsessive, controlling. The anima
and animus have their own personalities, and so when they come
to life we act like person B. Because we are not really relating to
women and men as they are, but rather to our projections, we will
eventually feel disappointed in them, as if they are to blame for
not being what we had imagined. The relationship will often tend
to fall apart from the misreading and miscommunications on
both sides, and not aware of the source of this, we will go through
precisely the same cycle with the next person.
There are infinite variations on these patterns, because
everyone has very particular circumstances and mixes of the
masculine and feminine. For instance, there are men who are
more psychologically feminine than women and women who are
more psychologically masculine than men. If they are
heterosexual, the man will be drawn to masculine women who
have the qualities he never developed in himself. He has more of
an animus than an anima. The woman will be drawn to feminine
men. There are many such contrasexual couples, some more overt
than others, and they can be successful if both sides get what they
want—a famous historical example would be the composer
Frédéric Chopin and the writer George Sand, Sand being more
like the husband and Chopin like the wife. If they are homosexual,
the man or woman will still be in search of the contrasexual
qualities undeveloped from within. In general, people are
imbalanced, overidentifying with the masculine or feminine and
drawn to the polar opposite.
Your task as a student of human nature is threefold: First you
must try to observe the anima and the animus as they manifest
themselves in others, particularly in their intimate relationships.
By paying attention to their behavior and patterns in these
situations, you will have access to their unconscious that is
normally denied to you. You will see the parts of themselves they
have repressed, and you can use such knowledge to great effect.
Pay special attention to those who are hypermasculine or
hyperfeminine. You can be sure that below the surface lurks a
very feminine anima for the man and a very masculine animus for
the woman. When people go extra far in repressing their feminine
or masculine qualities, these will tend to leak out in a caricatured
form.
The hypermasculine man, for instance, will be secretly
obsessed with clothes and his looks. He will display an unusual
interest in people’s appearances, including other men, and make
rather snippy judgments about them. Richard Nixon desperately
tried to project a macho image to those who worked for him as
president, but he was constantly commenting on and fussing over
the color of the suits they wore and the drapes in his office. The
hypermasculine man will express strong opinions about cars,
technology, or politics that are not based on real knowledge, and
when called on this, he will become rather hysterical in his
defense, throw a tantrum, or pout. He is always trying to contain
his emotions, but they can often have a life of their own. For
instance, without wanting to, he will suddenly become quite
sentimental.
The hyperfeminine woman will often be concealing a great
deal of repressed anger and resentment at the role she has been
forced to play. Her seductive, girlish behavior with men is actually
a ploy for power, to tease, entrap, and hurt the target. Her
masculine side will leak out in passive-aggressive behavior,
attempts to dominate people in relationships in underhanded
ways. Underneath the sweet, deferential façade, she can be quite
willful and highly judgmental of others. Her willfulness, always
under the surface, will come out in rather irrational stubbornness
in petty matters.
Your second task is to become aware of the projecting
mechanism within yourself. (See the next section for common
types of projections.) Projections have a positive role to play in
your life, and you could not stop them even if you wanted to,
because they are so automatic and unconscious. Without them,
you would not find yourself paying deep attention to a person,
becoming fascinated with him or her, idealizing, and falling in
love. But once the relationship develops, you need to have the
power and awareness to withdraw the projections, so that you can
begin to see women and men as they really are. In doing so,
perhaps you will realize how truly incompatible you are, or the
opposite. Once connected to the real person, you can continue to
idealize him or her, but this will be based on actual positive
qualities he or she possesses. Perhaps you can find his or her
faults charming. You can accomplish all of this by becoming
aware of your own patterns and the types of qualities you tend to
project onto others.
This also has relevance to relationships with the opposite sex
that are not intimate. Imagine that in an office situation a
colleague criticizes your work or postpones a meeting you asked
for. If that person happens to be of the opposite sex, all kinds of
emotions—resentments, fears, disappointments, hostility—will be
stirred up, along with various projections, whereas with someone
of your own gender there would be much less of a reaction. Seeing
this dynamic in everyday life, you will be better able to control it
and have smoother relationships with those of the opposite sex.
Your third task is to look inward, to see those feminine or
masculine qualities that are repressed and undeveloped within
you. You will catch glimpses of your anima or animus in your
relationships with the opposite sex. That assertiveness you desire
to see in a man, or empathy in a woman, is something you need to
develop within yourself, bringing out that feminine or masculine
undertone. What you are doing in essence is integrating into your
everyday personality the traits that are within you but are
repressed. They will no longer operate independently and
automatically, in the form of possession. They will become part of
your everyday self, and people will be drawn to the authenticity
they sense in you. (For more on this, see the final section of this
chapter.)

—
Finally, when it comes to gender roles, we like to imagine a
continual line of progress leading to perfect equality, and to
believe that we are not far from reaching this ideal. But this is
hardly the truth. Although on one level we can see definite
progress, on another level, one that is deeper, we can see
increasing tension and polarization between the sexes, as if the
old patterns of inequality between men and women exert an
unconscious influence upon us.
This tension can sometimes feel like a war, and it stems from a
growing psychological distance between the genders, in which
people of the opposite sex seem like alien creatures, with habits
and patterns of behavior we cannot begin to fathom. This
distance can turn into hostility among some. Although we can see
this in both men and women, the hostility is stronger among men.
Perhaps this is related to the latent hostility many men feel
toward the mother figure, and the feeling of dependency and
weakness she unconsciously triggers. The male sense of
masculinity often has a defensive edge that reveals underlying
insecurities. Such insecurity has only become more acute with
shifting gender roles, and it increases the suspiciousness and
hostility between men and women.
This outer conflict between the genders, however, is merely a
reflection of an unresolved inner conflict. As long as the inner
feminine or masculine is denied, the outer distance will only
grow. When we bridge this distance from within, our attitude
toward the opposite sex changes as well. We feel a deeper
connection. We can talk and relate to them as if relating to parts
of ourselves. The polarity between the sexes still exists and still
causes us to be attracted and fall in love, but now it includes the
desire to get closer to the feminine or the masculine. This is much
different from the polarization between the genders, in which
distance and hostility eventually come to the fore in the
relationship and push people further away. The inner connection
will vastly improve the outer connection and should be the ideal
we aim for.

Gender Projection—Types
Although there are infinite variations, below you will find six of
the more common types of gender projections. You must use this
knowledge in three ways: First, you must recognize in yourself
any tendency toward one of these forms of projection. This will
help you understand something profound about your earliest
years and make it much easier for you to withdraw your
projections on other people. Second, you must use this as an
invaluable tool for gaining access to the unconscious of other
people, to seeing their anima and animus in action.
And finally, you must be attentive to how others will project
onto you their needs and fantasies. Keep in mind that when you
are the target of other people’s projections, the temptation is to
want to live up to their idealization of you, to be their fantasy. You
get caught up in their excitement and you want to believe you are
as great, strong, or empathetic as they imagine. Without realizing
it, you begin to play the role they want you to play. You become
the mother or father figure they crave. Inevitably, however, you
will come to resent this—you cannot be yourself; you are not
appreciated for your true qualities. Better to be aware of this
dynamic before it entraps you.
The Devilish Romantic: For the woman in this scenario, the man
who fascinates her—often older and successful—might seem like a
rake, the type who cannot help but chase after young women. But
he is also romantic. When he’s in love, he showers the woman
with attention. She decides she will seduce him and become the
target of his attention. She will play to his fantasies. How can he
not want to settle down with her and reform himself? She will
bask in his love. But somehow he is not as strong, masculine, or
romantic as she had imagined. He is a bit self-absorbed. She does
not get the desired attention, or it does not last very long. He
cannot be reformed, and leaves her.
This is often the projection of women who had rather intense,
even flirtatious relationships with the father. Such fathers often
find their wives boring, and the young daughter more charming
and playful. They turn to the daughter for inspiration; the
daughter becomes addicted to their attention and adept at playing
the kind of girl that daddy wants. It gives her a sense of power. It
becomes her lifelong goal to recapture this attention and the
power that goes with it. Any association with the father figure will
spark the projecting mechanism, and she will invent or
exaggerate the man’s romantic nature.
A prime example of this type would be Jacqueline Kennedy
Onassis. Jack Bouvier, her father, adored his two daughters, but
Jacqueline was his favorite. Jack was devilishly handsome and
dashing. He was a narcissist obsessed with his body and the fine
clothes that he wore. He considered himself macho, a real risk
taker, but underneath the façade he was in fact quite feminine in
his tastes and totally immature. He was also a notorious
womanizer. He treated Jackie more like a playmate and lover
than a daughter. For Jackie, he could do no wrong. She took
perverse pride in his popularity with women. In the frequent
fights between her mother and father, she always took his side.
Compared to the fun-loving father, the mother was prudish and
rigid.
Spending so much time in his company, even after her parents
divorced, and thinking of him constantly, Jackie deeply absorbed
his energy and spirit. As a young woman, she turned all of her
attention to older, powerful, and unconventional men, with whom
she could re-create the role she had played with her father—
always the little girl in need of his love, but also quite flirtatious.
And she was continually disappointed in the men she had chosen.
John F. Kennedy was the closest to her ideal, for in so many ways
he was just like her father in looks and in spirit. Kennedy,
however, would never give her the attention she craved. He was
too self-absorbed. He was too busy having affairs with other
women. He was not really the romantic type. She was continually
frustrated in this relationship, but she was trapped in this
pattern, later marrying Aristotle Onassis, an older,
unconventional man of great power who seemed so dashing and
romantic but who would treat her horribly and cheat on her
continually.
Women in this scenario have become trapped by the early
attention paid to them by the father. They have to be continually
charming, inspiring, and flirtatious to elicit that attention later
on. Their animus is seductive, but with an aggressive, masculine
edge, having absorbed so much of the father’s energy. But they
are in a continual search for a man who does not exist. If the man
were completely attentive and tirelessly romantic, they would
grow bored with him. He would be seen as too weak. They are
secretly drawn to the devilish side of their fantasy man and to the
narcissism that comes with it. Women trapped in this projection
will grow resentful over the years about how much energy they
have to expend playing to men’s fantasies and how little they get
in return. The only way out of the trap for such women is to see
the pattern itself, to stop mythologizing the father, and to focus
instead on the damage he has caused by the inappropriate
attention he paid to them.
The Elusive Woman of Perfection:He thinks he has found the ideal
woman. She will give him what he’s been missing in his prior
relationships, whether that’s some wildness, some comfort and
compassion, or a creative spark. Although he has had few actual
encounters with the woman in question, he can imagine all kinds
of positive experiences with her. The more he thinks of her, the
more he’s certain he cannot live without her. When he talks of
this perfect woman, you will notice there’s not a lot of concrete
detail about what makes her so perfect. If he does manage to
forge a relationship, he will quickly become disenchanted. She’s
not who he thought she was; she misled him. He then moves on
to the next woman to project his fantasy onto.
This is a common form of male projection. It contains all of the
elements he thinks he never got from his mother, never got from
the other women in his life. This ideal mate will haunt his dreams.
She will not appear to him in the form of someone he knows; she
is a woman fashioned in his imagination—often young, elusive,
but promising something great. In real life, certain types of
women will tend to trigger this projection. She is usually quite
hard to pin down and conforms to what Freud called the
narcissistic woman—self-contained, not really needing a man or
anybody to complete her. She can be a bit cold at the core and a
blank screen upon which men can project whatever they want.
Alternatively, she can seem to be a free spirit, full of creative
energy but without a clear sense of her own identity. For men she
serves as a muse, a great spark to their imagination, a lure to
loosen up their own rigid mind.
The men prone to this projection often had mothers who were
not totally there for them. Perhaps such a mother expected the
son to give her the attention and validation she was not getting
from her husband. Because of this reversal, when the boy
becomes a man, he feels a great emptiness inside that he
constantly needs to fill. He cannot exactly verbalize what he wants
or what he missed, hence the vagueness of his fantasy. He will
spend his life searching for this elusive figure and never settle on
a flesh-and-blood female. It’s always the next one who will be
perfect. If he falls for the narcissistic type, he will repeat the
problem he experienced with his mother, falling for a woman who
cannot give him what he wants. His own anima is a bit dreamy,
introspective, and moody, which is the behavior he will tend to
exhibit when in love.
Men of this type must recognize the nature of their pattern.
What they really need is to find and interact with a real woman,
accept her inevitable flaws, and give more of themselves. They
often prefer to chase their fantasy, because in such a scenario they
are in control and have the freedom to leave when reality sets in.
To break the pattern, such men will have to give up some of this
control. When it comes to their need for a muse, they must learn
to find such inspiration from within, to bring out more of the
anima within themselves. They are too alienated from their own
feminine spirit and need to loosen up their own thought
processes. Not needing this wildness from their fantasy woman,
they will better relate to the actual women in their life.
The Lovable Rebel:For the woman who is drawn to this type, the
man who intrigues her has a noticeable disdain for authority. He
is a nonconformist. Unlike the Devilish Romantic, this man will
often be young and not so successful. He will also tend to be
outside her usual circle of acquaintances. To have a relationship
with him would be ever so slightly taboo—certainly her father
would not approve, and perhaps not her friends or colleagues. If a
relationship does ensue, however, she will see a totally different
side to him. He can’t hold down a good job, not because he’s a
rebel but because he’s lazy and ineffectual. Despite the tattoos
and shaved head, he’s quite conventional, controlling, and
domineering. The relationship will break apart, but the fantasy
will remain.
 The woman with this projection often had a strong, patriarchal
father who was distant and strict. The father represents order,
rules, and conventions. He was often quite critical of his daughter
—she was never good or pretty or smart enough. She internalized
this critical voice and hears it in her head all the time. As a girl
she dreamed of rebelling and asserting herself against the father’s
control, but too often she was reduced to obeying and playing the
deferential daughter. Her desire to rebel was repressed and went
into her animus, which is quite angry and resentful. Instead of
developing the rebelliousness herself, she looks to externalize it in
the form of the rebellious male. If she senses a man might be like
this, based on his appearance, she will project fantasies that are
charged and sexual. Oftentimes she chooses a man who is
relatively young because this makes him less threatening, less of a
patriarch. But his youth and immaturity make it almost
impossible to form a stable relationship, and her angry side will
come out as she grows disenchanted.
Once a woman recognizes she is prone to this projection, she
must come to terms with a simple fact: what she really wants is to
develop the independence, assertiveness, and power to disobey in
herself. It is never too late to do so, but these qualities must be
built up and developed in small steps, everyday challenges in
which she practices saying no, breaking some rules, et cetera.
Becoming more assertive, she can begin to have relationships that
are more equal and satisfying.
The Fallen Woman: To the man in question, the woman who
fascinates him seems so different from those he has known.
Perhaps she comes from a different culture or social class.
Perhaps she is not as educated as he is. There might be something
dubious about her character and her past; she is certainly less
physically restrained than most women. He thinks she’s earthy.
She seems to be in need of protection, education, and money. He
will be the one to rescue and elevate her. But somehow the closer
he gets to her, the less it turns out as he had expected.
In Swann’s Way, volume 1 of the novel In Search of Lost Time
by Marcel Proust, the protagonist, Charles Swann—based on a
real person—is an aesthete, a connoisseur of art. He is also a Don
Juan who is deathly afraid of any relationship or form of
commitment. He has seduced many women of his class. But then
he meets a woman named Odette, who is from a decidedly
different social circle. She is uneducated, a bit vulgar, and some
would say she is a courtesan. She intrigues him. Then one day,
while staring at a reproduction of a biblical scene from a Botticelli
fresco, he decides she resembles a woman in the painting. Now he
is fascinated and begins to idealize her. Odette must have had a
hard life, and she deserves better. Despite his fear of
commitment, he will marry her and educate her in the finer
things of life. What he doesn’t realize is that she does not at all
resemble the woman he fantasizes about. She is extremely clever
and strong willed, much stronger than he is. She will end up
making him her passive slave, as she continues to have affairs
with other men and women.
Men of this type often had strong mother figures in their
childhood. They became good, obedient boys, excellent students
at school. Consciously they are attracted to well-educated women,
to those who seem good and perfect. But unconsciously they are
drawn to women who are imperfect, bad, of dubious character.
They secretly crave what is the opposite of themselves. It is the
classic split of the mother/whore—they want the mother figure
for a wife but feel a much stronger physical attraction to the
whore, the Fallen Woman, the type who likes to display her body.
They have repressed the playful, sensual, and earthy sides of the
character they had as boys. They are too rigid and civilized. The
only way they can relate to these qualities is through women who
appear to be so different from themselves. Like Swann, they find
a way to idealize them with some highbrow reference that has no
relation to reality. They project onto such women weakness and
vulnerability. They tell themselves they want to help and protect
them. But what really attracts them is the danger and naughty
pleasures these women seem to promise. Underestimating the
strength of such women, they often end up as their pawns. Their
anima is passive and masochistic.
Men who engage in this kind of projection need to develop the
less conventional sides of their character. They need to move
outside their comfort zone and try new experiences on their own.
They require more challenges, and even a bit of danger that will
help loosen them up. Perhaps they need to take more risks at
work. They also need to develop the more physical and sensual
side of their character. Not having to get what they crave by
looking for the Fallen Woman type, they can actually begin to
satisfy their urges with any type of woman, not passively waiting
for her to lead them astray but actively initiating the guilty
pleasures.
 The Superior Man:He seems brilliant, skilled, strong, and stable.
He radiates confidence and power. He could be a high-powered
businessman, a professor, an artist, a guru. Even though he may
be older and not so physically attractive, his self-assurance gives
him an attractive aura. For the woman attracted to this type, a
relationship with him would give her an indirect feeling of
strength and superiority.
In the novel Middlemarch (1872) by George Eliot, the main
character, Dorothea Brooke, is a nineteen-year-old orphan raised
by her wealthy uncle. Dorothea is quite beautiful and would be a
desirable match for marriage. In fact, a local young man named
Sir James Chettam is actively courting her. But one evening she
meets the much older Edward Causabon, a wealthy landowner
who has devoted his life to scholarly pursuits, and he intrigues
her. She starts to pay him attention and he courts her, much to
the horror of her sister and uncle. To them he is ugly, with moles
on his face and a sallow complexion. He slurps his food and talks
very little. But to Dorothea his face is full of a spiritual quality. He
is too above people to care about etiquette. He talks little because
no one would understand him. Being married to him would be
like being married to Pascal or Kant. She’ll learn Greek and Latin
and help him complete his great masterpiece, The Key to All
Mythologies. And he will help educate and elevate her. He will be
the father she has been unconsciously missing. Only after being
married to him does she discover the truth—he’s dead inside, and
very controlling. He sees her as a glorified secretary. She becomes
trapped in a loveless marriage.
Although the relationship details might be quite different now,
this type of projection is all too common among women. It stems
from feelings of inferiority. The woman in this case has
internalized the voices of the father and others who have been so
critical of her, who have lowered her self-esteem by telling her
who she is and how she should behave. Not having ever
developed her own strength or confidence, she will tend to search
for these qualities in men and exaggerate any traces of them.
Many of the men who respond to her sense her low self-esteem
and find this alluring. They like the adoring attention of a woman,
often younger, whom they can lord over and control. This would
be the classic professor seducing the student. Because such men
are rarely as brilliant, clever, and self-assured as she imagines,
the woman either is disappointed and leaves or is trapped in her
low self-esteem, bending to his manipulations and blaming
herself for any problems.
What such a woman needs to do is first realize that the source
of her insecurity is the critical opinions of others, which she has
accepted and internalized. It does not stem from her inherent lack
of intelligence or worthiness. She must actively work at
developing her assertiveness and self-confidence through her
actions—taking on projects, starting a business, mastering a craft.
With men, she must see herself as their natural equal, as
potentially strong and creative as they are, or even more so. With
genuine self-confidence she will then be able to gauge the true
worth and character of the men she meets.
The Woman to Worship Him: He’s driven and ambitious, but his
life is hard. It’s a harsh, unforgiving world out there, and it’s not
easy to find any comfort. He feels something missing in his life.
Then along comes a woman who is attentive to him, warm, and
engaging. She seems to admire him. He feels overwhelmingly
drawn to her and her energy. This is the woman to complete him,
to help comfort him. But then, as the relationship develops, she
no longer seems quite so nice and attentive. She certainly has
stopped admiring him. He concludes that she has deceived him or
has changed. Such a betrayal makes him angry.
This male projection generally stems from a particular type of
relationship with the mother—she adores her son and showers
him with attention. Perhaps this is to compensate for never quite
getting what she wants from her husband. She fills the boy with
confidence; he becomes addicted to her attention and craves her
warm, enveloping presence, which is what she wants.
When he grows up, he is often quite ambitious, always trying
to live up to the expectations of his mother. He pushes himself
hard. He chooses a certain type of woman to pursue and then
subtly positions her to play the mother role—to comfort, adore,
and pump up his ego. In many instances, the woman will come to
understand how he has manipulated her into this role, and she
will resent it. She will stop being so soothing and reverential. He
will blame her for changing, but in fact he is the one projecting
qualities that were never exactly there and trying to make her
conform to his expectations. The ensuing breakup will be very
painful for the man, because he has invested energy from his
earliest years and will feel this as abandonment from the mother
figure. Even if he is successful in getting the woman to play the
role, he himself will feel resentment at his dependency on her, the
same dependency and ambivalence he had toward his mother. He
may sabotage the relationship or withdraw. His anima has a
sharp, recriminating edge, always ready to complain and blame.
The man in this case must see the pattern of these
relationships in his life. What this should signal to him is that he
needs to develop from within more of the mothering qualities that
he projects onto women. He must see the nature of his ambition
as stemming from his desire to please his mother and live up to
her expectations. He tends to drive himself too hard. He must
learn to comfort and soothe himself, to withdraw from time to
time and be satisfied with his accomplishments. He needs to be
able to care for himself. This will drastically improve his
relationships. He will give more, instead of waiting to be adored
and taken care of. He will relate to women as they are, and in the
end they will perhaps feel unconsciously impelled to provide
more of the comfort he needs, without being pushed into this.

The Original Man/Woman

A common experience for us humans is that at a certain point in
life—often near the age of forty—we go through what is known as
a midlife crisis. Our work has become mechanical and soulless.
Our intimate relationships have lost their excitement and spirit.
We crave change, and we look for it through a new career or
relationship, some new experiences, even some danger. Such
changes may give us a short-term therapeutic jolt, but they leave
the real source of the problem untouched, and the malaise will
return.
Let us look at this phenomenon from a different angle—as a
crisis of identity. As children, we had a rather fluid sense of self.
We absorbed the energy of everyone and everything around us.
We felt a very wide range of emotions and were open to
experience. But in our youth we had to shape a social self, one
that was cohesive and would allow us to fit into a group. To do so
we had to trim and tighten up our freer-flowing spirit. And much
of this tightening revolved around gender roles. We had to
repress masculine or feminine aspects of ourselves, in order to
feel and present a more consistent self.
In our late teens and into our twenties, we continually adjust
this identity in order to fit in—it is still a work in progress, and we
derive some pleasure in forging this identity. We feel our lives can
go in many directions, and the many possibilities enchant us. But
as the years go by, the gender role we play gets more and more
fixed, and we begin to sense that we have lost something
essential, that we are almost strangers to who we were in our
youth. Our creative energies have dried up. Naturally we look
outward for the source of this crisis, but it comes from within. We
have become imbalanced, too rigidly identified with our role and
the mask we present to others. Our original nature incorporated
more of the qualities that we absorbed from the mother or father,
and of the traits of the opposite sex that are biologically a part of
us. At a certain point, we inwardly rebel at the loss of what is so
essentially a part of us.
In primitive cultures around the world, the wisest man or
woman in the tribe was the shaman, the healer who could
communicate with the spirit world. The male shaman had an
inner woman or wife whom he listened to closely and who guided
him. The female shaman had the inner husband. The shamans’
power came from the depth of their communication with this
inner figure, which was experienced as a real woman or man from
within. The shaman figure reflects a profound psychological truth
that our most primitive ancestors had access to. In fact, in the
myths of many ancient cultures—Persian, Hebrew, Greek,
Egyptian—original humans were believed to be both male and
female; this made them so powerful that the gods feared them
and split them in half.
Understand: The return to your original nature contains
elemental power. By relating more to the natural feminine or
masculine parts within you, you will unleash energy that has been
repressed; your mind will recover its natural fluidity; you will
understand and relate better to those of the opposite sex; and by
ridding yourself of the defensiveness you have in relation to your
gender role, you will feel secure in who you are. This return
requires that you play with styles of thinking and acting that are
more masculine or feminine, depending on your imbalance. But
before describing such a process, we must first come to terms
with a deeply ingrained human prejudice about the masculine
and the feminine.
For millennia, it has been men who largely defined masculine
and feminine roles and who imposed value judgments on them.
Feminine styles of thinking were associated with irrationality, and
feminine ways of acting seen as weak and inferior. We may have
outwardly progressed in terms of inequality between the genders,
but inwardly these judgments still have profound roots in us. The
masculine style of thinking is still esteemed as superior, and
femininity is still experienced as soft and weak. Many women
have internalized these judgments. They feel that being equal
means being able to be as tough and aggressive as men. But what
is truly needed in the modern world is to see the masculine and
the feminine as completely equal in potential reasoning power
and strength of action, but in different ways.
Let us say there are feminine and masculine styles when it
comes to thinking, taking action, learning from experience, and
relating to other people. These styles have been reflected in the
behavior of men and women for thousands of years. Some are
related to physiological differences, some stem mostly from
culture. Certainly there are men who have more feminine styles
and women more masculine styles, but almost all of us are
imbalanced to one side or the other. Our task is to open ourselves
up to the opposite. We have only our rigidity to lose.
Masculine thinking
Masculine and feminine styles of thinking:
tends toward focusing on what separates phenomena from one
another and categorizing them. It looks for contrasts between
things to better label them. It wants to take things apart, like a
machine, and analyze the separate parts that go into the whole.
Its thought process is linear, figuring out the sequence of steps
that goes into an event. It prefers to look at things from the
outside, with emotional detachment. The masculine way of
thinking tends to prefer specialization, to dig deep into something
specific. It feels pleasure in uncovering the order in phenomena.
It likes to build elaborate structures, whether in a book or a
business.
Feminine thinking orients itself differently. It likes to focus on
the whole, how the parts connect to one another, the overall
gestalt. In looking at a group of people, it wants to see how they
relate to one another. Instead of freezing phenomena in time in
order to examine them, it focuses on the organic process itself,
how one thing grows into another. In trying to solve a puzzle, the
feminine style will prefer to meditate on several aspects, absorb
the patterns, and let answers or solutions come to the individual
over time, as if they needed to be cooked. This form of thinking
leads to insights when the hidden connections between things
suddenly become visible in intuitive flashes. As opposed to
specialization, it is more interested in how different fields or
forms of knowledge can connect to one another. In studying
another culture, for instance, it will want to get closer to it, to
understand how it is experienced from within. It is more sensitive
to information from the senses, not merely from abstract
reasoning.
For too long the masculine style has been seen as more
rational and scientific, but this does not reflect the reality. All of
the greatest scientists in history have displayed a powerful mix of
the masculine and feminine styles. The biologist Louis Pasteur’s
greatest discoveries came from his ability to open his mind to as
many explanations as possible, to let them cook in his mind, in
order to see the connections between wide-ranging phenomena.
Einstein attributed all of his greatest discoveries to intuitions, in
which long hours of thinking gave way to sudden insights about
the interconnection of certain facts. The anthropologist Margaret
Mead used the latest abstract models from her time to rigorously
analyze indigenous cultures, but she combined this with months
of living within it and gaining a feel from the inside position.
In business, Warren Buffett is an example of someone who
blends the two styles. When he considers buying a company, he
breaks it down into its component parts and analyzes them in
statistical depth, but he also tries to get a feel for the overall
gestalt of the business, how the employees relate to one another,
the spirit of the group as instilled by the man or woman at the top
—a lot of the intangibles most businesspeople ignore. He looks at
a company from both the outside and the inside.
Almost all people will lean more toward one style of thinking.
What you want for yourself is to create balance by leaning more in
the other direction. If you are more on the masculine side, you
want to widen the fields you look at, finding connections between
different forms of knowledge. In looking for solutions, you want
to consider more possibilities, give greater time to the
deliberative process, and allow for freer associations. You need to
take seriously the intuitions that come to you after much
deliberation, and not discount the value of emotions in thinking.
Without a sense of excitement and inspiration, your thinking can
become stale and lifeless.
If you lean more in the feminine direction, you need to be
capable of focusing and digging into specific problems, tamping
down the impulse to widen your search and multitask. You have
to find pleasure in boring into one aspect of a problem.
Reconstructing a causal chain and continually refining it will give
depth to your thinking. You tend to see structure and order as
dull affairs, giving greater emphasis to expressing an idea and
feeling inspired by it. Instead, you need to derive pleasure in
paying deep attention to the structure of a book, argument, or
project. Being creative and clear with the structure will give your
material its power to influence people. Sometimes you need to
gain greater emotional distance to understand a problem, and you
must force yourself to do so.
When it comes to taking
Masculine and feminine styles of action:
action, the masculine tendency is to move forward, explore the
situation, attack, and vanquish. If there are obstacles in the way,
it will try to push through them, this desire aptly expressed by the
ancient military leader Hannibal—“I will either find a way or
make a way.” It derives pleasure from staying on the offensive
and taking risks. It prefers to maintain its independence and
room to maneuver.
When confronted with a problem or the need to take action,
the feminine style often prefers to first withdraw from the
immediate situation and contemplate more deeply the options. It
will often look for ways to avoid the conflict, to smooth out
relations, to win without having to go to battle. Sometimes the
best action is nonaction—let the dynamic play itself out to
understand it better; let the enemy hang itself by its aggressive
actions.
This was the style of Queen Elizabeth I, whose primary
strategy was to wait and see: when confronted with an imminent
invasion by Spain’s vast seafaring armada, she decided to not
commit to a strategy until she knew exactly when the armada was
launched and the weather conditions of the moment, working to
slow down its advance and let the bad weather destroy it, with
minimal loss of life. Instead of charging forward, the feminine
style lays traps for the enemy. Independence is not an essential
value in action; in fact, it is better to focus on interdependent
relationships and how one move might harm an ally and cause
ripple effects to an alliance.
In the West, this feminine style of strategizing and acting is
instinctively judged as weak and timid. But in other cultures the
style is viewed quite differently. To Chinese strategists, wu-wei,
or nonaction, is often the height of wisdom and aggressive action
a sign of stupidity because it narrows one’s options. There is in
fact tremendous strength contained within the feminine style—
patience, resilience, and flexibility. To the great samurai warrior
Miyamoto Musashi, the ability to stand back and wait, to let the
opponent tire himself out mentally before counterattacking, was
critical for success.
For those with the aggressive, masculine inclination, balance
would come from training yourself to step back before taking any
action. Consider the possibility that it is better to wait and see
how things play out, or even to not respond at all. Taking action
without proper consideration reveals weakness and a lack of self-
control. For balance, always try to consider the interdependent
relationships you are involved in and how each group or
individual will be affected by any action. If you find yourself
blocked in your career later in life, you must learn the power of
withdrawing and reflecting on who you are, your needs, your
strengths and weaknesses, your true interests before making any
important decisions. This could require weeks or months of
introspection. Some of the greatest leaders in history honed their
best ideas while in prison. As the French would say, reculer pour
mieux sauter (“step back in order to leap forward”).
For those with the feminine style, it is best to accustom
yourself to various degrees of conflict and confrontation, so that
any avoidance of it is strategic and not out of fear. This requires
baby steps, confronting people in small ways in everyday
situations before handling larger conflicts. Drop the need to
always consider the other side’s feelings; sometimes there are bad
people who need to be thwarted, and being empathetic only
empowers them. You need to be comfortable saying no and
turning people down. Sometimes when you try to smooth things
out, it is not out of empathy or strategy but out of an aversion to
displeasing people. You have been trained to be deferential, and
you need to get rid of this impulse. You need to reconnect to the
bold and adventurous spirit you once had and widen your
strategic options to both offense and defense. Sometimes you can
overthink things and come up with too many options. Action for
its own sake can be therapeutic, and taking aggressive action can
discomfit your opponents.
As
Masculine and feminine styles of self-assessment and learning:
studies have shown, when men make mistakes they tend to look
outward and find other people or circumstances to blame. Men’s
sense of self is deeply tied to their success, and they do not like to
look inward if they fail. This makes it difficult to learn from
failures. On the other hand, men will tend to feel that they are
completely responsible for any success in life. This will make
them blind to the element of luck and the help of others, which
will feed their grandiose tendencies (see chapter 11 for more on
this). Similarly, if there is a problem, the masculine style is to try
to figure it out on one’s own—to ask for assistance would be an
admission of weakness. In general, men will overestimate their
abilities and display confidence in their skills that are often not
warranted by circumstances.
For women, it is the opposite: When there is failure, they tend
to blame themselves and look inward. If there is success, they are
more prone to look at the role of others in helping them. They
find it easy to ask for assistance; they do not see this as a sign of
personal inadequacy. They tend to underestimate their skills and
are less prone to the grandiose confidence that often fuels men.
For those with the masculine style, when it comes to learning
and improving yourself, it is best to reverse the order—to look
inward when you make mistakes and to look outward when you
have success. You will be able to benefit from experience by
dropping the feeling that your ego is so tied to the success of each
action or decision you make. Develop this reversal as a habit.
Don’t be afraid of asking for help or feedback; instead, make this
a habit as well. Weakness comes from the inability to ask
questions and to learn. Lower your self-opinion. You are not as
great or skilled as you imagine. This will spur you to actually
improve yourself.
For those with the feminine style, it is easy to beat yourself up
after failures or mistakes. The introspection can go too far. The
same can be said of ascribing success to others. Women more
than men will suffer from low self-esteem, which is not natural
but acquired. They often have internalized critical voices from
others. Jung called these animus voices: all the men over the
years who have judged women for their looks and intelligence.
You want to catch these voices as they occur and rid yourself of
them. Because failures or criticisms might affect you too deeply,
you can become afraid to try something again, which narrows
your learning possibilities. You need to adopt more of the
masculine self-confidence, without the attendant stupidity. In
your daily encounters, try to drop or minimize your emotional
responses to events and see them from a greater distance. You are
training yourself to not take things so personally.
As
Masculine and feminine styles of relating to people and leadership:
with male chimpanzees, in a group setting the masculine style is
to require a leader, and to either aspire to that role or gain power
by being the most loyal follower. Leaders will designate various
deputies to do their bidding. Men form hierarchies and punish
those who fall out of line. They are highly status conscious,
hyperaware of their place in the group. Leaders will tend to use
some element of fear to keep the group cohesive. The masculine
style of leadership is to identify clear goals and reach them. It
puts emphasis on results, however they are achieved.
The feminine style is more about maintaining the group spirit
and keeping the relationships smoothed out, with fewer
differences among individuals. It is more empathetic, considering
the feelings of each member and trying to involve them more in
the decision-making process. Results are important, but the way
they are achieved, the process, is equally important.
For those with the masculine style, it is important to enlarge
your concept of leadership. When you think more deeply about
the individuals on the team and strategize to involve them more,
you can have superior results, engaging the energy and creativity
of the group. Studies have shown that boys are as empathetic as
girls, highly attuned, for instance, to the emotions of the mother.
But empathy is slowly drummed out of men as they come to
develop their assertive style. Some of the greatest male leaders in
history, however, managed to retain and develop their empathy.
A leader such as Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (see chapter 2) was
no less of a man for his constant consideration of the emotions of
each of the men he was responsible for—he was simply a stronger
and more effective leader. The same could be said of Abraham
Lincoln.
For those of the feminine style, you must not be afraid of
assuming a strong leadership role, particularly in times of crisis.
Considering the feelings of everyone and incorporating the ideas
of too many will weaken you and your plans. Although women are
certainly better listeners, sometimes it is best to know when to
stop listening and go with the plan you have opted for. Once you
recognize the fools, the incompetents, and the hyperselfish in the
group, it is best to fire them and to even find pleasure in getting
rid of those who bring the whole group down. Instilling a touch of
fear in your lieutenants is not always a bad thing.

—
Finally, look at it this way: We are compelled by nature to want to
move closer to what is feminine or masculine, in the form of an
attraction to another person. But if we are wise, we realize we are
equally compelled to do so inwardly. For centuries men have
looked to women as muses, sources of inspiration. The truth is
that the muse, for both genders, lies within. Moving closer to your
anima or animus will bring you closer to your unconscious, which
contains untapped creative treasures. The fascination you feel in
relation to the feminine or masculine in others you will now feel
in relation to your work, to your own thought process, and to life
in general. Just as with shamans, that inner wife or husband will
become the source of uncanny powers.
What is most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is
most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine.
—Susan Sontag
 13

Advance with a Sense of

Purpose

The Law of Aimlessness

U nlike animals, with their instincts to guide them past

dangers, we humans have to rely upon our conscious
decisions. We do the best we can when it comes to our career
path and handling the inevitable setbacks in life. But in the
back of our minds we can sense an overall lack of direction, as
we are pulled this way and that way by our moods and by the
opinions of others. How did we end up in this job, in this place?
Such drifting can lead to dead ends. The way to avoid such a
fate is to develop a sense of purpose, discovering our calling in
life and using such knowledge to guide us in our decisions. We
come to know ourselves more deeply—our tastes and
inclinations. We trust ourselves, knowing which battles and
detours to avoid. Even our moments of doubt, even our failures
have a purpose—to toughen us up. With such energy and
direction, our actions have unstoppable force.

The Voice
Growing up in a staunchly middle-class black neighborhood in
Atlanta, Georgia, Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) had a
pleasant and carefree childhood. His father, Martin Sr., was the
pastor of the large and thriving Ebenezer Baptist Church in
Atlanta, so the Kings were relatively well off. His parents were
loving and devoted to their children. Home life was stable and
comfortable and included Grandmother King, who doted on
young Martin Jr. He had a wide circle of friends. The few
encounters he had with racism outside the neighborhood
marred this idyllic childhood but left him relatively unscathed.
Martin Jr., however, was exceptionally sensitive to the feelings
of those around him. And as he got older, he sensed something
from his father that began to trigger some inner tension and
discomfort.
His father was a strict disciplinarian who set solid boundaries
of behavior for the three King children. When Martin Jr.
misbehaved in any way, his father whipped him, telling the boy
this was the only way to turn him into a real man. The
whippings continued until he was fifteen. Once his father caught
Martin Jr. at a church social dancing with a girl, and his
scolding of the boy in front of his friends was so vehement,
Martin Jr. strove to never repeat the experience by causing his
father’s displeasure. But none of this discipline came with the
slightest hint of hostility. Martin Sr.’s affection for his son was
too real and palpable for the boy to feel anything but guilt for
disappointing him.
And such feelings of guilt were all the more stressful for
Martin Jr. because of the high hopes the father placed on his
son. As a boy, Martin Jr. displayed an unusual way with words;
he could talk his friends into almost anything, and his eloquence
was quite precocious. He was certainly bright. A plan formed in
Martin Sr.’s mind that his elder son would follow in his father’s
footsteps—attending Morehouse College in Atlanta, becoming
ordained as a minister, serving as copastor at Ebenezer, and
then eventually inheriting the father’s position, just as Martin
Sr. had inherited it from his father-in-law.
Sometimes the father shared this plan, but more than
anything else the boy could feel the weight of his father’s
expectations in the prideful way he looked at him and treated
him. And it made him anxious. He deeply admired his father—
he was a man of very high principle. But Martin Jr. could not
avoid sensing the growing differences between them in taste and
temperament. The son was more easygoing. He loved attending
parties, wearing nice clothes, dating girls, and dancing. As he
got older, he developed a pronounced serious and introspective
side and was drawn to books and learning. It was almost as if
there were two people inside of him—one social, the other
solitary and reflective. His father, on the other hand, was not
complicated at all.
When it came to religion, Martin Jr. had his doubts. His
father’s faith was strong but simple. He was a fundamentalist
who believed in a literal interpretation of the Bible. His sermons
were aimed at the emotions of his parishioners, and they
responded in kind. Martin Jr., on the other hand, had a cool
temperament. He was rational and practical. His father seemed
more concerned with helping people in the afterlife, whereas the
son was more interested in life on earth and how it could be
improved and enjoyed.
The thought of becoming a minister intensified these inner
conflicts. At times he could imagine himself following his
father’s career path. As someone deeply sensitive to any form of
suffering or injustice, serving as a minister could be the perfect
way to channel his desire to help people. But could he be a
minister with such tenuous religious faith? He hated any kind of
confrontation with his father, with whom it was impossible to
argue. He developed the strategy of always saying yes to
whatever his father said. His way of dealing with the tension
inside him was to postpone any decision that might cause a rift.
And so, when he graduated from high school at the age of
fifteen, he decided to attend Morehouse, delighting his father.
But in his mind he had a plan—he would study everything that
interested him and decide on his own the path he would take.
In the first few months he thought of a career in medicine,
then sociology, then law. He kept changing his mind about a
major, excited by all the subjects now open to him. He took a
class in Bible studies, and he was pleasantly surprised at the
profound, earthy wisdom in the book. There were professors at
Morehouse who approached Christianity from a very intellectual
angle, and he found this quite appealing. By his last year at
Morehouse he had changed his mind yet again: he would
become ordained as a minister, and he would enroll at Crozer
Theological Seminary, located in Pennsylvania, for a divinity
degree. Now his father was quite ecstatic. He understood it was
best to let Martin Jr. explore religion on his own, as long as he
ended up at Ebenezer.
At Crozer, Martin Jr. discovered a whole other side to
Christianity, one that emphasized social commitment and
political activism. He read all of the major philosophers,
devoured the works of Karl Marx, and became fascinated with
the story of Mahatma Gandhi. Finding the life of an academic a
pleasant one, he decided to continue his studies at Boston
University, where he gained a reputation among his professors
as a brilliant scholar in the making. But as he prepared to
graduate in 1954 from Boston University with a PhD in
systematic theology, he could no longer postpone the inevitable.
His father had lined up for him an irresistible offer—a position
as copastor at Ebenezer and a part-time teaching position at
Morehouse, where he could continue the academic studies he
loved.
Martin had recently married, and his wife, Coretta, wanted
them to stay in the North, where life would be easier than in the
troubled South. He could get a teaching job at almost any
university he wanted. It was tempting to fall for either option—
Ebenezer or teaching at a northern university. They would
certainly lead to a comfortable life.
In the past few months, however, he had had a different
vision of his future. He could not rationally explain where this
came from, but it was clear to him: He would return to the
South, where he felt a primal connection to his roots. He would
become the minister of a large congregation in a good-sized city,
a place where he could help people, serve the community, and
make a practical difference. But it would not be in Atlanta, as his
father had planned. He was not destined to be a professor or
merely a preacher molded by his father. He would have to resist
the easy path. And this vision had become too strong for him to
deny it any longer—he would have to displease his father,
breaking the news as gently as possible.
Several months before graduating, he heard of an opening at
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. He
visited the church and gave a sermon there, impressing the
church’s leaders. He found the congregation at Dexter more
solemn and thoughtful than at Ebenezer, which suited his own
temperament. Coretta tried to dissuade him from such a choice.
She had grown up not far from Montgomery, and she knew how
fiercely segregated the city was, and the many ugly tensions
below the surface. Martin would encounter there a virulent
racism he had never experienced in his relatively sheltered life.
To Martin Sr., Dexter and Montgomery spelled trouble. He
added his voice to Coretta’s. But when Dexter offered Martin Jr.
the job, he did not experience his usual ambivalence and need to
think things over. For some reason, he felt certain about the
choice; it seemed fateful and right.
 Established at Dexter, Martin Jr. worked hard at imposing
his authority (he knew he looked a bit too young for the
position). He devoted a great deal of time and effort to his
sermons. Preaching became his passion, and he soon gained a
reputation as the most formidable preacher in the area. But
unlike many other pastors, his sermons were full of ideas,
inspired by all of the books he had read. He managed to make
these ideas relevant to the day-to-day lives of his congregation.
The key theme he had begun to develop was the power of love to
transform people, a power that was desperately underused in
the world and that blacks would have to adopt in relation to
their white oppressors in order to change things.
He became active in the local chapter of the NAACP, but
when he was offered the position of president of the chapter, he
turned it down. Coretta had just given birth to their first child,
and his responsibilities as a father and as a minister were great
enough. He would remain very active in local politics, but his
duty was to his church and family. He reveled in the simple and
satisfying life he was now leading. His congregation adored him.
In early December of 1955, Dr. King (as he was now known)
watched with great interest as a protest movement began to take
shape in Montgomery. An older black woman named Rosa
Parks had refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white man,
as prescribed by the local law for segregated buses. Parks, an
active member of the local NAACP chapter, had spent years
fuming at this treatment of black people and at the abusive
behavior of bus drivers. Finally she had had enough. For her
defiance of the law she was arrested. This served as a catalyst for
activists in Montgomery, and they decided upon a one-day
boycott of Montgomery buses to show their solidarity. Soon the
boycott stretched into a week, then several weeks as organizers
managed to create a substitute system of transportation. One of
the organizers of the boycott, E. D. Nixon, asked King to take a
leading role in the movement, but he was reluctant. He had so
little time to spare from his congregation work. He would do
what he could to lend his support.
As the boycott gained momentum, it became clear to its
leaders that the local chapter of the NAACP was not big enough
to handle it. They decided they would form a new organization,
to be called the Montgomery Improvement Association. Because
of his youth, his eloquence, and what seemed to be his natural
leadership skills, at a local town meeting those who had formed
the MIA nominated King to be its president. It was an offer they
half expected him to refuse—they knew of his past hesitations.
King, however, could feel the energy in the room and their faith
in him. Without his usual careful premeditation, he suddenly
decided to accept.
As the boycott continued, the white administrators who
controlled the city became increasingly adamant in their refusal
to end the segregated practices on the city’s buses. The tension
was escalating—several blacks involved in the boycott
movement had been shot at and assaulted. In the speeches he
now delivered to large crowds at the MIA meetings, King
developed his theme of nonviolent resistance, invoking the
name of Gandhi. They would defeat the other side through
peaceful protests and justified boycotts; they would take the
campaign further, aiming at complete integration in
Montgomery’s public places. Now the local authorities saw King
as a dangerous man, an interloper from outside the state. They
initiated a whispering campaign, inventing all sorts of rumors to
be spread about King’s youthful indiscretions, insinuating he
was a communist.
Almost every night he received phone calls threatening his
life and that of his family, and such threats were not to be taken
lightly in Montgomery. A normally reserved man, he did not like
all of the attention from the press, which had now become
national. There was so much bickering within the MIA
leadership, and the whites in power were so devilishly tricky. It
was all so much more than he had bargained for when he had
decided to become the MIA leader.
Several weeks after assuming the leadership position, King
was arrested while driving, ostensibly for speeding, and placed
in a cell full of the most hardened criminals. Once bail was
posted, a trial was set for two days later, and who could guess
what trumped up charges they might come up with? The night
before his trial he received yet another phone call: “Nigger, we
are tired of you and your mess now. And if you aren’t out of this
town in three days we’re going to blow your brains out, and blow
up your house.” Something in the tone of the caller’s voice sent
chills down his spine—this seemed more than just a threat.
He tried to sleep that night but couldn’t, the man’s voice on
the phone call replaying in his mind. He went into the kitchen to
make some coffee and calm himself down. He was shaking. He
was losing his nerve and his confidence. Couldn’t he just find a
way to gracefully bow out of his leadership position and return
to the comfortable life of being just a minister? As he examined
himself and contemplated his past, he realized that up until
these weeks he had never really known true adversity. His life
had been relatively easy and happy. His parents had given him
everything. He had not known what it was like to feel such
intense anxiety.
And as he went deeper with these thoughts, he realized that
he had simply inherited religion from his father. He had never
personally communicated with God or felt His presence from
within. He thought of his newborn daughter and the wife he
loved. He couldn’t take much more of this. He couldn’t call his
father for advice or solace—it was well past midnight. He felt a
wave of panic.
Suddenly it came to him—there was only one way out of this
crisis. He bowed over the cup of coffee and prayed with a sense
of urgency he had never felt before: “Lord, I must confess that
I’m weak now. I’m faltering. I’m losing my courage. And I can’t
let the people see me like this, because if they see me weak and
losing my courage, they will begin to get weak.” At that moment,
clear as could be, he heard a voice from within: “Martin Luther,
stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for
truth. And lo, I will be with you, even until the end of the world.”
The voice—that of the Lord, he felt sure—promised to never
leave him, to come back to him when he needed it. Almost
immediately he felt a sense of tremendous relief, the burden of
his doubts and anxiety lifted from his shoulders. He could not
help but cry.
Several nights later, while King was attending an MIA
meeting, his house was bombed. By sheer luck, his wife and
daughter were unharmed. When informed of what had
happened, he remained calm. He felt that nothing could rattle
him now. Addressing an angry crowd of black supporters who
had congregated outside his home, he said, “We are not
advocating violence. We want to love our enemies. I want you to
love our enemies. Be good to them. Love them and let them
know you love them.” After the bombing, his father pleaded with
him to return with his family to Atlanta, but with Coretta’s
support, he refused to leave.
 Over the following months there would be many challenges
as he struggled to keep the boycott alive and maintain the
pressure on the local government. Finally, toward the end of
1956, the Supreme Court affirmed a lower court decision ending
bus segregation in Montgomery. On the morning of December
18, King was the first passenger to board the bus and sit
wherever he liked. It was a great victory.
Now came national attention and fame, and with it endless
new problems and headaches. The death threats continued. The
older black leaders in the MIA and the NAACP came to resent
the attention he now received. The infighting and the clash of
egos became almost intolerable. King decided to start a new
organization, to be called the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, its purpose to take the movement beyond
Montgomery. For King, however, the infighting and envy only
followed him.
In 1959 he returned to his hometown to serve as copastor at
Ebenezer and to lead various SCLC campaigns from the
headquarters in Atlanta. For some in the movement he was too
charismatic, too domineering, and his campaigns too ambitious;
for others he was too weak, too willing to compromise with
white authorities. The criticism from both sides was relentless.
But what added most of all to King’s burdens was the slippery
and infuriating tactics of the whites in power, who had no
intention of accepting any substantial changes in segregation
laws or in practices that discouraged blacks from registering to
vote. They negotiated with King and agreed to compromises,
then as soon as the boycotts and sit-ins stopped, they found all
kinds of loopholes in the agreements and backtracked.
In one campaign King led in Albany, Georgia, to desegregate
the city, the mayor and police chief made a show of exaggerated
calmness, making it seem as if King and the SCLC were the
unreasonable group, just stirring up trouble from the outside.
The campaign in Albany was largely a failure, and it left King
depressed and exhausted. It was now the pattern in his life that
in such moments he yearned for the simpler, easier days of the
past—his happy childhood, his pleasant years at the university,
the first year and a half at Dexter. Perhaps he should retire from
the leadership role and devote his time to preaching, writing,
and lecturing. Such thoughts tugged him at him with greater
frequency.
 Then, toward the end of 1962, he received yet another
request for his services: Fred Shuttlesworth, one of the leading
black activists in Birmingham, Alabama, begged King and the
SCLC to help him in his efforts to desegregate stores in the
downtown area. Birmingham was one of the most fiercely
segregated cities in the country. Rather than comply with
federal laws to desegregate public places, such as swimming
pools, they merely closed them down. Any form of protest
against the segregation practices was met with powerful
violence and terrorism. The city had come to be known as
“Bombingham.” And overseeing this bastion of the segregated
South was the police chief, Bull Connor, who seemed to relish
the chance to use force—whips, attack dogs, high-pressure fire
hoses, billy clubs.
This would certainly be the most dangerous campaign so far.
Everything inside King leaned toward turning it down. The old
doubts and fears returned to him. What if people were killed,
and the violence touched him and his family? What if he failed?
He suffered more sleepless nights as he agonized over this.
Then the voice from seven years before returned to him, as
loud and clear as ever: he had been tasked to stand up for
justice, not to think of himself but to think of the mission. How
foolish to be afraid again. Yes, it was his mission to go to
Birmingham. But as he mulled this over, he could not help
thinking more deeply about what the voice had told him.
Standing up for justice meant bringing it about in some real and
practical way, not talking or settling for useless compromises.
His fears of disappointing people and failing had made him too
cautious. He would have to be more strategic and more
courageous this time. He would have to raise the stakes and he
would have to win. No more fears or doubts.
He accepted Shuttlesworth’s offer, and as he planned the
campaign with his team, he made it clear to them they would
need to learn from past mistakes. King laid out to them the
nature of the predicament they faced. The Kennedy
administration had proven to be incredibly cautious when it
came to civil rights. The president feared alienating
congressional southern Democrats, upon whom he depended.
He would make great promises but keep dragging his feet.
What they needed to do in Birmingham was to provoke a
national crisis, one that was bloody and ugly. The racism and
segregation in the South were largely invisible to moderate
whites. Birmingham seemed like just another sleepy southern
town. Their goal must be to make the racism so visible to the
whites watching television that it would strike their consciences,
and with a growing sense of outrage, pressure would be placed
on the Kennedy administration that it could no longer resist.
Most of all, King was counting on the cooperation of Bull
Connor in his plans—his overreaction to the intensity of their
campaign would be the key to the whole drama they were
hoping to enact.
In April 1963 King and his team put their plan into action.
They attacked on multiple fronts with sit-ins and
demonstrations. Although reluctant because of his fear of jails,
King got himself arrested. This would garner more publicity and
stir the local population to emulate him. But the campaign had a
fatal weakness that became apparent only as it evolved: local
black support for the movement was tepid. Many blacks in
Birmingham resented Shuttlesworth’s autocratic style; others
reasonably feared the violence Connor would unleash. King
depended on large and boisterous crowds, but what he got was
far from that. The national press, not smelling a story, started to
leave.
Then one of the leaders on his team, James Bevel, had an
idea—they would enlist the participation of students in local
schools. King had his fears and argued they should not bring in
anyone under the age of fourteen, but Bevel reminded him of
the high stakes and the need for numbers, and King relented.
Many of those inside the organization and sympathizers were
shocked that King could be so pragmatic and strategic in using
such young people, but the campaign had a higher purpose, and
it was no time to be so delicate.
The students responded with great enthusiasm. It was just
what the movement needed. They filled the streets of
Birmingham, more daring and boisterous than their parents.
Soon they were filling up the jails. The press returned en masse.
Out came the high-pressure fire hoses, the attack dogs, and the
night sticks, striking teenagers and even children. Soon
television screens around America were broadcasting the tense,
dramatic, and bloody scenes that ensued. Enormous crowds
now showed up for King’s speeches, drumming up support for
the cause. Federal authorities were forced to intervene to lessen
the tension.
King had learned his lesson from before—he had to keep up
the pressure to the very end. Representatives of the white power
structure reluctantly opened negotiations with King. At the
same time, he sanctioned the demonstrators to continue their
downtown marches, coming from all directions and stretching
Connor’s police force to the breaking point. Frightened local
merchants had had enough and asked the white negotiators to
work on a comprehensive settlement with the black leaders,
essentially desegregating the downtown stores and agreeing to
the hiring of black employees.
It was his greatest triumph so far; he had realized his
ambitious goal. It did not matter now if the white authorities
backtracked, as they inevitably would; Kennedy was caught in
the trap, his own conscience pricked by what he had seen in
Birmingham. Shortly after the settlement, he addressed the
nation on television, explaining the need for immediate progress
in civil rights and proposing some ambitious new laws. This led
to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which paved the way for the
Voting Rights Act of 1965. It made King the undisputed leader of
the civil rights movement, and soon a winner of the Nobel Peace
Prize. Money now poured into the SCLC, and the movement
seemed to have ineluctable momentum. But as before, the
troubles and burdens for King only seemed to increase with
each new victory.
In the years following Birmingham he sensed a powerful
reaction forming among conservatives and Republicans against
the gains of the movement. They would work to halt further
progress. He learned that the FBI had placed listening devices in
his hotel rooms and had spied on him for years; they were now
leaking stories and rumors to various newspapers. He watched
as America descended into cycles of violence, starting with the
assassination of Kennedy.
He saw a new generation of black activists emerge under the
banner of Black Power, and they criticized his adherence to
nonviolence as weak and antiquated. When King moved the
campaign to Chicago to try to stop discriminatory housing
practices there, he brokered a settlement with local authorities,
but black activists around the country harshly criticized him—he
had settled for far too little. Shortly after this, an audience at a
Chicago Baptist church loudly booed him, drowning out his talk
with chants of “Black Power.”
He grew depressed and despondent. In early 1965, he saw
images of the Vietnam War in a magazine, and it sickened him.
Something was deeply wrong with America. That summer he
toured the Watts neighborhood in Los Angeles after the violent
riots that had scorched the area. The sight of so much poverty
and devastation overwhelmed him. Here in the heart of one of
the most affluent cities in America, the center of the fantasy
industry, was an enormous neighborhood where large numbers
of people lived in poverty and felt no hope for the future. And
they were largely invisible. America had a cancer in its system—
extreme inequalities in wealth, and the willingness to spend vast
sums of money on an absurd war, while blacks in inner cities
were left to rot and riot.
His depression now mixed with growing anger. In his
conversations with friends, people noticed a new edge to him. In
one retreat with his staff, he said, “All too many people have
seen power and love as polar opposites. . . . [But] the two fulfill
each other. Power without love is reckless, and love without
power is sentimental.” At another retreat, he talked of new
tactics. He would never abandon nonviolence as the means, but
the civil disobedience campaign would have to be altered and
intensified. “Nonviolence must mature to a new level . . . mass
civil disobedience. There must be more than a statement to the
larger society, there must be a force that interrupts its
functioning at some key point.” The movement was not about
integrating blacks into the values of American society but about
actively altering those values at their root.
He would add to the civil rights movement the need to
address poverty in inner cities and to protest the Vietnam War.
On April 4, 1967, he expressed this widening of the struggle in a
speech that got lots of attention, almost all negative. Even his
most ardent supporters criticized it. Including the Vietnam War
would only alienate the public from the cause of civil rights, they
said. It would anger the Johnson administration, whose support
they depended upon. It was not part of his mandate to speak so
broadly.
He had never felt so alone, so attacked by his many critics. By
early 1968 his depression had become deeper than ever. He felt
the end was near—some among his many enemies were going to
kill him for all that he had said and done. He was exhausted by
the tension and felt spiritually at a loss. In March of that year, a
pastor in Memphis, Tennessee, invited King to his city, hoping
he could help support a strike by black sanitation workers, who
had been treated horribly. There had been marches, boycotts,
and protests, and the police had responded brutally. The
situation was explosive. King put them off—he felt depleted. But
as so often happened in these circumstances, he realized it was
his duty to do what he could, and so he agreed. On March 18 he
addressed an enormous crowd in Memphis, and their
enthusiastic response cheered him up. He heard that voice once
again supporting and urging him forward. Memphis would have
to be a key part of his mission.
For the next few weeks he kept returning to Memphis to lend
his support and assistance, against the fierce resistance of the
local authorities. On Wednesday evening, April 4, he addressed
another crowd: “We got some difficult days ahead. But it really
doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the
mountaintop. . . . Like anybody, I would like to live a long
life. . . . But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do
God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain, and
I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get
there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a
people will get to the promised land.”
The speech left him revitalized and in a good mood. The next
day he expressed some concern about an upcoming march that
could turn violent but said fear should not stop them from
proceeding. “I’d rather be dead than afraid,” he told an aide.
That evening, he dressed and prepared for a dinner at a
restaurant with his aides, and running late, he finally appeared
on the balcony outside his motel room when a rifle shot rang out
and a single bullet pierced his neck. He died within an hour.

• • •
Interpretation: Martin Luther King Jr. was a complex man
with several sides to his character. There was the pleasure-
loving King, who loved nice clothes, food, dances, women, and
mischievous behavior. There was the practical King, always
wanting to solve people’s problems and think things through
thoroughly. There was the sensitive, introspective King, a side
that increasingly inclined him toward spiritual pursuits. These
sides were often in conflict from within, as he succumbed to
passing moods. This was what often caused him to agonize over
decisions. Associates would often be troubled by how deeply he
considered his options and how often he doubted himself,
imagining that he was not worthy of the role that he had been
called upon to play.
His relationship to his father reflected this complexity. On
the one hand, he truly loved and respected him, enough to
consider becoming a minister and emulating his style of
leadership. On the other hand, he became aware from a very
early age of the dangers that would ensue if he allowed himself
to be overwhelmed by his father’s dominating presence. His
younger brother, A.D. King, lacked such awareness, a fact that
caused him much pain in his life. A.D. became a minister, but he
never could assert his independence. His career was erratic as
he moved from one church to another. He developed an alcohol
problem and later in life revealed a definite self-destructive
streak that troubled his older brother. A.D. lived in their father’s
shadow.
Something from deep within Martin Jr. impelled him to
create some distance and autonomy. This meant not mindlessly
rebelling against his father, which in the end would simply have
revealed how defined he had been by him in reverse. It meant
understanding the differences between them and using these
differences as levers to create space. It meant taking the best
from his father—his discipline, his high sense of principle, his
caring nature. And it meant going his own way when something
from deep within urged him to do so. He taught himself to listen
to such intuitions, which led to his decision to begin his public
career in Montgomery and to accept the MIA leadership
position. In such moments, it was as if he could foresee his
destiny and drop his habit of overthinking things.
Then, a few weeks after becoming the MIA leader, as he
began to feel the increasing tension that went with the position,
the many sides of his character suddenly took over and led to an
inner crisis. There was the self-doubting King, the fearful King,
the practical King frustrated by the endless obstacles and
infighting, the King who yearned for a simpler and more
pleasant life. This inner conflict paralyzed him. And as all of that
reached a peak the night he entered his kitchen, suddenly those
inclinations and intuitions that had guided him before in his life
transformed into an actual voice, the voice of God, clarifying his
destiny and offering continual support. He could hear this voice
so clearly from within that it would echo and reverberate
throughout his life.
From then on, in conversations and speeches, he would
continually refer to this “voice” that now guided him. And with
this voice the doubts, fears, and debilitating inner conflicts
would disappear. He could feel integrated on a whole new level.
Certainly the moods and anxieties would return, but so would
the voice, making his mission clear to him.
People were often surprised, and sometimes perturbed, by
how strategic he had become as his leadership role expanded to
a national level. During and after every civil rights campaign, he
would conduct deep analysis of the actions and reactions of the
other side, learning lessons and honing tactics. For some, this
did not square with his position as a spiritual leader—for
instance, his decision to use children and teenagers in
Birmingham as a means to fill the city jails. Ministers were not
supposed to think like that. But to King, such pragmatism was
intimately connected to his mission. To merely inspire people
with speeches was sentimental, and he hated that. To not think
deeply about results was to merely seek attention for appearing
righteous, and to gratify the ego. He wanted to effect change, to
dramatically and palpably alter the conditions of blacks in the
South.
And so he came to understand that the game was about
gaining leverage against the whites in power, who resisted
change at every step. He had to use sit-ins and boycotts to
maximize the pain they felt, even during the negotiating process.
He had to maximize the attention from the press and bring into
the living rooms of white America the ugly reality of life in the
South for blacks. His strategic objective was their conscience.
He had to keep the movement unified in the face of the
increasing desire for violence among younger blacks. And as the
voice reminded him of his ultimate purpose, to stand up for and
bring about real justice, he naturally felt compelled to widen the
struggle into a mass civil disobedience campaign.
In a sense, King would serve as the voice for black America,
assuming a role similar to that of the voice that had guided him.
He would strive to bring unity to the cause and keep the
movement focused on practical results instead of debilitating
infighting.
His bouts of depression, which became more intense in the
later years, stemmed from his deep sensitivity not only to the
people around him (the envy and continual criticisms he faced)
but to the zeitgeist. Before others did, he sensed the mood in
America, the grim reality of the war in Vietnam, the despair in
the inner cities, the restlessness of the young and their hunger
to escape reality through drugs, the cowardice of the political
leadership. He linked this with his own sense of doom—he knew
he would be assassinated. Such moods would overwhelm him.
But the voice he had heard so many years before in Montgomery
allowed him to squelch his fears and rise above the depression.
Whenever he felt connected to his mission and purpose in life,
he would experience a profound sense of fulfillment. He was
doing what he was called to do, and he would not have traded
this life for any other. In his last days, the connection grew
deeper: he would bring change to the people of Memphis, but
his fate would cut this short.
Understand: In many ways, the dilemma that King faced is
the dilemma that all of us face in life, because of a profound
element in human nature. We are all complex. We like to
present a front to the world that is consistent and mature, but
we know inside that we are subject to many different moods and
wear many different faces, depending on circumstances. We can
be practical, social, introspective, irrational, depending on the
mood of the moment. And this inner chaos actually causes us
pain. We lack a sense of cohesion and direction in life. We could
choose any number of paths, depending on our shifting
emotions, which pull us this way and that. Why go here instead
of there? We wander through life, never quite reaching the goals
that we feel are so important to us, or realizing our potential.
The moments in which we feel clarity and purpose are fleeting.
To soothe the pain from our aimlessness, we might enmesh
ourselves in various addictions, pursue new forms of pleasure,
or give ourselves over to some cause that interests us for a few
months or weeks.
The only solution to the dilemma is King’s solution—to find a
higher sense of purpose, a mission that will provide us our own
direction, not that of our parents, friends, or peers. This mission
is intimately connected to our individuality, to what makes us
unique. As King expressed it: “We have a responsibility to set
out to discover what we are made for, to discover our life’s work,
to discover what we are called to do. And after we discover that,
we should set out to do it with all the strength and all of the
power that we can muster.” This “life’s work” is what we were
intended to do, as dictated by our particular skills, gifts, and
inclinations. It is our calling in life. For King, it was an impulse
to find his own particular path, to fuse the practical with the
spiritual. Finding this higher sense of purpose gives us the
integration and direction we all crave.
Consider this “life’s work” something that speaks to you from
within—a voice. This voice will often warn you when you are
getting involved in unnecessary entanglements or when you are
about to follow career paths that are unsuited to your character,
by the uneasiness that you feel. It directs you toward activities
and goals that mesh with your nature. When you are listening to
it, you feel like you have greater clarity and wholeness. If you
listen closely enough, it will direct you toward your particular
destiny. It can be seen as something spiritual or something
personal, or both.
It is not the voice of your ego, which wants attention and
quick gratification, something that further divides you from
within. Rather, it absorbs you in your work and what you have
to do. It is sometimes hard to hear, as your head is full of the
voices of others telling you what you should and should not do.
Hearing it involves introspection, effort, and practice. When you
follow its guidance, positive things tend to happen. You have the
inner strength to do what you must and not be swayed by other
people, who have their own agendas. Hearing this voice will
connect you to your larger goals and help you avoid detours. It
will make you more strategic, focused, and adaptive. Once you
hear it and understand your purpose, there will be no going
back. Your course has been set, and deviating from it will cause
anxiety and pain.
He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how.
—Friedrich Nietzsche

Keys to Human Nature

In the world today, we humans face a particular predicament:
As soon as our schooling ends, we suddenly find ourselves
thrown into the work world, where people can be ruthless and
the competition is fierce. Only a few years before, if we were
lucky, our parents met many of our needs and were there to
guide us; in some cases, they were overprotective. Now we find
ourselves on our own, with little or no life experience to rely
upon. We have to make decisions and choices that will affect our
entire future.
In the not-so-distant past, people’s career and life choices
were somewhat limited. They would settle into the particular
jobs or roles available to them and stay there for decades.
Certain older figures—mentors, family members, religious
leaders—could offer some direction if needed. But such stability
and help is hard to find today, as the world changes ever more
quickly. Everyone is caught up in the harsh struggle to make it;
people have never been so preoccupied with their own needs
and agendas. The advice of our parents might be totally
antiquated in this new order. Facing this unprecedented state of
affairs, we tend to react in one of two ways.
Some of us, excited by all the changes, actually embrace this
new order. We are young and full of energy. The smorgasbord of
opportunities offered by the digital world dazzles us. We can
experiment, try many different jobs, have many different
relationships and adventures. Commitments to a single career
or person feel like unnecessary restrictions on this freedom.
Obeying orders and listening to authority figures is old-
fashioned. Better to explore, have fun, and be open. A time will
come when we will figure out what exactly to do with our lives.
In the meantime, maintaining the freedom to do as we wish and
go where we please becomes our main motivation.
Some of us, however, react the opposite way: Frightened of
the chaos, we quickly opt for a career that is practical and
lucrative, hopefully related to some of our interests, but not
necessarily. We settle on an intimate relationship. We may even
continue to cling to our parents. What motivates us is to
somehow establish the stability that is so hard to find in this
world.
Both paths, however, tend to lead to some problems further
down the road. In the first case, trying so many things out, we
never really develop solid skills in one particular area. We find it
hard to focus on a specific activity for too long because we are so
used to flitting around and distracting ourselves, which makes it
doubly hard to learn new skills if we want to. Because of this our
career possibilities begin to narrow. We become trapped into
moving from one job to another. We might now want a
relationship that lasts, but we haven’t developed the tolerance
for compromise, and we cannot help but bristle at the
restrictions to our freedom that a lasting relationship will
represent. Although we might not like to admit it to ourselves,
our freedom can begin to wear on us.
In the second case, the career we committed to in our
twenties might begin to feel a bit lifeless in our thirties. We
chose it for practical purposes, and it has little connection to
what actually interests us in life. It begins to feel like just a job.
Our minds disengage from the work. And now that smorgasbord
of opportunities in the modern world begins to tempt us as we
reach midlife. Perhaps we need some new, exciting career or
relationship or adventure.
In either case, we do what we can to manage our frustrations.
But as the years go by, we start to experience bouts of pain that
we cannot deny or repress. We are generally unaware of the
source of our discomfort—the lack of purpose and true direction
in our lives.
This pain comes in several forms.
We feel increasingly bored. Not really engaged in our work,
we turn to various distractions to occupy our restless minds. But
by the law of diminishing returns, we need to continually find
new and stronger forms of diversion—the latest trend in
entertainment, travel to an exotic location, a new guru or cause
to follow, hobbies that are taken up and abandoned quickly,
addictions of all kinds. Only when we are alone or in down
moments do we actually experience the chronic boredom that
motivates many of our actions and eats away at us.
We feel increasingly insecure. We all have dreams and a
sense of our own potential. If we have wandered aimlessly
through life or gone astray, we begin to become aware of the
discrepancy between our dreams and reality. We have no solid
accomplishments. We feel envious of those who do. Our ego
becomes brittle, placing us in a trap. We are too fragile to take
criticism. Learning requires an admission that we don’t know
things and need to improve, but we feel too insecure to admit
this, and so our ideas become set and our skills stagnate. We
cover this up with an air of certainty and strong opinions, or
moral superiority, but the underlying insecurity cannot be
shaken.
We often feel anxious and stressed but are never quite
certain as to why. Life involves inevitable obstacles and
difficulties, but we have spent much of our time trying to avoid
anything painful. Perhaps we didn’t take on responsibilities that
would open us to failure. We steered clear of tough choices and
stressful situations. But then they crop up in the present—we are
forced to finish something by a deadline, or we suddenly become
ambitious and want to realize a dream of ours. We have not
learned in the past how to handle such situations, and the
anxiety and stress overwhelm us. Our avoidance leads to a low-
grade, continual anxiety.
And finally, we feel depressed. All of us want to believe that
there is some purpose and meaning to our life, that we are
connected to something larger than ourselves. We want to feel
some weight and significance to what we have done. Without
that conviction, we experience an emptiness and depression that
we will ascribe to other factors.
Understand: This feeling of being lost and confused is not
anyone’s fault. It is a natural reaction to having been born into
times of great change and chaos. The old support systems of the
past—religions, universal causes to believe in, social cohesion—
have mostly disappeared, at least in the Western world.
Disappearing also are the elaborate conventions, rules, and
taboos that once channeled behavior. We are all cast adrift, and
it is no wonder that so many people lose themselves in
addictions and depression.
The problem here is simple: By our nature we humans crave
a sense of direction. Other living organisms rely upon elaborate
instincts to guide and determine their behavior. We have come
to depend upon our consciousness. But the human mind is a
bottomless pit—it provides us with endless mental spaces to
explore. Our imagination can take us anywhere and conjure up
anything. At any moment, we could choose to go in a hundred
different directions. Without belief systems or conventions in
place, we seem to have no obvious compass points to guide our
behavior and decisions, and this can be maddening.
 Fortunately there is one way out of this predicament, and it is
by nature available to each and every one of us. There is no need
to look for gurus or to grow nostalgic for the past and its
certainties. A compass and guidance system does exist. It comes
from looking for and discovering the individual purpose to our
lives. It is the path taken by the greatest achievers and
contributors to the advancement of human culture, and we only
have to see the path to take it. Here’s how it works.
Each human individual is radically unique. This uniqueness
is inscribed in us in three ways—the one-of-a-kind configuration
of our DNA, the particular way our brains are wired, and our
experiences as we go through life, experiences that are unlike
any other’s. Consider this uniqueness as a seed that is planted at
birth, with potential growth. And this uniqueness has a purpose.
In nature, in a thriving ecosystem we can observe a high level
of diversity among species. With these diverse species operating
in a balance, the system is rich and feeds off itself, creating
newer species and more interrelationships. Ecosystems with
little diversity are rather barren, and their health is much more
tenuous. We humans operate in our own cultural ecosystem.
Throughout history we can see that the healthiest and most
celebrated cultures have been the ones that encouraged and
exploited the greatest internal diversity among individuals—
ancient Athens, the Chinese Sung Dynasty, the Italian
Renaissance, the 1920s in the Western world, to name a few.
These were periods of tremendous creativity, high points in
history. We can contrast this with the conformity and cultural
sterility in dictatorships.
By bringing our uniqueness to flower in the course of our life,
through our particular skills and the specific nature of our work,
we contribute our share to this needed diversity. This
uniqueness actually transcends our individual existence. It is
stamped upon us by nature itself. How can we explain why we
are drawn to music, or to helping other people, or to particular
forms of knowledge? We have inherited it, and it is there for a
purpose.
Striving to connect to and cultivate this uniqueness provides
us a path to follow, an internal guidance system through life.
But connecting to this system does not come easily. Normally
the signs of our uniqueness are clearer to us in early childhood.
We found ourselves naturally drawn to particular subjects or
activities, despite the influence of our parents. We can call these
primal inclinations. They speak to us, like a voice. But as we get
older, that voice becomes drowned out by parents, peers,
teachers, the culture at large. We are told what to like, what is
cool, what is not cool. We start to lose a sense of who we are,
what makes us different. We choose career paths unsuited to
our nature.
To tap into the guidance system, we must make the
connection to our uniqueness as strong as possible, and learn to
trust that voice. (For more on this, see “Discover your calling in
life” in the next section.) To the degree we manage to do so, we
are richly rewarded. We have a sense of direction, in the form of
an overall career path that meshes with our particular
inclinations. We have a calling. We know which skills we need
and want to develop. We have goals and subgoals. When we take
detours from our path or become involved in entanglements
that distract us from our goals, we feel uncomfortable and
quickly get back on course. We may explore and have
adventures, as is natural for us when we are young, but there is
a relative direction to our exploring that frees us from continual
doubts and distractions.
This path does not require that we follow one simple line, or
that our inclinations be narrowly focused. Perhaps we feel the
pull of several types of knowledge. Our path involves mastering
a variety of skills and combining them in highly inventive and
creative ways. This was the genius of Leonardo da Vinci, who
combined his interests in art, science, architecture, and
engineering, having mastered each one of them. This way of
following the path goes well with our modern, eclectic tastes and
our love of wide exploration.
When we engage this internal guidance system, all of the
negative emotions that plague us in our aimlessness are
neutralized and even turned around into positive ones. For
instance, we may feel boredom in the process of accumulating
skills. Practice can be tedious. But we can embrace the tedium,
knowing of the tremendous benefits to come. We are learning
something that excites us. We do not crave constant
distractions. Our minds are pleasantly absorbed in the work. We
develop the ability to focus deeply, and with such focus comes
momentum. We retain what we absorb because we are engaged
emotionally in learning. We then learn at a faster rate, which
leads to creative energy. With a mind teeming with fresh
information, ideas begin to come to us out of nowhere. Reaching
such creative levels is intensely satisfying, and it becomes ever
easier to add new skills to our repertoire.
With a sense of purpose, we feel much less insecure. We have
an overall sense that we are advancing, realizing some or all of
our potential. We can begin to look back at various
accomplishments, small or large. We got things done. We may
have moments of doubt, but they are generally related more to
the quality of our work than to our self-worth—did we do our
best job? Focusing more on the work itself and its quality than
on what people think of us, we can distinguish between practical
and malicious criticism. We have an inner resiliency, which
helps us bounce back from failures and learn from them. We
know who we are, and this self-awareness becomes our anchor
in life.
With this guidance system in place, we can turn anxiety and
stress into productive emotions. In trying to reach our goals—a
book, a business, winning a political campaign—we have to
manage a great deal of anxiety and uncertainty, making daily
decisions on what to do. In the process, we learn to control our
levels of anxiety—if we think too much about how far we have to
go, we might feel overwhelmed. Instead we learn to focus on
smaller goals along the way, while also retaining a degree of
urgency. We develop the ability to regulate our anxiety—enough
to keep us going and keep improving the work, but not so much
as to paralyze us. This is an important life skill.
We develop a high tolerance for stress as well, and even feed
off of it. We humans are actually built to handle stress. Our
restless and energetic minds thrive best when we are mentally
and physically active, our adrenaline pumping. It is a known
phenomenon that people tend to age more quickly and
deteriorate more rapidly right after they retire. Their minds
have nothing to feed on. Anxious thoughts return. They become
less active. Maintaining some stress and tension, and knowing
how to handle it, can improve our health.
And finally, with a sense of purpose we are less prone to
depression. Yes, low moments are inevitable, even welcome.
They make us withdraw and reassess ourselves, as they did for
King. But more often we feel excited and lifted above the
pettiness that so often marks daily life in the modern world. We
are on a mission. We are realizing our life’s work. We are
contributing to something much larger than ourselves, and this
ennobles us. We have moments of great fulfillment that sustain
us. Even death can lose its sting. What we have accomplished
will outlive us, and we do not have that debilitating feeling of
having wasted our potential.
Think of it this way: In military history, we can identify two
types of armies—those that fight for a cause or an idea, and
those that fight largely for money, as part of a job. Those that go
to war for a cause, such as the armies of Napoleon Bonaparte
fighting to spread the French Revolution, fight with greater
intensity. They tie their individual fate to that of the cause and
the nation. They are more willing to die in battle for the cause.
Those in the army who are less enthusiastic get swept up in the
group spirit. The general can ask more of his soldiers. The
battalions are more unified, and the various battalion leaders
are more creative. Fighting for a cause is known as a force
multiplier—the greater the connection to the cause, the higher
the morale, which translates into greater force. Such an army
can often defeat one that is much larger but less motivated.
We can say something similar about your life: operating with
a high sense of purpose is a force multiplier. All of your
decisions and actions have greater power behind them because
they are guided by a central idea and purpose. The many sides
to your character are channeled into this purpose, giving you
more sustained energy. Your focus and your ability to bounce
back from adversity give you ineluctable momentum. You can
ask more of yourself. And in a world where so many people are
meandering, you will spring past them with ease and attract
attention for this. People will want to be around you to imbibe
your spirit.
Your task as a student of human nature is twofold: First, you
must become aware of the primary role that a sense of purpose
plays in human life. By our nature, the need for purpose has a
gravitational pull to it that no one can resist. Look at the people
around you and gauge what is guiding their behavior, seeing
patterns in their choices. Is the freedom to do what they please
their primary motivation? Are they mostly after pleasure,
money, attention, power for its own sake, or a cause to join?
These are what we shall call false purposes, and they lead to
obsessive behavior and various dead ends. (For more on false
purposes, see the last section of this chapter.) Once you identify
people as motivated by a false purpose, you should avoid hiring
or working with them, as they will tend to draw you downward
with their unproductive energy.
You will also notice some people who are struggling to find
their purpose in the form of their calling in life. Perhaps you can
help them or you can help each other. And finally, you may
recognize a few people who have a relatively high sense of
purpose. This could be someone young who seems destined for
greatness. You will want to befriend them and become infected
with their enthusiasm. Others will be older, with a string of
accomplishments to their name. You will want to associate with
them in any way possible. They will draw you upward.
Your second task is to find your sense of purpose and elevate
it by making the connection to it as deep as possible. (See the
next section for more on this.) If you are young, use what you
find to give an overall framework to your restless energy.
Explore the world freely, accumulate adventures, but all within
a certain framework. Most important, accumulate skills. If you
are older and have gone astray, take the skills you have acquired
and find ways to gently channel them in the direction that will
eventually mesh with your inclinations and spirit. Avoid sudden
and drastic career changes that are impractical.
Keep in mind that your contribution to the culture can come
in many forms. You don’t have to become an entrepreneur or
figure largely on the world’s stage. You can do just as well
operating as one person in a group or organization, as long as
you retain a strong point of view that is your own and use this to
gently exert your influence. Your path can involve physical labor
and craft—you take pride in the excellence of the work, leaving
your particular stamp on the quality. It can be raising a family in
the best way possible. No calling is superior to another. What
matters is that it be tied to a personal need and inclination, and
that your energy move you toward improvement and continual
learning from experience.
In any event, you will want to go as far as you can in
cultivating your uniqueness and the originality that goes with it.
In a world full of people who seem largely interchangeable, you
cannot be replaced. You are one of a kind. Your combination of
skills and experience is not replicable. That represents true
freedom and the ultimate power we humans can possess.
 Strategies for Developing a High Sense of Purpose
Once you commit yourself to developing or strengthening your
sense of purpose, then the hard work begins. You will face many
enemies and obstacles impeding your progress—the distracting
voices of others who instill doubts about your calling and your
uniqueness; your own boredom and frustrations with the work
itself and your slow progress; the lack of trustworthy criticism
from people to help you; the levels of anxiety you must manage;
and finally, the burnout that often accompanies focused labor
over long periods. The following five strategies are designed to
help you move past these obstacles. They are in a loose order,
the first being the essential starting point. You will want to put
them all into practice to ensure continual movement forward.
You begin this strategy by looking
Discover your calling in life.
for signs of primal inclinations in your earliest years, when they
were often the clearest. Some people can easily remember such
early indications, but for many of us it requires some
introspection and some digging. What you are looking for is
moments in which you were unusually fascinated by a particular
subject, or certain objects, or specific activities and forms of
play.
The great nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century scientist
Marie Curie could distinctly recall the moment when she was
four years old and entered her father’s office, suddenly
mesmerized by the sight of all sorts of tubes and measuring
devices for various chemistry experiments placed behind a
polished glass case. Her whole life she would feel a similar
visceral thrill whenever she entered a laboratory. For Anton
Chekhov, it was attending his first play in a theater as a boy in
his small town. The whole atmosphere of make-believe thrilled
him. For Steve Jobs, it was passing an electronics store as a
child and seeing the wondrous gadgets in the window,
marveling at their design and complexity. For Tiger Woods, it
was, at the age of two, watching his father hit golf balls into a net
in the garage and being unable to contain his excitement and
desire to imitate him. For the writer Jean-Paul Sartre, it was a
childhood fascination with printed words on a page, and the
possible magical meanings each word possessed.
These moments of visceral attraction occurred suddenly and
without any prodding from parents or friends. It would be hard
to put into words why they occurred; they are signs of
something beyond our personal control. The actress Ingrid
Bergman expressed it best, when talking of the fascination she
had with performing in front of her father’s movie camera at a
very early age: “I didn’t choose acting. It chose me.”
Sometimes these moments can come when we are older, as
when Martin Luther King Jr. realized his mission in life as he
got pulled into the Montgomery bus boycott. And sometimes
they can occur while observing other people who are masters in
their field.
As a young man, the future Japanese film director Akira
Kurosawa felt particularly aimless. He tried painting, then
apprenticed as an assistant director on films, a job he hated. He
was ready to quit when he got assigned to work for the director
Kajiro Yamamoto in 1936. Watching this great master at work,
suddenly his eyes were opened to the magical possibilities of
film, and he realized his calling. As he later described this, “It
was like the wind in a mountain pass blowing across my face. By
this I mean that wonderfully refreshing wind you feel after a
painfully hard climb. The breath of that wind tells you you are
reaching the pass. Then you stand in the pass and look down
over the panorama as it opens up. When I stood behind Yama-
san in his director’s chair next to the camera, I felt my heart
swell with that same feeling—‘I’ve made it at last.’”
As another sign, examine moments in your life when certain
tasks or activities felt natural and easy to you, similar to
swimming with a current. In performing such activities, you
have a greater tolerance for the tedium of practicing. People’s
criticisms don’t discourage you so easily; you want to learn. You
can contrast this with other subjects or tasks that you find
deeply boring and unfulfilling, which frustrate you.
Related to this, you will want to figure out the particular form
of intelligence that your brain is wired for. In his book Frames
of Mind, the psychologist Howard Gardner lists certain forms of
intelligence for which people usually have one particular gift or
affinity. This could be mathematics and logic, physical activity,
words, images, or music. We could also add to this social
intelligence, a superior sensitivity to people. When you are
engaged in the activity that feels right, it will correspond to that
form of intelligence for which your brain is most suited.
 From these various factors you should be able to spot the
outline of your calling. In essence, in going through this process
you are discovering yourself, what makes you different, what
predates the opinions of others. You are reacquainting yourself
with your natural likes and dislikes. Later in life we often lose
contact with our own preferences for things, deeply influenced
by what others are doing and by the culture. You are subtracting
such external influences. The deeper you make this connection
to your calling, the more you will be able to resist the bad ideas
of others. You will engage that internal guidance system. Put
some time into the process, working with a journal if necessary.
You are developing the habit of assessing and listening to
yourself, so that you can continually monitor your progress and
adjust this calling to the various stages in your life.
If you are young and just starting out in your career, you will
want to explore a relatively wide field related to your
inclinations—for instance, if your affinity is words and writing,
try all the different types of writing until you hit upon the right
fit. If you are older and have more experience, you will want to
take the skills you have already developed and find a way to
adapt them more in the direction of your true calling.
Remember that the calling could be combining several fields
that fascinate you. For Jobs, it was the intersection of
technology and design. Keep the process open-ended; your
experience will instruct you as to the way.
Do not try to bypass the work of discovering your calling or
imagine that it will simply come to you naturally. Although it
may come to a few people early in life or in a lightning-bolt
moment, for most of us it requires continual introspection and
effort. Experimenting with the skills and options related to your
personality and inclinations is not only the single most essential
step in developing a high sense of purpose, it is perhaps the
most important step in life in general. Knowing in a deep way
who you are, your uniqueness, will make it that much easier to
avoid all of the other pitfalls of human nature.
Use resistance and negative spurs.The key to success in any field
is first developing skills in various areas, which you can later
combine in unique and creative ways. But the process of doing
so can be tedious and painful, as you become aware of your
limitations and relative lack of skill. Most people, consciously or
unconsciously, seek to avoid tedium, pain, and any form of
adversity. They try to put themselves in places where they will
face less criticism and minimize their chances of failure. You
must choose to move in the opposite direction. You want to
embrace negative experiences, limitations, and even pain as the
perfect means of building up your skill levels and sharpening
your sense of purpose.
When it comes to exercise, you understand the importance of
manageable levels of pain and discomfort, because they later
yield strength, stamina, and other positive sensations. The same
will come to you by actually embracing the tedium in your
practice. Frustration is a sign that you are making progress as
your mind becomes aware of higher levels of skill that you have
yet to attain.
You want to use and embrace any kind of deadline. If you
give yourself a year to finish a project or start up a business, you
will generally take a year or more. If you give yourself three
months, you will finish it that much sooner, and the
concentrated energy with which you work will raise your skill
level and make the end result that much better. If necessary,
manufacture reasonably tight deadlines to intensify your sense
of purpose.
Thomas Edison knew he could take far too long to realize his
inventions, and so he developed the habit of talking about their
future greatness to journalists, overselling his ideas. With
publicity, he would now be put in the position of having to make
it happen, and relatively soon, or be ridiculed. He would now
have to rise to the occasion, and he almost always did. The great
eighteenth-century Zen master Hakuin took this further. He
became greatly frustrated by the particular koans (paradoxical
anecdotes designed to spark enlightenment) presented to him
by his master. His lack of progress made him feel desperate, so
he told himself, in all seriousness, “If I fail to master one of
these koans in seven days, I will kill myself.” This worked for
him and kept on working for him, until he attained total
enlightenment.
As you progress on your path, you will be subject to more and
more of people’s criticisms. Some of them might be constructive
and worth paying attention to, but many of them come from
envy. You can recognize the latter by the person’s emotional
tone in expressing their negative opinions. They go a little too
far, speak with a bit too much vehemence; they make it
personal, instilling doubts about your overall ability,
emphasizing your personality more than the work; they lack
specific details about what and how to improve. Once
recognized, the trick is not to internalize these criticisms in any
form. Becoming defensive is a sign they have gotten to you.
Instead, use their negative opinions to motivate you and add to
your sense of purpose.
Absorb purposeful energy. We humans are extremely
susceptible to the moods and energy of other people. For this
reason, you want to avoid too much contact with those who have
a low or false sense of purpose. On the other hand, you always
want to try to find and associate with those who have a high
sense of purpose. This could be the perfect mentor or teacher or
partner on a project. Such people will tend to bring out the best
in you, and you will find it easier and even refreshing to receive
their criticisms.
This was the strategy that brought Coco Chanel (see chapter
5) so much power. She began life from a position of great
weakness—an orphan with little or no resources in life. She
realized in her early twenties that her calling was to design
clothes and to start her own apparel line. She desperately
needed guidance, however, particularly when it came to the
business side. She looked for people who could help her find her
way. At the age of twenty-five she met the perfect target, a
wealthy older English businessman named Arthur “Boy” Capel.
She was attracted to his ambition, his well-rounded experience,
his knowledge of the arts, and his ruthless practicality.
She latched onto him with great vehemence. He was able to
instill in her the confidence that she could become a famous
designer. He taught her about business in general. He offered
her tough criticisms that she could accept because of her deep
respect for him. He helped guide her in her first important
decisions in setting up her business. From him she developed a
very honed sense of purpose that she retained her entire life.
Without his influence, her path would have been too confusing
and difficult. Later in life, she kept returning to this strategy.
She found other men and women who had skills she lacked or
needed to strengthen—social graciousness, marketing, a nose
for cultural trends—and developed relationships that allowed
her to learn from them.
 In this case, you want to find people who are pragmatic and
not merely those who are charismatic or visionaries. You want
their practical advice, and to absorb their spirit of getting things
done. If possible, collect around you a group of people from
different fields, as friends or associates, who have similar
energy. You will help elevate one another’s sense of purpose. Do
not settle for virtual associations or mentors. They will not have
the same effect.
Operating with long-term
Create a ladder of descending goals.
goals will bring you tremendous clarity and resolve. These goals
—a project or business to create, for instance—can be relatively
ambitious, enough to bring out the best in you. The problem,
however, is that they will also tend to generate anxiety as you
look at all you have to do to reach them from the present
vantage point. To manage such anxiety, you must create a
ladder of smaller goals along the way, reaching down to the
present. Such objectives are simpler the further down the ladder
you go, and you can realize them in relatively short time frames,
giving you moments of satisfaction and a sense of progress.
Always break tasks into smaller bites. Each day or week you
must have microgoals. This will help you focus and avoid
entanglements or detours that will waste your energy.
At the same time, you want to continually remind yourself of
the larger goal, to avoid losing track of it or getting too mired in
details. Periodically return to your original vision and imagine
the immense satisfaction you will have when it comes to
fruition. This will give you clarity and inspire you forward. You
will also want a degree of flexibility built into the process. At
certain moments you reassess your progress and adjust the
various goals as necessary, constantly learning from experience
and adapting and improving your original objective.
Remember that what you are after is a series of practical
results and accomplishments, not a list of unrealized dreams
and aborted projects. Working with smaller, embedded goals
will keep you moving in such a direction.
Perhaps the greatest difficulty you will
Lose yourself in the work.
face in maintaining a high and consistent sense of purpose is the
level of commitment that is required over time and the sacrifices
that go with this. You have to handle many moments of
frustration, boredom, and failure, and the endless temptations
in our culture for more immediate pleasures. The benefits listed
above in the Keys are often not immediately apparent. And as
the years pile up, you can face burnout.
To offset this tedium, you need to have moments of flow in
which your mind becomes so deeply immersed in the work that
you are transported beyond your ego. You experience feelings of
profound calmness and joy. The psychologist Abraham Maslow
called these “peak experiences”—once you have them, you are
forever changed. You will feel the compulsion to repeat them.
The more immediate pleasures the world offers will pale in
comparison. And when you feel rewarded for your dedication
and sacrifices, your sense of purpose will be intensified.
These experiences cannot be manufactured, but you can set
the stage for them and vastly increase your odds. First, it is
essential to wait until you are further along in the process—at
least more than halfway through a project, or after several years
of study in your field. At such moments, your mind will be
naturally filled with all kinds of information and practice, ripe
for a peak experience.
Second, you must plan on giving yourself uninterrupted time
with the work—as many hours in the day as possible, and as
many days in the week. For this purpose, you have to rigorously
eliminate the usual level of distractions, even plan on
disappearing for a period of time. Think of it as a type of
religious retreat. Steve Jobs would close the door to his office,
spend the entire day holed up in the room, and wait until he fell
into a state of deep focus. Once you become adept at this, you
can do it almost anywhere. Einstein would notoriously go into
such a deep state of absorption that he would lose himself in the
city streets or while sailing on a lake.
Third, the emphasis must be on the work, never on yourself
or the desire for recognition. You are fusing your mind with the
work itself, and any intrusive thoughts from your ego or doubts
about yourself or personal obsessions will interrupt the flow.
Not only will you find this flow immensely therapeutic, but it
will also yield uncannily creative results.
For the time period that the actress Ingrid Bergman was
engaged in a particular film project, she poured every ounce of
her energy into it, forgetting everything else about her life.
Unlike other actors, who gave greater importance to the money
they earned or the attention they received, Bergman saw only
the opportunity to completely embody the role she was to play
and bring it to life. For this purpose, she would engage with the
writers and the director involved, actively altering the role itself
and some of the dialogue, making it more real; they would trust
her in this, because her ideas were almost always excellent and
were based on deep thinking about the character.
Once she had gone far enough in the writing and thinking
process, she would go through days or weeks feeling herself fuse
with the role, and not interacting with others. In doing so, she
could forget about all the pain in her life—the loss of her parents
when she was young, her abusive husband. These were the
moments of genuine joy in her life, and she translated such peak
experiences to the screen. Audiences could sense something
profoundly realistic in her performances, and they identified
unusually intensely with the characters she played. Knowing she
would periodically have such experiences, and the results that
went with them, kept her moving past the pain and sacrifices
that she demanded of herself.
Look at this as a form of religious devotion to your life’s
work. Such devotion will eventually yield moments of union
with the work itself, and a type of ecstasy that is impossible to
verbalize until you have experienced it.

The Lure of False Purposes

The gravitational pull we feel toward finding a purpose comes
from two elements in human nature. First, unable to rely on
instincts as other animals do, we require some means of having
a sense of direction, a way to guide and restrict our behavior.
Second, we humans are aware of our puniness as individuals in
a world with billions of others in a vast universe. We are aware
of our mortality, and how we will eventually be swallowed up in
the eternity of time. We need to feel larger than just the
individuals we are, and connected to something that transcends
us.
Human nature being what it is, however, many people seek
to create purpose and a feeling of transcendence on the cheap,
to find it in the easiest and most accessible way, with the least
amount of effort. Such people give themselves over to false
purposes, those that merely supply the illusion of purpose and
transcendence. We can contrast them with real purposes in the
following way: The real purpose comes from within. It is an
idea, a calling, a sense of mission that we feel personally and
intimately connected to. It is our own; we may have been
inspired by others, but nobody imposed it upon us and nobody
can take it away. If we are religious, we don’t merely accept the
orthodoxy; we go through rigorous introspection and make our
belief inward, true to ourselves. False purposes come from
external sources—belief systems that we swallow whole,
conformity to what other people are doing.
The real purpose leads us upward, to a more human level.
We improve our skills and sharpen our minds; we realize our
potential and contribute to society. False purposes lead
downward, to the animal side of our nature—to addictions, loss
of mental powers, mindless conformity, and cynicism.
It is critical that we become aware of these false forms of
purpose. Inevitably all of us at some point in our lives fall for
them because they are so easy, popular, and cheap. If we can
eliminate the impulse toward these lower forms, we will
naturally gravitate toward the higher, in our unavoidable search
for meaning and purpose. Here are five of the most common
forms of false purposes that have appealed to humans since the
beginning of civilization.
The pursuit of pleasure: For many of us, work is just an
irritating necessity of life. What really motivates us is avoiding
pain, and finding as much pleasure as possible in our time
outside work. The pleasures we pursue can take various forms—
sex, stimulants, entertainment, eating, shopping, gambling,
technological fads, games of all sorts.
No matter the objects of the pursuit, they tend to lead to a
dynamic of diminishing returns. The moments of pleasure we
get tend to get duller through repetition. We need either more
and more of the same or constantly new diversions. Our need
often turns into an addiction, and with the dependency comes a
diminishing of health and mental powers. We become possessed
by the objects we crave and lose ourselves. Under the influence
of drugs or alcohol, for instance, we can temporarily feel
transported beyond the banality of our lives.
This form of false purpose is very common in the world
today, largely because of the cornucopia of distractions we can
choose from. But it goes against a basic element of human
nature: to have deeper levels of pleasure, we have to learn to
limit ourselves. Reading a variety of books for entertainment, in
rapid succession, leads to a diminishing sense of satisfaction
with each book; our minds are overwhelmed and
overstimulated; and we must reach for a new one right away.
Reading one excellent book and absorbing ourselves in it has a
relaxing and uplifting effect as we discover hidden riches within
it. In the moments when we are not reading, we think of the
book again and again.
All of us require pleasurable moments outside work, ways to
relieve our tension. But when we operate with a sense of
purpose, we know the value of limiting ourselves, opting for
depth of experience rather than overstimulation.
Causes and cults: People have a profound need to believe in
something, and in the absence of great unifying belief systems,
this void is easily filled by all kinds of microcauses and cults. We
notice that such groups tend not to last very long. Within ten
years they already seem passé. During their brief existence, their
adherents will substitute extreme conviction and hyperbelief for
a clear vision of what they are after. For this purpose, enemies
are quickly found and are said to be the source of all that is
wrong in the world. Such groups become the means for people
to vent their personal frustrations, envy, and hatred. They also
get to feel superior, as part of some clique with special access to
the truth.
We can recognize a microcause or cult by the vagueness of
what its disciples want. They cannot describe the kind of world
or society they desire in concrete, practical terms. Much of their
raison d’être revolves around negative definitions—get rid of
these people or those practices and the world will become a
paradise. They have no sense of strategy or defined ways of
reaching their nebulous goals, which is a clear sign that their
group is merely about the release of emotions.
Often such groups will depend on large public gatherings in
which people can become intoxicated by numbers and shared
feelings. Wily rulers throughout history have used this to great
effect. People in a crowd are highly suggestible. Through short,
simple phrases, with lots of repetition, they can be made to
chant back slogans and swallow the most absurd and irrational
ideas. In a crowd people can feel relieved of any personal
responsibility, which can lead to violence. They feel transported
beyond themselves and not so puny, but such enlargement is an
illusion. They are actually made smaller by losing their will and
their individual voice.
Allying ourselves with a cause can be an important part of
our sense of purpose, as it was for Martin Luther King Jr. But it
must emerge from an internal process in which we have thought
deeply about the subject and are committing ourselves to the
cause as part of our life’s work. We are not simply a cog in the
machinery of such a group but active contributors, bringing our
uniqueness into play and not mimicking the company line. We
are not joining out of a need to gratify our ego or to vent ugly
emotions, but rather out of a hunger for justice and truth that
springs from deep within our own sense of purpose.
Money and success:For many people, the pursuit of money and
status can supply them with plenty of motivation and focus.
Such types would consider figuring out their calling in life a
monumental waste of time and an antiquated notion. But in the
long run this philosophy often yields the most impractical of
results.
First, more often than not such types enter the field in which
they can make the most money the fastest. They aim for the
biggest paychecks. Their career choices have slight or no
connection to their actual inclinations. The fields they choose
will tend to be crowded with other insatiable hunters of money
and success, and so the competition is fierce. If they are zealous
enough, they might do quite well for a while, but as they get
older, they begin to feel restless and ever so slightly bored. They
try different avenues for money and success; they need new
challenges. They have to keep finding ways to motivate
themselves. Often they make big mistakes in their obsessive
pursuit of money because their thinking is so short term, as we
saw with those who went all in on the derivatives frenzy leading
up to the crash of 2008.
Second, money and success that last come from remaining
original and not mindlessly following the path that others are
following. If we make money our primary goal, we never truly
cultivate our uniqueness, and eventually someone younger and
hungrier will supplant us.
And finally, what often motivates people in this quest is to
simply have more money and status than other people, and to
feel superior. With that standard, it is difficult to know when
they have enough, because there are always people with more.
And so the quest is endless and exhausting. And since the
connection to their work is not personal, such people become
alienated from themselves; the pursuit feels soulless; they are
workaholics without a true calling. They may become depressed
or manic, and they will often lose what they have gained if they
become manic enough.
We all know the effects of “hyperintention”: If we want and
need desperately to sleep, we are less likely to fall asleep. If we
absolutely must give the best talk possible at some conference,
we become hyperanxious about the result, and the performance
suffers. If we desperately need to find an intimate partner or
make friends, we are more likely to push them away. If instead
we relax and focus on other things, we are more likely to fall
asleep or give a great talk or charm people. The most
pleasurable things in life occur as a result of something not
directly intended and expected. When we try to manufacture
happy moments, they tend to disappoint us.
The same goes for the dogged pursuit of money and success.
Many of the most successful, famous, and wealthy individuals
do not begin with an obsession with money and status. One
prime example would be Steve Jobs, who amassed quite a
fortune in his relatively short life. He actually cared very little
for material possessions. His singular focus was on creating the
best and most original designs, and when he did so, good
fortune followed him. Concentrate on maintaining a high sense
of purpose, and the success will flow to you naturally.
Attention: People have always pursued fame and attention as a
way to feel enlarged and more important. They become
dependent on the number of people applauding, the size of the
army they command, the crowd of courtiers that serve them. But
this false sense of purpose has become greatly democratized and
widespread through social media. Now almost any one of us can
have the quantity of attention that past kings and conquerors
could only dream about. Our self-image and self-esteem become
tied to the attention we receive on a daily basis. In social media,
this often requires becoming increasingly outrageous to capture
eyeballs. It is an exhausting and alienating quest, as we become
more of a clown than anything else. And each moment that the
attention ebbs ever so slightly, a gnawing pain eats away at us:
Are we losing it? Who is siphoning off the flow of attention that
was ours?
As with money and success, we have a much greater chance
of attracting attention by developing a high sense of purpose
and creating work that will naturally draw people to it. When
the attention is unexpected, as with the success we suddenly
have, it is all the more pleasurable.
Cynicism:According to Friedrich Nietzsche, “Man would
rather have the void as purpose than be void of purpose.”
Cynicism, the feeling that there is no purpose or meaning in life,
is what we shall call having “the void as purpose.” In the world
today, with growing disenchantment with politics and the belief
systems of the past, this form of the false purpose is becoming
increasingly common.
Such cynicism involves some or all of the following beliefs:
Life is absurd, meaningless, and random. Standards of truth,
excellence, or meaning are completely old-fashioned.
Everything is relative. People’s judgments are simply
interpretations of the world, none better than another. All
politicians are corrupt, so it’s not really worth it to get involved;
better to abstain or choose a leader who will deliberately tear it
all down. People who are successful get there through gaming
the system. Any form of authority should be naturally
mistrusted. Look behind people’s motives and you will see that
they are selfish. Reality is quite brutal and ugly; better to accept
this and be skeptical. It’s really hard to take anything so
seriously; we should just laugh and have a good time. It’s all the
same.
This attitude presents itself as cool and hip. Its adherents
display a somewhat apathetic and sardonic air that gives them
the appearance that they see through it all. But the attitude is
not what it seems. Behind it is the adolescent pose of appearing
to not care, which disguises a great fear of trying and failing, of
standing out and being ridiculed. It stems from sheer laziness
and offers its believers consolation for their lack of
accomplishments.
As hunters for purpose and meaning, we want to move in the
opposite direction. Reality is not brutal and ugly—it contains
much that is sublime, beautiful, and worthy of wonder. We see
this in the great works of other achievers. We want to have more
encounters with the Sublime. Nothing is more awe-inspiring
than the human brain itself—its complexity, its untapped
potential. We want to realize some of that potential in our lives,
not wallow in the cynical slacker attitude. We see a purpose
behind everything that we experience and see. In the end, what
we want is to fuse the curiosity and excitement we had toward
the world as children, when almost everything seemed
enchanting, with our adult intelligence.
The whole law of human existence consists in nothing other than a
man’s always being able to bow before the immeasurably great. If
people are deprived of the immeasurably great, they will not live and
will die in despair. The immeasurable and infinite are as necessary
for man as the small planet he inhabits.
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky
 14

Resist the Downward Pull of the

Group

The Law of Conformity

W e have a side to our character that we are generally unaware of—our

social personality, the different person we become when we operate in
groups of people. In the group setting, we unconsciously imitate what others are
saying and doing. We think differently, more concerned with fitting in and
believing what others believe. We feel different emotions, infected by the group
mood. We are more prone to taking risks, to acting irrationally, because
everyone else is. This social personality can come to dominate who we are.
Listening so much to others and conforming our behavior to them, we slowly lose
a sense of our uniqueness and the ability to think for ourselves. The only solution
is to develop self-awareness and a superior understanding of the changes that
occur in us in groups. With such intelligence, we can become superior social
actors, able to outwardly fit in and cooperate with others on a high level, while
retaining our independence and rationality.

An Experiment in Human Nature

As a young boy growing up in communist China, Gao Jianhua (b. 1952) dreamed
of becoming a great writer. He loved literature, and his teachers commended him
for his essays and poems. In 1964 he gained admittance to the Yizhen Middle
School (YMS), not far from where his family lived. Located in the town of Yizhen,
several hundred miles north of Beijing, YMS was labeled a “key school”—over 90
percent of its students went on to college. It was difficult to get into and quite
prestigious. At YMS, Jianhua was a quiet and studious boy; he had ambitions of
graduating in six years with a top record, good enough to get into Beijing
University, from where he would launch the writing career he dreamed about.
Students at YMS lived on campus, and life there could be rather dull, since the
Communist Party regulated almost every aspect of life in China, including
education. There were daily military drills, propaganda classes, manual labor
duty, and regular classes, which could be rigorous.
At YMS, Jianhua developed a close friendship with a classmate named Fangpu,
perhaps the most zealous communist at school. Pale and thin and wearing glasses,
Fangpu looked the type of the intellectual revolutionary. He was four years older
than Jianhua, but they had bonded over their common love of literature and their
desire to become writers. They had their differences—Fangpu’s poetry centered on
political issues; he worshipped Chairman Mao Zedong and wanted to emulate not
only his writings but also his revolutionary career. Jianhua, on the other hand,
had little interest in politics, even though his father was a respected communist
war veteran and government official. But they enjoyed their literary discussions,
and Fangpu treated Jianhua like a younger brother.
In May of 1966, as Jianhua was engrossed in his studies, preparing for the final
exams to end his second year, Fangpu paid him a visit, and he seemed unusually
animated. He had been scouring the Beijing newspapers to keep up with trends in
the capital, and recently he had read of a literary debate started by several
renowned intellectuals that he had to share with Jianhua.
These intellectuals had accused well-known, respected writers of hiding
counterrevolutionary messages in their plays, films, and magazine articles. They
based these accusations on careful readings of certain passages in the writers’
work that could be seen as veiled criticisms of Mao himself. “Certain people are
using art and literature to attack the party and socialism,” said Fangpu. This
debate is about the future of the revolution, he said, and Mao must be behind it
all. To Jianhua it all seemed a bit tedious and academic, but he trusted his older
friend’s instincts, and he promised to follow the events in the newspaper.
Fangpu’s words proved prophetic: within a week, papers throughout China had
picked up the story of the raging debate. Teachers at YMS began to talk about
some of the newspaper articles in their classes. One day the school’s Communist
Party secretary, a paunchy man named Ding Yi, called for an assembly and gave a
speech recounting almost verbatim an editorial against the counterrevolutionary
writers. Something was definitely in the air. The students now had to devote so
many hours every day to discussing the latest turns in the debate.
Throughout Beijing, posters with large headlines had appeared everywhere
attacking the “antiparty black line,” meaning those who were secretly trying to put
the brakes on the communist revolution. Ding supplied the students with
materials for making their own posters, and the students happily threw
themselves into the task. They largely copied the posters from Beijing; Jianhua’s
friend Zongwei, a talented artist, made the most attractive posters of all, with his
elegant calligraphy. Within days, almost all of the walls of the school were covered
with posters, and Secretary Ding roamed around the campus reading them,
smiling and approving of the work. To Jianhua it was all quite novel and exciting,
and he loved the new look of the campus walls.
The campaign in Beijing focused on local intellectuals everyone knew, but in
Yizhen this seemed rather distant. If China was being infiltrated by all kinds of
counterrevolutionaries, that meant that they had also probably infiltrated the
school itself, and the only logical place for the students to look for such class
enemies was among their teachers and school officials. They began to scrutinize
their lectures and lessons for hidden messages, much as the intellectuals had done
with the work of famous writers.
The geography teacher Liu always talked about the beautiful landscapes of
China but hardly ever mentioned the inspiring words of Mao. Could that mean
something? The physics teacher Feng had an American father who had served in
the U.S. Navy; was he secretly an imperialist? Li, the teacher of Chinese, had
fought initially on the side of the nationalists against the communists during the
revolution, but in the last year had switched sides. The students had always
trusted his version of events, and he was Jianhua’s favorite teacher because he had
such a flair for telling stories. But in retrospect he seemed a bit old-fashioned and
bourgeois. Could he still be a counterrevolutionary nationalist at heart? Soon a few
posters appeared that questioned the fervor of some of these teachers. Secretary
Ding found this a trivial application of the debate, and he ordered a ban on all
posters attacking teachers.
By June the movement sweeping Beijing, and soon all of China, had acquired a
name—the Great Socialist Cultural Revolution. It was indeed Mao himself who
had instigated it all by setting up the newspaper articles, and he was to be the
ongoing leader of the new movement. He feared that China had been slipping back
into its feudal past. Old ways of thinking and acting had returned. Bureaucracies
had become breeding grounds for a new type of elite. Peasants remained relatively
powerless.
He wanted a wake-up call to revive the revolutionary spirit. He wanted the
younger generation to experience revolution firsthand by making it themselves.
He proclaimed to young people that it was “right to rebel,” but the word he used in
Chinese for this was zao fan, which literally means to turn everything upside
down. It was young people’s duty, he said, to question authority. Those who
secretly worked to pull China back into its past he called “revisionists,” and he
implored students to help him uncover the revisionists and root them out of the
new revolutionary China.
Taking these pronouncements of Mao as a call to action, Fangpu created the
most audacious poster anyone had yet seen—it was a direct attack on Secretary
Ding himself. Ding was not only the school’s party secretary but also a veteran of
the revolution and a highly respected figure. According to Fangpu, however, his
prohibition on criticizing teachers proved he was a revisionist, bent on
suppressing the questioning spirit Mao had encouraged. This created quite a stir.
The students had been reared to unquestioningly obey those in authority,
particularly respected party members. Fangpu had broken this taboo. Had he gone
too far?
A few days after the appearance of Fangpu’s poster, some strangers arrived on
campus from Beijing. They were part of “work teams” sent to schools around
China to help supervise and maintain some discipline over the bourgeoning
Cultural Revolution. The work team at YMS ordered Fangpu to publicly apologize
to Secretary Ding. At the same time, however, they lifted the ban on posters that
criticized teachers. As in schools around China, they also suspended all classes and
exams at YMS. Students were to devote themselves to making revolution, under
their watchful eye.
Suddenly feeling free of the yoke of the past and all the habits of obedience
drummed into them, the students at YMS began to brazenly attack those teachers
who had demonstrated less than revolutionary zeal or had been unkind to
students.
Jianhua felt compelled to join the campaign, but this was difficult—he
happened to like almost all of his teachers. He did not want to seem, however, like
a revisionist. Besides, he respected the wisdom and authority of Mao. He decided
to make a poster attacking Teacher Wen, who had criticized him once for not
being sufficiently interested in politics, which had bothered him at the time. He
made his criticism of her as gentle as possible. Others took this up and went
further with their attacks on Teacher Wen, and Jianhua felt bad.
To satisfy the students’ growing anger, some teachers began to confess to some
minor revolutionary sins, but this made the students feel they were hiding even
more. They had to apply more pressure to get them to reveal the truth, and a
student nicknamed “Little Bawang” (bawang meaning “overseer,” referring to his
love of giving orders) had an idea on how to do this. He had read Mao’s
description of how during the revolution in the 1940s peasants had captured the
most notorious landlords and paraded them through their villages with enormous
dunce caps on their heads and heavy wooden boards—with inscriptions describing
their crimes—hung around their necks. To avoid such public humiliation, certainly
the teachers would come clean and confess. The students agreed to try this, and
their first target for such treatment was to be Teacher Li, Jianhua’s favorite.
Teacher Li was accused of faking his switch to communism. Stories began to
come out of his telling other teachers about his visits to brothels in Shanghai.
Clearly he had a secret life, and Jianhua now felt disappointed in Li. China before
the communist revolution had been a cruel place, and if Li was working to bring
that back, he could only hate him. Unwilling to confess to any crimes, Li was the
first to be paraded through school with the dunce cap and board around his neck.
Along the way some students poured a bucket of poster paste over his head.
Jianhua followed the parade from a distance, trying to repress his uneasiness at
the humiliation of his teacher.
Led by Little Bawang, the students imposed the same fate on more teachers,
the dunce caps becoming unbearably tall and the boards heavier. Imitating their
revolutionary brothers and sisters in Beijing, the students initiated “struggle
meetings” in which they forced certain teachers into the jet-plane position—a
student standing on either side, pushing teachers to their knees, pulling their hair
back with a jerk, then holding their arms out and back, like the wings of a jet
plane. It was a most painful position, but it seemed to work, as after an hour or
two of this, with students jeering at them, many teachers began to confess. The
students were right in their suspicions—the school had been teeming with
revisionists, right under their noses!
Soon the students’ attention turned to the vice principal, Lin Sheng, who they
discovered was the son of a notorious landlord. He was the third-highest official at
school, which made this bit of news all the more salacious. Jianhua had been sent
to his office once for misbehavior, and Sheng had been quite lenient with him,
which he had appreciated at the time. The students locked Lin Sheng in a room,
where he was to stay between the struggle meetings, but one morning Jianhua,
serving as the guard on duty, opened the room to discover the vice principal had
hung himself. Once again Jianhua struggled to repress his discomfort, but he had
to admit the suicide made it seem as if Lin Sheng was indeed guilty of something.
One day, in the midst of all this, Jianhua ran into Fangpu, who was bursting
with excitement. Since his forced public apology over his poster attacking Ding, he
had been laying low. He had spent his time devouring the writings of Mao and
Marx and plotting his next move. Word had come from Beijing that the work
teams were to be withdrawn from all schools. Students were to form their own
committee, choose a school official to be its head, and run the school itself through
the committee. Fangpu planned on becoming the student leader of the committee.
And he was going to wage open revolution against Secretary Ding. Jianhua could
only admire his bravery and persistence.
Through Little Bawang, who had forced more and more confessions from
teachers, Fangpu learned that Secretary Ding had had affairs with at least two
female teachers, revealing his audacious hypocrisy. He was the one continually
ranting against Western decadence and was always admonishing the male and
female students at Yizhen to keep their distance from each other. Bawang and
Fangpu ransacked his office and found that he had been hoarding food coupons
and possessed a fancy radio and bottles of nice wine, all hidden away.
 Now posters attacking Ding filled the walls. Even Jianhua felt indignant at his
behavior. Soon Ding Yi was paraded through school and then through the town of
Yizhen, on his head the most enormous dunce cap, decorated with drawings of
monsters, and a very heavy drum hung around his neck. As he drummed with one
hand while holding the cap with the other, he had to chant, “I am Ding Yi, ox
demon and snake spirit.” Citizens of Yizhen, who knew Secretary Ding, gaped at
the spectacle. The world had indeed been turned upside down.
By the middle of the summer, most of the teachers had fled. When it came time
to form the committee to run the school, only a few remained to serve as chairman
of the committee, and with Fangpu as the student leader, a little-known and rather
harmless teacher named Deng Zeng was named chairman. Now the work team left
YMS, and Deng and the committee were in charge.
And as the students progressed in making revolution, Jianhua began to feel
increasingly excited. He and his friend Zongwei carried old spears and swords as
they patrolled the school looking for spies, and it was just like in the novels he
loved to read. He and the other students marched in columns into town, waving
enormous red flags, carrying large posters of Chairman Mao and copies of his little
red book, chanting slogans, banging on drums, and crashing cymbals. It was so
dramatic, and it felt like they were indeed participating in revolution. One day,
they marched through Yizhen tearing down store and street signs that were
vestiges of prerevolutionary China. Mao would be proud of them.
In Beijing, some students had formed groups to support and defend Mao in his
Cultural Revolution; they called themselves Red Guards, and their members wore
bright red armbands. Mao gave his personal approval to this, and now Red Guard
units began to appear in schools and universities around the country. Only the
purest and most fervent revolutionaries could be admitted to the Red Guards, and
competition was fierce to join their ranks. Because of his father’s illustrious past,
Jianhua became a member of the Red Guards, and now he basked in the admiring
glances of fellow students and local citizens who noticed the bright red armband
that never left him.
There was one wrinkle, however, in these exciting events: On a visit home to
see his family in the nearby town of Lingzhi, Jianhua discovered that local
students had accused his father of being a revisionist. He cared more about
farming and economics than about making revolution, said the students. They had
gotten him dismissed from his government position; he had had to suffer through
various struggle meetings in the jet-plane position. The family was in disgrace.
Although he loved and admired his father and worried for him, he could not help
but feel anxious that, if news of this disgrace reached his school, he might lose his
red armband and be ostracized. He would have to be careful when talking about
his family.
When he returned to school several weeks later, he noticed some radical
changes that had already occurred: Fangpu had consolidated power. He had
formed a new group called the East-Is-Red Corps; he and his team had kicked out
Chairman Deng and were now running the school themselves. They had started
their own newspaper, called Battlefield News, to promote and defend their
actions. Jianhua also learned that another teacher had died under suspicious
circumstances.
One day, Fangpu visited Jianhua and invited him to be a star reporter for
Battlefield News. Fangpu looked different—he had put on weight, was not so pale,
and was trying to grow a beard. It was a tempting offer from his friend, but
something made Jianhua put him off, and Fangpu did not like this, although he
tried to disguise his annoyance with a forced smile. Fangpu was beginning to
frighten Jianhua.
Students were now joining the East-Is-Red Corps en masse, but within a few
weeks a rival group, calling themselves the Red Rebels, emerged on campus. Their
leader was Mengzhe, a student whose parents were peasants and who advocated
revolution that was more tolerant, based on reason and not violence, which he felt
was the purer form of Maoism. He gained some adherents, including Jianhua’s
older brother, Weihua, who was a student at YMS. Mengzhe’s growing popularity
infuriated Fangpu; he called him a royalist, a sentimentalist, and secret
counterrevolutionary. He and his followers destroyed the Red Rebels’ office and
threatened to do worse. It would certainly cause a complete rift with Fangpu, but
Jianhua contemplated joining the Red Rebels. He was attracted to their idealism.
Just as the tension between the two sides was escalating into outright war, a
representative from the Chinese military arrived on campus and announced that
the army was now in charge. Mao had dispatched army units throughout the
country to take control of schools. The increasing chaos and violence that was
engulfing YMS was going on all over China, not only in schools but in factories and
government offices as well; the Cultural Revolution was spinning out of control.
Soon thirty-six soldiers arrived on campus, part of an army unit known as the 901;
they ordered that all factions disband and that classes resume. There would be
military drilling and discipline would be reestablished.
Too much had changed, however, in the eight months since this had all begun.
The students could not accept such a sudden return to discipline. They sulked and
did not turn up at classes. Fangpu took charge of the campaign to get rid of the
soldiers: he put up posters accusing the 901 of being enemies of the Cultural
Revolution. One day, he and his followers attacked one of the army officers with a
slingshot and wounded him. Just as the students feared reprisals, the 901 unit was
suddenly recalled from campus without any explanation.
The students were now completely on their own, and it seemed a frightening
prospect. They quickly allied themselves with one of the two groups. Some joined
the East-Is-Red Corps because it was larger and offered better positions; others
joined the Red Rebels because they hated Fangpu and Little Bawang; and others
thought one group or the other was more revolutionary. Jianhua joined the Red
Rebels, as did his friend Zongwei.
Each side felt certain it represented the true spirit of the Cultural Revolution,
and as they yelled at one another and argued, fistfights broke out, and there was
nobody to stop them. Soon students were bringing bats and sticks to the fights,
and the injuries mounted. One day some members of the East-Is-Red Corps
captured some Red Rebels and held them prisoners. The Red Rebels could not
find out anything about their fate.
In the middle of this tense moment, the Red Rebels discovered that one of their
members, a female student named Yulan, was actually a spy for the other side.
Infuriated by such tactics, they tied Yulan up and began to beat her, to find out if
there were more spies. Much to the dismay of Jianhua, who considered this a
betrayal of their ideals, they battered and bruised her, but she revealed nothing.
Soon Yulan was exchanged for the prisoners held by the East-Is-Red Corps, but
now the antipathy between the two sides had reached a breaking point.
A few weeks later, the East-Is-Red Corps suddenly left school en masse and
established their headquarters in a building in town that they seized. Mengzhe
decided to form a team of guerrilla fighters who would operate in Yizhen at night
to keep an eye on the Corps and do some sabotage work. Jianhua was assigned to
them as a reporter. It was an exciting job. As they encountered the enemy in town,
battles with slingshots erupted. Then the Corps captured one of the Rebel
guerrillas, named Heping. A few days later, he was discovered in a hospital, dead.
The Corps had taken him for a ride in a jeep in the desert, with a sock in his
mouth, and he had suffocated along the way. Now even Mengzhe had had enough
and vowed revenge for this horrible deed. Jianhua could only agree with him.
As the skirmishes spread throughout the town, citizens fled and entire
buildings were abandoned, and looters scoured them for goods. The Red Rebels
were soon on the offensive. Working with local craftsmen, they manufactured the
highest-quality swords and spears. Casualties mounted. Finally the Rebels
encircled the Corps’s stronghold in town and prepared for a final offensive. The
Corps fled, leaving behind a small band of student soldiers in the building. The
Rebels demanded their surrender, and suddenly, from a third-floor window, there
was the young student Yulan screaming out, “I’d rather die than surrender to
you!” With the Corps’s bright red flag in her hand, she shouted, “Long live
Chairman Mao!” and jumped. Jianhua found her lifeless body wrapped up in the
flag on the ground. Her devotion to the cause astounded and impressed him.
Now in control, the Red Rebels established their headquarters at the school
and prepared their defenses for a counteroffensive from the Corps. They built a
makeshift munitions factory on campus. Some students had learned how to make
grenades and various powerful explosive devices. An inadvertent explosion killed
several of them, but the work went on. Zongwei, the artist, had had enough;
somehow the noble origins of the Red Rebels had been lost, and he feared the
expanding violence; he fled Yizhen for good. Jianhua lost respect for his friend.
How could Zongwei forget those who had been injured or died for their cause? To
give up now would be to say it was all in vain. He would not be a coward like his
friend. Besides, the East-Is-Red Corps was downright evil and was capable of
doing anything to take power. They had betrayed the revolution.
As life at the school settled down and the Red Rebels built up their defenses,
Jianhua visited his family, whom he had not seen for a while. When he finally
returned one night to school, however, he could not believe his eyes: his Red Rebel
comrades were nowhere in sight; their flag was no longer flying above the school.
Everywhere there were armed soldiers. Finally he found a few comrades hiding in
a school building, and they told him what had happened: Mao was reasserting his
authority once and for all; he was picking sides in various local conflicts to help
create some order; and the military in the county had come down on the side of
the East-Is-Red Corps as the more truly revolutionary group. The repercussions of
this could be awful.
Jianhua and several other comrades decided they would try to escape and
regroup in the mountains, where Mengzhe had apparently fled, but there was a
blockade throughout the county and they were forced back to school, which had
become more of a prison, overseen by the East-Is-Red Corps.
Now the Rebels could only expect the worst. To the Corps, they were a bunch of
counterrevolutionaries who had beaten and killed their comrades. Then one day,
as the Red Rebel members on campus were huddled together in a room, the
leaders of the East-Is-Red Corps, including Fangpu and Little Bawang, entered
with grenades tied to their belts. Fangpu carried a blacklist of all those who were
to be taken from the room, clearly for some nefarious purpose. Fangpu appeared
friendly toward Jianhua and told him it was not too late to change sides, but
Jianhua could no longer see Fangpu in the same light. His friendliness made him
seem even more sinister.
That night they could hear the screams of their blacklisted comrades from
another building. Then news reached them that Corps members had found
Mengzhe, beaten him up, and marched him back to school, where he was under
arrest as well. In the room next to where Jianhua and his friends now slept, they
observed Little Bawang and his team covering the windows with blankets. They
were transforming it into a torture chamber. Soon they noticed former Red Rebels
limping about on campus, afraid to talk to anyone. Then it was Jianhua’s turn to
be taken into the room. He was blindfolded and tied to a chair in a most
uncomfortable position. They wanted him to sign a withdrawal statement, and as
he hesitated to do so, they began to beat him with a chair leg. Jianhua screamed,
“You can’t do this to me. We’re classmates. We’re all class brothers. . . .”
Little Bawang would have none of this. Jianhua had to confess his crimes, the
part he had played in the various battles in town, and name names of other Red
Rebels hiding somewhere on campus. The blows on his legs became more intense,
and then they began to hit him over the head. Still blindfolded, he feared for his
life and in a panic suddenly spilled the name of a fellow Red Rebel, Dusu. Finally
they carried Jianhua, unable to walk, out of the room. He quickly felt intense
regret that he had named Dusu. What a coward he had been. He tried to warn
Dusu, but it was too late. The torturing of other Red Rebels continued in the room
next door, including his brother Weihua, beaten to a bloody pulp. Mengzhe had
his head shaved, and when they saw him next, his face was covered in the most
hideous bruises.
One day Jianhua was told his old friend and comrade Zongwei had been
captured, and when Jianhua went to see him he was unconscious, his bare legs full
of large punctures, blood oozing everywhere. They had flailed him with steel hooks
for refusing to admit his crimes. How could the rather harmless Zongwei inspire
such savagery? Jianhua ran to get the doctor, but when they returned it was too
late: Zongwei died in his friend’s arms. The dead body was quickly carted away,
and a cover story was created for how he had died. Jianhua was ordered to remain
silent. A female teacher who refused to affirm in an affidavit the official East-Is-
Red Corps version of his death was beaten and gang-raped by Little Bawang and
his followers.
In the months to come, Fangpu extended his powers everywhere, as he
essentially ran the school and classes resumed. Battlefield News was the only
newspaper allowed. The school itself had been renamed East-Is-Red Middle
School. With the Corps’s power secure, the torture chamber was dismantled.
Classes largely consisted of reciting quotes from Mao. Every morning they
assembled before a giant poster of Chairman Mao and, brandishing their little red
books, chanted to his long life.
The East-Is-Red members began a scrupulous rewriting of the past. They held
an exhibition to celebrate their victories, full of doctored photographs and fake
news reports, all to bolster their side of events. An enormous statue of Chairman
Mao, five times larger than life, was now installed at the school gate, towering over
everything else. The former members of the Red Rebels had to wear white
armbands that described their various crimes. They were made to kowtow before
the Mao statue several times a day while classmates kicked them from behind. The
former Red Rebels had become like the reviled teachers, cowed and obedient.
 Jianhua was forced to do the most menial labor, and having had enough of this,
in early summer of 1968 he returned to his hometown. His father sent him and his
brother to a farm deep in the mountains where they could be safe and work as
laborers. In September, determined to finish his studies, Jianhua returned to
school. The few months away had given him some perspective, and now when he
looked at the East-Is-Red Middle School, it appeared in a very different light:
everywhere he saw signs of unbelievable destruction—classrooms completely torn
up with no desks or chairs, the walls full of peeling posters and crumbling plaster;
the science labs devoid of all equipment; piles of rubble around the campus;
unmarked graves; the music hall blown up by a bomb; and hardly a reputable
teacher or official left to resume their education.
All of this destruction in a few short years, and for what? What did Heping and
Yulan and Zongwei and so many others die for? What had they been fighting over?
What had they learned? He could no longer figure it out, and the waste of their
young lives filled him with disgust and despair.
Soon Jianhua and his brother joined the army, to escape the school and bury
their memories. Over the following years, as he drove an army truck delivering
stone and cement, he and his comrades watched the slow disassembling of the
Cultural Revolution, all of its former leaders falling into disgrace. After the death
of Mao in 1976, the Communist Party itself finally condemned the Cultural
Revolution as a national catastrophe.

• • •
Interpretation: The above story and characters come from the book Born Red
(1987) by Gao Yuan. (After the Cultural Revolution, the author changed his name
from Gao Jianhua to Gao Yuan.) It is his nonfiction account of the events he
participated in at his school during the Cultural Revolution.
In essence, the Cultural Revolution was Mao’s attempt to try to alter human
nature itself. According to Mao, through millennia of capitalism in various forms,
humans had become individualistic and conservative, bound to their social class.
Mao wanted to wipe the slate clean and start over. As he explained it, “A clean
sheet of paper has no blotches, and so the newest and most beautiful pictures can
be painted on it.” To get his blank canvas, Mao would have to shake things up on a
mass scale by uprooting old habits and ways of thinking and by eradicating
people’s mindless respect for those in authority. Once he accomplished this, Mao
could start to paint something bold and new on the clean sheet. The result would
be a fresh generation that could begin to forge a classless society not weighed
down by the past.
The events depicted in Born Red reveal in a microcosm the result of Mao’s
experiment—how human nature cannot be uprooted; try to alter it and it merely
reemerges in different shapes and forms. The results of hundreds of thousands of
years of evolution and development cannot be radically reengineered by some
scheme, particularly when it involves the behavior of humans in groups, which
inevitably conforms to certain ancient patterns. (Although it might be tempting to
see what happened at YMS as mostly relevant to group adolescent behavior, young
people often represent human nature in a more naked and purer form than adults,
who are cleverer at disguising their motivations. In any case, what happened at the
school occurred throughout China—in government offices, factories, within the
army, and among Chinese of all ages—in an eerily similar way.) Here’s exactly how
Mao’s experiment failed and what it shows about human nature.
 Mao had the following specific strategy to enact his bold idea: Focus people’s
attention on a legitimate enemy—in this case, revisionists, those who consciously
or unconsciously were clinging to the past. Encourage people, particularly the
young, to actively fight against this reactionary force, but also against any
entrenched forms of authority. In struggling against these conservative enemies,
the Chinese would be able to free themselves from old patterns of thinking and
acting; they would finally get rid of elites and ranking systems; and they would
unify as a revolutionary class with utmost clarity as to what they were fighting for.
His strategy, however, had a fatal flaw at its core: when people operate in
groups, they do not engage in nuanced thinking and deep analysis. Only
individuals with a degree of calmness and detachment can do so. People in groups
feel emotional and excited. Their primary desire is to fit in to the group spirit.
Their thinking tends to be simplistic—good versus evil, with us or against us. They
naturally look for some type of authority to simplify matters for them. Deliberately
creating chaos, as Mao did, only makes the group more certain to fall into these
primitive patterns of thinking, since it is too frightening for humans to live with
too much confusion and uncertainty.
Look at how the students at YMS responded to Mao’s call for action: When first
confronted with the Cultural Revolution, they merely transformed Mao himself
into the new authority to guide them. They swallowed his ideas with very little
personal reflection. They imitated the actions of others in Beijing in the most
conventional way. Looking for revisionists, they tended to base their judgments on
appearances—the clothes the teachers wore, the special food or wine they drank,
their manners, their family background. Such appearances could be quite
deceptive. Teacher Wen was radical in her beliefs but was judged a revisionist
based on her fondness for Western-style fashion.
In the old order, the students were supposed to give total obedience to their all-
powerful teachers. Suddenly freed from all that, they remained just as emotionally
tied to the past. The teachers still seemed all-powerful, but now as scheming
counterrevolutionaries. The students’ repressed resentment at having to be so
obedient now boiled over into anger and the desire to be the ones doing the
punishing and oppressing. When the teachers confessed to crimes they mostly had
never committed, to avoid the escalating punishments, that only seemed to
confirm the students in their paranoia. They had shifted roles from obedient
students to oppressors, but their thinking had become even more simplistic and
irrational, the opposite of Mao’s intentions.
In the power vacuum that Mao had now created, another timeless group
dynamic emerged: those who were naturally more assertive, aggressive, and even
sadistic (in this case Fangpu and Little Bawang) pushed their way forward and
assumed power, while those who were more passive (Jianhua, Zongwei) quietly
receded into the background, becoming followers. The aggressive types at YMS
now formed a new class of elites, doling out perks and privileges. Similarly, amid
all the confusion the Cultural Revolution had spawned, the students became even
more obsessed with status within the group. Who was in the red category among
them, and who in the black, they wondered? Was it better now to come from the
peasantry or the proletariat? How could they finagle membership in the Red
Guards and garner that beautiful red armband that signified revolutionary elite
status? Instead of naturally inclining toward a new egalitarian order, the students
kept straining to occupy superior positions.
Once all forms of authority were removed and the students ran the school,
there was nothing to stop the next and most dangerous development in group
dynamics—the split into tribal factions. By nature, we humans reject attempts by
anyone to completely monopolize power, as Fangpu tried to do. This cuts off
opportunities for other ambitious, aggressive people. It also creates large
groupings in which individual members can feel somewhat lost. Almost
automatically, groups will split into rival smaller factions and tribes. In the rival
tribe, a new, charismatic leader (Mengzhe in this case) can assume power and
members can identify more easily with the smaller number of comrades. The
bonds are tight and made even tighter by the struggle against the tribal enemy.
People may think they are joining because of the different ideas or goals of this
tribe or the other, but what they want more than anything is the sense of
belonging and a clear tribal identity.
Look at the actual differences between the East-Is-Red Corps and the Red
Rebels. As the battle between them intensified, it was hard to say what they were
fighting for, except to assume power over the other group. One strong or vicious
act of one side called for a reprisal from the other, and any type of violence seemed
totally justified. There could be no middle ground, nor any questioning of the
rightness of their cause. The tribe is always right, and to say otherwise is to betray
it, as Zongwei did.
Mao had wanted to forge a unified Chinese citizenry, clear as to its goals, and
instead the entire country descended into tribal battles completely disconnected
from the original purpose of the Cultural Revolution. To make matters worse, the
crime rate soared and the economy had ground to a halt, as hardly anyone felt
compelled to work or manufacture anything. The masses had become even lazier
and more resentful than under the old order.
By the spring of 1968, Mao’s only recourse was to install a police state.
Hundreds of thousands were thrown into prisons. The army virtually took over. To
help restore order and respect for authority, Mao converted himself into a cult
figure, his image to be worshipped and his words to be repeated like revolutionary
prayers. It is interesting to note how Fangpu’s form of repression at YMS—the
torture, the rewriting of history, the control of all media—mirrored what Mao was
doing throughout the country. The new revolutionary society that Mao (and
Fangpu) had wanted now actually resembled the most repressive, superstitious
regimes of feudal China. As Jianhua’s father, a victim of the Cultural Revolution
himself, kept telling his son, “A thing turns into its opposite if pushed too far.”
Understand: We will tend to imagine that this story is an extreme example
that has little relevance to our own lives and the groups we belong to. After all, we
navigate through worlds full of sophisticated people in high-tech offices, where
everyone is seemingly so polite and civilized. We see ourselves in a similar way: we
have our progressive ideals and our independent thinking. But much of this is an
illusion. If we looked at ourselves closely and honestly, we would have to admit
that the moment we enter our workspace or any group, we undergo a change. We
easily slip into more primitive modes of thinking and behaving, without realizing
it.
Around others, we naturally tend to feel insecure as to what they think of us.
We feel pressure to fit in, and to do so, we begin to shape our thoughts and beliefs
to the group orthodoxies. We unconsciously imitate others in the group—in
appearances, verbal expressions, and ideas. We tend to worry a lot about our
status and where we rank in the hierarchy: “Am I getting as much respect as my
colleagues?” This is the primate part of our nature, as we share this obsession with
status with our chimpanzee relatives. Depending on patterns from early
childhood, in the group setting we become more passive or more aggressive than
usual, revealing the less developed sides of our character.
When it comes to leaders, we generally don’t see them as ordinary people. We
tend to feel somewhat awed and intimidated in their presence, as if they possessed
some mythical extra powers. When we contemplate our group’s main rival or
enemy, we can’t help but get a little heated and angry and exaggerate any negative
qualities. If others in the group are feeling anxious or outraged by something, we
often get swept up in the group mood. All of these are subtle indications that we
are under the influence of the group. If we are experiencing the above
transformations, we can be sure the same is going on with our colleagues.
Now imagine some outside threat to our group’s well-being or stability, a crisis
of sorts. All of the above reactions would be intensified by the stress, and our
apparently civilized, sophisticated group could become quite volatile. We would
feel greater pressure to prove our loyalty and go along with anything the group
advocated. Our thinking about the rival/enemy would become even more
simplistic and heated. We would be subject to more powerful waves of viral
emotions, including panic or hatred or grandiosity. Our group could split up into
factions with tribal dynamics. Charismatic leaders could easily emerge to exploit
this volatility. If pushed far enough, the potential for aggression lies under the
surface of almost any group. But even if we hold back from overt violence, the
primitive dynamic that takes over can have grave consequences, as the group
overreacts and makes decisions based on exaggerated fears or uncontrollable
excitement.
To resist this downward pull that groups inevitably exert on us, we must
conduct a very different experiment in human nature from Mao’s, with a simple
goal in mind—to develop the ability to detach ourselves from the group and create
some mental space for true independent thinking. We begin this experiment by
accepting the reality of the powerful effect that the group has on us. We are
brutally honest with ourselves, aware of how our need to fit in can shape and warp
our thinking. Does that anxiety or sense of outrage that we feel come completely
from within, or is it inspired by the group? We must observe our tendency to
demonize the enemy and control it. We must train ourselves to not blindly
venerate our leaders; we respect them for their accomplishments without feeling
the need to deify them. We must be especially careful around those who have
charismatic appeal, and try to demystify and pull them down to earth. With such
awareness, we can begin to resist and detach.
As part of this experiment we must not only accept human nature but work
with what we have to make it productive. We inevitably feel the need for status
and recognition, so let’s not deny it. Instead, let’s cultivate such status and
recognition through our excellent work. We must accept our need to belong to the
group and prove our loyalty, but let’s do it in more positive ways—by questioning
group decisions that will harm it in the long run, by supplying divergent opinions,
by steering the group in a more rational direction, gently and strategically. Let’s
use the viral nature of emotions in the group but play on a different set of
emotions: by staying calm and patient, by focusing on results and cooperating
with others to get practical things done, we can begin to spread this spirit
throughout the group. And by slowly mastering the primitive part of our character
within the heated environment of the group, we can emerge as individuals who are
truly independent and rational—the end point of our experiment.
When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.
 —Eric Hoffer

Keys to Human Nature

At certain moments in life, we humans may experience an energy that is powerful,
with sensations unlike any other, but this energy is something we rarely discuss or
analyze. We can describe it as an intense feeling of belonging to a group, and we
often experience it in the following situations.
Let us say we find ourselves in a large audience for a concert, sporting event, or
political rally. At a certain point, waves of excitement, anger, or joy move through
us, shared by thousands of others. These emotions rise in us automatically. We
cannot experience this when alone or with just a few people. In this larger group
setting, we might be led to say or do things we would never have said or done on
our own.
In a similar vein, perhaps we have to give a talk before a group. If we are not
too nervous and the crowd is on our side, we experience a swelling of emotion
from deep within. We’re feeding off the audience. Our voice changes to a pitch and
tone we never have in daily life; our gestures and body language become unusually
animated. We might also experience this from the other side, when we listen to a
charismatic speaker. That person seems to be invested with some sort of special
force that commands our respect and fills us with increasing excitement.
Or perhaps we find ourselves working in a group with a critical goal to reach
within a short time frame. We feel compelled to do more than we normally can, to
work extra hard. We feel a charge of energy that comes from feeling connected to
others who are working with the same urgent spirit. A point is reached at which
members of the group do not even have to talk—we’re all on the same page and
can even anticipate the thoughts of our colleagues.
The above feelings are not registered rationally; they come to us in automatic
bodily sensations—goose bumps, racing heartbeat, extra vitality and power. Let us
call us this energy the social force, a type of invisible force field that affects and
binds a group of people through shared sensations and creates an intense feeling
of connection.
If we confront this force field as outsiders, it tends to induce anxiety. For
instance, we find ourselves traveling to a place with a culture very different from
our own. Or we begin a job at a workplace where people seem to have their own
way of relating to one another, with a secret language of sorts. Or we walk through
a neighborhood of a much different social class than what we’re used to—much
wealthier or poorer. In these moments, we are aware that we don’t belong, that
others are looking at us as outsiders, and from deep within we feel uneasy and
unusually alert, although in fact we may have nothing really to fear.
We can observe several interesting elements to the social force: First, it exists
inside us and outside us at the same time. When we experience the bodily
sensations mentioned above, we are almost certain that others on our side are
feeling the same. We feel the force within, but we think of it as outside ourselves as
well. This is an unusual sensation, perhaps equivalent to what we feel when we are
in love and experience a shared energy that passes between ourselves and the love
object.
We can also say this force differs, depending on the size and chemistry of the
particular group. In general, the larger the group, the more intense is the effect.
When we are among a very large group of people who seem to share our ideas or
values, we feel quite a rush of increased strength and vitality, as well as a
communal warmth or heat that comes from feeling that we belong. There is
something awesome and sublime about this force multiplied in a large crowd. This
increase in energy and excitement can easily shift to anger and violence in the
presence of an enemy. The particular mix of people shapes the effect as well. If the
leader is charismatic and bursting with energy, it filters through the group or
gathered masses. If a large number of individuals have a particular emotional
tendency toward anger or joy, that will alter the collective mood.
And finally, we are drawn to this force. We feel attracted to numbers—a
stadium full of partisan supporters of a team, choirs of people singing, parades,
carnivals, concerts, religious assemblies, and political conventions. In these
situations, we are reliving what our ancestors invented and refined—the gathering
of the clan, massed soldiers parading in columns before the city walls, early
theatrical and gladiatorial spectacles. Subtracting the minority who feel frightened
by such gatherings, we generally have a love of partisan crowds for their own sake.
They make us feel alive and vital. This can become an addiction—we feel
compelled to expose ourselves to this energy again and again. Music and dance
epitomize this aspect of the social force. The group experiences the rhythm and
melody as one, and music and dance are among the earliest forms we created to
satisfy this urge, to externalize the force.
We can observe one other aspect to the social force, in its reverse form: when
we experience a prolonged period of isolation. We know from the accounts of
prisoners in solitary confinement and explorers isolated in remote regions (see
Richard E. Byrd’s account of his harrowing five months in isolation in Antarctica,
in his book Alone) that they begin to feel disconnected from reality and sense that
their personalities are disintegrating. They become prone to elaborate
hallucinations. What they miss most of all is not simply the presence of people
near them but the eyes of others looking back at them. We formed our whole
concept of ourselves in our first months as we looked at our mothers; her return
gaze gave us a sense that we existed; she told us who we were by how she looked at
us. As adults, we experience the same kind of nonverbal validation and sense of
self through the eyes of others who look at us. We are never aware of this; it would
take prolonged isolation to understand the phenomenon.
This is the social force at its most basic level—only the eyes of other people can
reassure us that we are real and whole and that we belong.
The social force can make itself felt in our virtual worlds and virtual crowds. It
is less intense than being in an actual crowd, but we can feel the presence of others
in a phantom-like way through the screen (inside us and outside us), and we
continually consult our smartphones as a kind of substitute pair of eyes upon us.
The social force among humans is merely a more complex version of what all
social animals experience. Social animals are continually attuned to the emotions
of others within the group, aware of their role in the pack and anxious to fit in.
(Among higher primates, this includes imitating those higher up in the rank as a
show of inferiority.) They display elaborate physical cues that allow the group to
communicate and cooperate. They have grooming rituals to tighten their bonds,
and hunting in packs has a similar effect. They experience a shared energy when
simply assembled together.
We humans may seem much more sophisticated, but the same dynamic occurs
in us as well, on a completely subverbal level. We sense and feel what others in the
group are feeling. We have an urgent need to fit in and play our role in the group.
We are prone to unconsciously imitate gestures and expressions, particularly from
leaders. We still like to hunt in packs, through social media or wherever it is
acceptable to vent our anger. We have our own rituals to tighten group bonds—
religious or political assemblies, spectacles, warfare. And we most definitely
experience a collective energy that passes through any group of like-minded
people.
What is most peculiar about this force as it exists within us is how little we
discuss or analyze something that is so obviously common to our experience.
Some of this may come from the fact that it is hard to study these sensations in a
rigorously scientific manner. But there is also something willful about this
ignorance; deep down, this phenomenon troubles us. Our automatic reactions in a
group, or our propensity to imitate others, reminds us of the most primitive
aspects of our nature, our animal roots. We want to imagine ourselves not only as
civilized and sophisticated but also as individuals with conscious control of much
of what we do. Our group behavior tends to shatter this myth, and historical
examples such as the Cultural Revolution frighten us with our own possibilities.
We do not like to see ourselves as social animals operating under particular
compulsions. It offends our self-opinion as a species.
Understand: The social force is neither positive nor negative. It is simply a
physiological part of our nature. Many aspects of this force that evolved so long
ago are quite dangerous in the modern world. For instance, the deep suspicion we
tend to feel toward outsiders to our group, and our need to demonize them,
evolved among our earliest ancestors because of the tremendous dangers of
infectious diseases and the aggressive intentions of rival hunter-gatherers. But
such group reactions are no longer relevant in the twenty-first century. In fact,
with our technological prowess, they can be the source of our most violent and
genocidal behavior. In general, to the degree that the social force tends to degrade
our ability to think independently and rationally, we can say it exerts a downward
pull into more primitive ways of behaving, unsuited to modern conditions.
The social force, however, can be used and shaped for positive purposes, for
high-level cooperation and empathy, for an upward pull, which we experience
when we create something together in a group.
The problem we face as social animals is not that we experience this force,
which occurs automatically, but that we are in denial of its existence. We become
influenced by others without realizing it. Accustomed to unconsciously following
what others say and do, we lose the ability to think for ourselves. When faced with
critical decisions in life, we simply imitate what others have done or listen to
people who parrot conventional wisdom. This can lead to many inappropriate
decisions. We also lose contact with what makes us unique, the source of our
power as individuals (see chapter 13 for more on this).
Some people, aware of these tendencies in our nature, may choose to rebel and
become nonconformists. But this can be equally mindless and self-destructive. We
are social creatures. We depend on our ability to work with others. Rebelling for
its own sake will simply marginalize us.
What we need more than anything is group intelligence. This intelligence
includes a thorough understanding of the effect that groups have on our thinking
and emotions; with such awareness, we can resist the downward pull. It also
includes understanding how human groups operate according to certain laws and
dynamics, which can make it easier to navigate through such spaces. With such
intelligence, we can do a delicate dance—we can become gifted social actors and
outwardly fit in, while inwardly maintaining some distance and some mental
space to think for ourselves. With this degree of independence, we can make
decisions in life that are appropriate to who we are and our circumstances.
To acquire this intelligence, we must study and master the two aspects of the
social force outlined above—the individual effect of groups on us and the patterns
and dynamics that groups will almost always tend to fall into.

The Individual Effect

The desire to fit in: Let us say that you enter a group, as part of a new job for
instance. As you try to adjust to the environment, you become aware that people
are scrutinizing and judging you as the outsider. On a nonverbal level, you feel
their eyes probing you for clues. You begin to wonder: Do I fit in? Have I said the
right things? What do they think of me? The first and primary effect on you in
any group is the desire to fit in and cement your sense of belonging. The more
you fit in, the less you pose a challenge to the group and its values. This will
minimize the scrutiny you face and the anxiety that comes with it.
The first way you do this is through appearances. You dress and present
yourself more or less as the others do in the group. There are always a small
percentage of people who like to stand out in their look but manage to conform
when it comes to ideas and values. Most of us, however, are uncomfortable
looking too different, and we do what we can to blend in. We adopt the clothes and
looks that say the right thing—I’m serious, I work hard, I may have style but not so
much of it that I stand out.
The second and more important way you fit in is by adopting the ideas, beliefs,
and values of the group. You may begin to use similar verbal expressions as others,
a sign of what’s happening below the surface. Your own ideas slowly shape
themselves to those of the group. Some people may outwardly rebel against such
conformity, but they are usually the types who are eventually fired or
marginalized. You may hold on to a few peculiar beliefs or opinions that you
largely keep to yourself, but not on issues important to the group. The longer you
are in the group, the stronger and more insidious this effect.
If you observed this group from the outside, you would notice an overall
uniformity of thinking that is quite surprising, considering that as individuals we
all differ quite a bit from one another in temperament and background. This is a
sign of the subtle molding and conformity that takes place. You might have joined
a group because you share their ideas and values, but you will find over time that
the parts of your thinking that were a little different from others, reflecting your
uniqueness, are slowly trimmed way, like a shrub made to match the others, so
that on almost all issues you agree with the group.
You are not aware of all this as it is happening to you. It occurs unconsciously.
In fact, you will tend to vociferously deny such conformity has ever taken place.
You will imagine that you have come upon these ideas on your own, that you have
chosen to believe this and think that. You don’t want to confront the social force
operating on you and causing you to blend in and enhance your sense of
belonging. In the long run, it is much better to confront your conformity to the
group ethos, so that you can become aware of it as it happens and control the
process to some degree.
The need to perform: Stemming from this first effect is the second effect—in
the group setting, we are always performing. It is not just that we conform in
appearances and thinking but that we exaggerate our agreement and show others
that we belong. In the group, we become actors, molding what we say and do so
that others accept and like us and see us as loyal team members. Our
performances change depending on the size of the group and its particular
makeup—bosses or colleagues or friends. We might begin with a degree of inner
distance in these performances, aware, for instance, that we are being unusually
obsequious around the boss. But over time, in acting the part we begin to feel what
we are showing; the inner distance melts away, and the mask we wear fuses into
our personality. Instead of thinking to smile in appropriate moments, we
automatically paste on the smile.
As part of this performance, we minimize our flaws and display what we
consider our strengths. We put on confidence. We act more altruistic. Studies
have shown that we are much more likely to give money or help someone cross the
road when others are looking at us. In the group, we make sure that people see we
support the right causes; we post our progressive opinions prominently on social
media. We also make sure others see us working hard and putting in extra hours.
When we are alone, we often rehearse in our minds things we will say or do for our
next performance.
Do not imagine that it is better to simply be your natural self or to rebel against
this. There is nothing more unnatural than curbing this need to perform, which
even chimpanzees display to a high degree. If you want to seem natural, as if you
are comfortable with yourself, you have to act the part; you have to train yourself
to not feel nervous and to shape your appearance so that in your naturalness you
don’t offend people or the group values. Those who sulk and refuse to perform end
up marginalized, as the group unconsciously expels such types.
In any event, you should feel no shame about this need; there is nothing you
can do about it anyway, since in the group we unconsciously mold our behavior to
fit in. Better to be aware, to retain that inner distance, and to transform yourself
into a conscious and superior actor, capable of altering your expression to fit the
subgroup and impressing people with your positive qualities.
Emotional contagion: When we were babies, we were highly sensitive to the
moods and emotions of our mother; her smiles elicited our own, her anxiety made
us tense. We evolved this high degree of empathy to the emotions of the mother as
a survival mechanism long ago. Like all social animals, we are primed from an
early age to sense and pick up the emotions of others, particularly those close to
us. This is the third effect of the group on us—the contagiousness of emotions.
When we are alone, we are aware of our shifting moods, but the moment we
enter the group and feel the eyes of others upon us, we become aware on
unconscious levels of their moods and emotions, which, if strong enough, can
displace our own. In addition, among those whom we feel comfortable and sense
that we belong, we are less defensive and more vulnerable to the contagious effect.
Certain emotions are more contagious than others, anxiety and fear being the
strongest of all. Among our ancestors, if one person sensed a danger, it was
important that others feel this as well. But in our present environment, where the
threats are less immediate, it is more like a low-grade anxiety that passes quickly
through the group, triggered by possible or imagined dangers. Other highly
contagious emotions are joy and excitement, tiredness and apathy, and intense
anger and hatred. Desire is also highly contagious. If we see that others want to
possess something or follow some new trend, we are easily infected with the same
impulse.
All of these effects have a self-fulfilling dynamic: If three people are feeling
anxious, there must be a good reason for it. Now we become the fourth, and it
gains a reality that others find compelling. The more people who feel it, the more
others will catch it and the more intense it becomes within us as individuals.
You can observe this in yourself by looking at your own emotions in the
moment and trying to decipher the effect others might have had on them. Is the
fear you are feeling related to something confronting you in an immediate sense,
or is it more secondhand, derived from what you have heard or sensed from
others? Try to catch this as it occurs. Discern which emotions are the most
contagious for you, and how your emotions shift with the various groups and
subgroups you pass through. Awareness of this gives you the power to control it.
Hypercertainty: When we are on our own and think about our decisions and
plans, we naturally feel doubts. Have we chosen the right career path? Did we say
the right thing to get the job? Are we adopting the best strategy? But when we are
in the group, this doubting, reflective mechanism is neutralized. Let us say the
group has to decide on an important strategy. We feel the urgency to act. Arguing
and deliberating is tiring, and where will it end? We feel the pressure to decide
and get behind the decision. If we dissent, we might be marginalized or excluded,
and we recoil from such possibilities. Furthermore, if everyone seems to agree that
this is the right course of action, we are compelled to feel confident about the
decision. And so the fourth effect on us is to make us feel more certain about what
we and our colleagues are doing, which makes us all the more prone to taking
risks.
This is what happens in financial crazes and bubbles—if everyone is betting on
the price of tulips or South Sea stock (see chapter 6) or subprime mortgages, it
must be a sure thing. Those who raise doubts are simply being too cautious. As
individuals, it is hard to resist what others seem so certain about. We don’t want to
miss out. Furthermore, if we were among just a few who bought this stock, and it
failed, we would feel ridiculous and ashamed, sadly responsible for being such a
sucker. But covered by thousands doing the same, we are shielded from feeling
accountable, which increases the likelihood we will take such risks in the group
setting.
If as individuals we had some plan that was clearly ridiculous, others would
warn us and bring us back down to earth, but in a group the opposite happens—
everyone seems to validate the scheme, no matter how delusional (such as
invading Iraq and expecting to be greeted as liberators), and there are no outsiders
to splash some cold water on us.
Whenever you feel unusually certain and excited about a plan or idea, you must
step back and gauge whether it is a viral group effect operating on you. If you can
detach yourself for a moment from your excitement, you might notice how your
thinking is used to rationalize your emotions, to confirm the certainty you want to
feel. Never relinquish your ability to doubt, reflect, and consider other options—
your rationality as an individual is your only protection against the madness that
can overcome a group.

Group Dynamics
Since the beginning of recorded history, we can observe certain patterns that
human groups fall into almost automatically, as if they were subject to particular
mathematical or physical laws. The following are the most common dynamics that
you must study in the groups that you belong to or pass through.
Group culture: When we travel to another country, we are aware of the
differences in culture from our own. Not only do the inhabitants have their own
language, but they also have customs, ways of looking at the world and thinking,
that are different from our own. This is more pronounced among nations which
have long traditions, but to a subtler extent we can see the same thing happening
with a company or office. It is all part of the social force blending and knitting the
group together based on the particular chemistry of its members.
When looking at your own group and its culture, think in terms of style and the
overall mood that prevails. Is it loosely structured, with an easygoing style? Or is it
organized top down, its members afraid of stepping out of line or breaking
discipline? Do its members feel superior and separate from the rest of the world,
displaying an elitist attitude, or does the group pride itself on its populism? Does it
see itself as cutting-edge or more traditionalist?
Does information flow easily throughout the group, giving it an open feel, or
does the leadership control and monopolize this flow? Does it have a masculine
feel to it—a hypercompetitive edge and a more rigid chain of command—or does it
have a more fluid, feminine spirit that emphasizes cooperation over hierarchy?
Does it seem riddled with dysfunction and disunity, its members more concerned
with their egos than with getting actual results, or does it emphasize productivity
and the quality of the work? To answer these questions, don’t pay much attention
to what the group says about itself, but rather examine its actions and the
emotional tone that prevails within.
Its style can have degrees of the above qualities, or combinations of them, but
the group will always have some type of identifiable culture and spirit. Two things
to keep in mind: First, the culture will often center on an ideal that the group
imagines for itself—liberal, modern, progressive, ruthlessly competitive, tasteful,
et cetera. The group may not live up to this ideal, but to the degree that it tries to,
the ideal operates as a myth that binds the group’s members. Second, this culture
will often reflect the founders of the group, particularly if they have a strong
personality. With their own rigid or loose style, they have put their stamp on the
group, even if it numbers in the thousands. But leaders who enter a group or
company that has its set culture will often find themselves completely absorbed by
this culture, even though they might think of altering it.
The U.S. Department of Defense, housed in the Pentagon, emerged from World
War II with a very strong, hawkish spirit. Both presidents Kennedy and Johnson
had their own views on the Pentagon and altering its culture; they both wanted to
avoid entangling the U.S. in the Vietnam War. But this aggressive culture ended
up altering their ideas and dragging them into the war. Many film directors in
Hollywood have thought of doing things their own way, only to find themselves
swallowed up by an entrenched culture that emphasizes top-down control and
micromanagement by producers, with their interminable notes. This culture has
existed for close to ninety years, and no individual has been able to alter it.
Better to be aware and realize that the larger the group and the more
established the culture over time, the more likely it will control you than the other
way around.
One thing to keep in mind: no matter the type of culture, or how disruptive it
might have been in its origins, the longer a group exists and the larger it grows, the
more conservative it will become. This is an inevitable result of the desire to hold
on to what people have made or built, and to rely on tried-and-true ways to
maintain the status quo. This creeping conservatism will often be the death of the
group, because it slowly loses the ability to adapt.
 Group rules and codes: For any human group, disorder and anarchy are too
distressing. And so standards of conduct and rules for how to do things quickly
evolve and become set. These rules and codes are never written down but are
implicit. Violate them in some way and you risk becoming a nonentity or even
being fired, without necessarily knowing the cause. In this way, the group imposes
its own order without the need for active policing. The codes will regulate
acceptable appearances, how much free talk is encouraged in meetings, the quality
of obedience in relation to bosses, the expected work ethic, et cetera.
When you are new to a group, you must pay extra attention to these tacit codes.
Look at who’s rising and who’s falling within the group—signs of the standards
that govern success and failure. Does success stem more from results or from
political schmoozing? Look at how hard people work when not being observed by
bosses. You could work too hard or do a job too well and find yourself fired for
making others look bad. There are inevitably sacred cows within the group—
people or beliefs never to be criticized. Consider all of these as trip wires you must
avoid at all costs. Sometimes a particular member of higher standing serves as the
de facto policeman or policewoman for these rules and codes. Identify such
individuals and avoid any friction with them. It’s not worth it.
The group court: Observe any community of chimpanzees at the zoo, and
you will notice the existence of an alpha male and other chimpanzees adapting
their behavior to him, fawning, imitating, and struggling to forge closer ties. This
is the prehuman version of the court. We humans created a more elaborate
version in aristocratic courts, dating from the earliest civilizations. In the
aristocratic court, the subordinate members depended on the king or queen’s
favor to survive and thrive; the object of the game was to get closer to the man or
woman on top without alienating the other courtiers, or to gang up and depose the
leader, always a risky venture.
Today the court will form around the film executive, the head of an academic
department, the CEO of a business venture, the political boss, the owner of an art
gallery, a critic or artist who has cultural power. In a large group, there will be
subcourts formed around subleaders. The more powerful the leader, the more
intense is the gamesmanship. The courtiers may look different now, but their
behavior and strategies are pretty much the same. You must take note of a few of
these behavioral patterns.
First, courtiers have to gain the attention of leaders and ingratiate themselves
in some way. The most immediate way to do this is through flattery, since leaders
inevitably have large egos and a hunger to have their high self-opinion validated.
Flattery can do wonders, but it comes with risks. If it is too obvious, the flatterer
looks desperate, and it is easy to see through the strategy. The best courtiers know
how to tailor their flattery to the particular insecurities of the leader and to make it
less direct. They focus on flattering qualities in the leader that no one else has
bothered to pay attention to but that need extra validation. If everyone praises the
leader’s business acumen but not his or her cultural refinement, you will want to
aim at the latter. Mirroring the leader’s ideas and values, without using their exact
words, can be a highly effective form of indirect flattery.
Keep in mind that forms of acceptable flattery will differ in each court. In
Hollywood, it must be more effusive than in academia or in Washington DC.
Adapt your flattery to the group spirit, and make it as indirect as possible.
Of course, it is always wise to impress bosses with your efficiency and to make
them dependent on your usefulness, but be careful of taking this too far: if they
feel you are too good at what you do, they may come to fear their dependence on
you and wonder about your ambition. Make them feel comfortable in the
superiority they believe they possess.
Second, you must pay great attention to the other courtiers. Standing out too
much, being seen as too brilliant or charming, will stir up envy, and you will die by
a thousand bites. You want as many courtiers on your side as possible. Learn to
downplay your successes, to listen (or seem to listen) deeply to the ideas of others,
strategically giving them credit and praise in meetings, paying attention to their
insecurities. If you must take action against particular courtiers, make it as
indirect as possible, working to slowly isolate them in the group, never appearing
too aggressive. Courts are always supposed to seem civilized. Be aware that the
best courtiers are consummate actors and that their smiles and professions of
loyalty mean very little. In the court, it does not pay to be naive. Without being
paranoid, try to question people’s motives.
Third, you need to be aware of the types of courtiers you will find in most
courts and the particular dangers they can pose. One aggressive but clever courtier
with little conscience can quickly dominate the group. (For more on the types of
courtiers, see the next section.)
Keep in mind that there is no way to opt out of the court dynamic. Trying to act
superior to the political games or the need to flatter will only make you look
suspicious to others; nobody likes the holier-than-thou attitude. All you’ll get for
your “honesty” is to be marginalized. Better to be the consummate courtier and
find some pleasure in the game of court strategy.
The group enemy: As mentioned above, our ancestors had a reflexive fear at
the sight of any outsiders to their group. This fear easily slid into hatred. The basis
for this fear may well have been real, but the existence of rival tribes also had a
positive side effect—it united and tightened the group. It also fit in well with the
way the human brain processes information, through binary pairs of opposites—
light and dark, good and evil, us versus them. Today, in our modern sophisticated
world, you will notice this very ancient dynamic continually at play: any group will
reflexively focus on some hated enemy, real or imagined, to help bring the tribe
together. As Anton Chekhov once noted, “Love, friendship, respect do not unite
people as much as common hatred for something.”
Since time immemorial, leaders have exploited this enemy reflex for power,
using the existence of the rival or enemy to justify almost anything and to distract
from their own shortcomings. The enemy will be described as “amoral,”
“irrational,” “untrustworthy,” or “aggressive,” the implication being that “our”
group is the opposite. No side ever likes to admit it is not pure in its ethics, or has
aggressive intentions, or is governed by emotion—it is always the other side. In
the end, the need to feel a part of the tribe and against the other side is more
important than the actual differences, which tend to be greatly exaggerated.
Look at the group you belong to, and you will inevitably see some sort of enemy
or bogeyman to push against. What you require is the ability to detach yourself
from this dynamic and to see the “enemy” as it is, minus the distortions. You will
not want to overtly display your skepticism—you might be seen as disloyal.
Instead, keep your mind open so that you can resist the downward pull and
overreactions that come from such tribal emotions. Take this even a step further
by learning from the enemy, adapting some of its superior strategies.
Group factions: Over enough time, individuals in a group will begin to split
off into factions. The reason for this dynamic is simple: In a group, we get a
narcissistic boost from being around those who share our values. But in a group
over a certain size, this becomes too abstract. The differences among the members
become noticeable. Our power to influence the group as individuals is reduced.
We want something more immediate, and so we form subgroups and cliques with
those who seem even more like us, giving us back that narcissistic boost. In this
subgrouping, we now have power to divvy up, which increases its members’ sense
of self-importance. Eventually the faction will experience its own splits from
within, on and on. This splitting occurs unconsciously, almost as if it were
responding to mechanical laws of group fission.
If a faction gets strong enough, its members will start to give precedence to its
interests over that of the greater group. Some leaders try to exploit this dynamic
by playing one faction off the other, in the form of divide and conquer: the more
the factions fight, the weaker they become, and the greater the power in the hands
of the man or woman on top. Mao Zedong was a master at this game, but it is a
dangerous one, because too much time tends to be wasted dealing with petty
internal squabbles, and it can be hard to keep them all down. If left alone, factions
can become so powerful they take over and depose or control the leaders
themselves. Better to tighten the whole group by creating a positive culture that
excites and unifies its members, making factions less attractive. (For more on this,
see the last section of this chapter.)
One faction to pay particular attention to is the one that is formed by those in
the higher echelons, which we can identify as the elites in the group. Although
elites themselves sometimes split into rival factions, more often than not, when
push comes to shove, they will unite and work to preserve their elite status. The
clan tends to look after its own, all the more so among the powerful. They will
inevitably manage to bend the group rules to ensure they tilt in their favor. In
these democratic times, they will try to cover this up by posturing that what they
are doing is for the greater good of the group. If the elites prosper, so will everyone
else, they say. But you will never actually see the elite faction doing things that will
lessen their power, or making true sacrifices. Somehow it is always those not
among the elites who must make the sacrifices. Try not to fall for their
rationalizations or cover stories, and to see this faction for what it is.

—
Your task as a student of human nature is twofold: First, you must become a
consummate observer of yourself as you interact with groups of any size. Begin
with the assumption that you are not nearly as much of an individual as you
imagine. To a great extent, your thoughts and belief system are heavily influenced
by the people who raised you, your colleagues at work, your friends, and the
culture at large. Be ruthlessly frank with yourself. Look at how your ideas and
beliefs alter the longer you stay at a job or within a particular group. You are under
subtle pressure to get along and to fit in, and you will respond to this without
being aware.
To see this clearly, think of how many times you have promoted an idea that is
contrary to what the group wants on some fundamental issue and held on to this
idea for a long period. It will probably be quite rare. Look at the bad decisions the
group has taken, and how often you went along with them. If this conformity
becomes too ingrained in you, you will lose the ability to reason on your own, your
most prized possession as a human. As a thought experiment, sometimes try
entertaining an idea that is the very opposite of the group you belong to or the
conventional wisdom. See if there is any value in deliberately going against the
grain.
We are all permeable to the influence of the group. What makes us more
permeable is our insecurities. The less we are certain about our self-worth as
individuals, the more we are unconsciously drawn toward fitting in and blending
ourselves into the group spirit. Gaining the superficial approval of group members
by displaying our conformity, we cover up our insecurities to ourselves and to
others. But this approval is fleeting; our insecurities gnaw at us, and we must
continually get people’s attention to feel validated. Your goal must be to lower
your permeability by raising your self-esteem. If you feel strong and confident
about what makes you unique—your tastes, your values, your own experience—
you can more easily resist the group effect. Furthermore, by relying upon your
work and accomplishments to anchor your self-opinion, you won’t be so tied to
constantly seeking approval and attention.
It is not that you become self-absorbed or cut off from the group—outwardly
you do what you can to fit in, but inwardly you subject the ideas and beliefs of the
group to constant scrutiny, comparing them with your own, adapting parts or all
of those that have merit and rejecting others that go against your experience. You
are putting the focus on the ideas themselves, not on where they come from.
Your second task is to become a consummate observer of the groups you belong
to or interact with. Consider yourself an anthropologist studying the strange
customs of an alien tribe. Look deeply at the culture of your group, how it “feels”
from within, the feeling contrasted to other groups you have worked with or
belonged to. You are catching the social force as it molds the group into an
organism, the sum greater than its parts.
Most people intuitively sense the rules and codes of behavior in the group. You
want to take this further by observing these rules in action and making your
knowledge of them more conscious: Why do they exist? What do they say about
the group? Gaining a deeper appreciation of the culture and codes will make it
much easier to navigate the social space and maintain a degree of detachment.
You will not try to change what cannot be changed. When it comes to the
inevitable factions that emerge, it is better to keep yourself unaligned and let
others fight over you. You do not need to belong to a faction to derive a narcissistic
boost. What you want within the group is strategic options and room to maneuver,
to have many allies and widen your power base.
Your goal in this second task is to maintain as tight a grip on reality as possible.
Groups tend to share beliefs and ways of looking at the world that are one-sided.
They give greater weight to information that fits into their preconceived notions.
They exaggerate qualities of rivals or enemies. They become overoptimistic about
their plans. Taken far enough, the group can hold beliefs that are quite
delusionary, and its actions can border on madness. Observing the group with a
degree of distance will help you be aware of the distorting effect on your
perception that can come from being so embedded within a group. Your strategies
and decisions will be all the more effective for this.
Just as groups tend to exert a downward pull on our emotions and behavior, we
can also experience or imagine the opposite—a group that exerts an upward pull.
We shall call this ideal the reality group. It consists of members who feel free to
contribute their diverse opinions, whose minds are open, and whose focus is on
getting work done and cooperating on a high level. By maintaining your individual
spirit and your grip on reality, you will help create or enrich this ideal team of
people. (For more on this, see “The Reality Group” on this page.)
This ability to observe the group and detach ourselves is more critical now than
ever for several reasons. In the past, people’s sense of belonging to certain groups
was more stable and secure. To be a Baptist or a Catholic or a communist or a
French citizen provided one with a strong sense of identity and pride. With the
diminishing power of these large-scale belief systems, we have lost this inner
security, and yet we retain the same profound human need to belong. So many of
us are searching for groups to join, hungry for the approval of others who share
our values. We are more permeable than ever. This makes us eager to become a
member of the latest cult or political movement. It makes us highly susceptible to
the influence of some unscrupulous populist leader who preys upon this need.
Instead of forming large-scale groups, we now form tribes of diminishing size,
to get a greater narcissistic boost. We view larger groups with suspicion. Social
media abets this dynamic by making it easier to spread the narrowly focused views
and values of the tribe and making them viral. But these tribes don’t last long; they
are continually disappearing or regrouping or splitting apart. And so the ancient
need to belong is never satisfied and drives us mad.
Tribalism has its roots in the deepest and most primitive parts of our nature,
but it is now coupled with much greater technological prowess, which makes it all
the more dangerous. What allowed us thousands of years ago to bind our group
tightly and survive could now easily lead to our extinction as a species. The tribe
feels its very existence at stake by the presence of the enemy. There is little middle
ground. Battles can be more intense and violent between tribes.
The future of the human race will likely depend on our ability to transcend this
tribalism and to see our fate as interconnected with everyone else’s. We are one
species, all descendants of the same original humans, all brothers and sisters. Our
differences are mostly an illusion. Imagining differences is part of the madness of
groups. We must see ourselves as one large reality group and experience a deep
sense of belonging to it. To solve the man-made problems threatening us will
require cooperation on a much higher level and a practical spirit missing from the
tribe. This does not mean the end of diverse cultures and the richness that comes
with them. In fact, the reality group encourages inner diversity.
We must come to the conclusion that the primary group we belong to is that of
the human race. That is our inevitable future. Anything else is regressive and far
too dangerous.

The Court and Its Courtiers

Any type of court obviously revolves around the leader, the courtiers’ power
depending on the relative closeness of their relationship with this leader. Although
leaders come in many varieties, one dynamic is fairly universal: the courtiers
(minus the cynical types, see below) will tend to idealize those in power. They will
see their leaders as smarter, cleverer, more perfect than is the reality. This will
make it easier for them to justify their fawning behavior.
This dynamic is similar to what we all experienced in childhood: we idealized
our parents in order to feel more secure about the power they had over us. It was
too frightening to imagine our parents as weak or incompetent. Dealing with
authority figures in the court tends to regress us to our childhood and the family
dynamic. The way we adapted to our parents’ power and the presence of our
siblings will play itself out again in adult form in the court. If we felt the deep need
to please our parents in every way in order to feel more secure, we will become the
pleaser type in the court. If we resented our siblings for the parental attention they
drew away from us, and tried to dominate these siblings, we will be the envious
type and resort to passive aggression. We may want to monopolize the leaders’
attention as we once tried to do with our mother or father.
And so we can say that courtiers tend to fall into certain types, depending on
deep patterns stemming from childhood. Some of these types can become quite
dangerous if they accumulate power within the court, and they are usually adept at
disguising their negative qualities in order to rise from within. It is best to be able
to identify them as early as possible and take necessary defensive action. The
following are seven of the more common types you will find.
The Intriguer: These individuals can be particularly difficult to recognize. They
seem intensely loyal to the boss and to the group. No one works harder or is more
ruthlessly efficient. But this is a mask they wear; behind the scenes they are
continually intriguing to amass more power. They generally have a disdain for the
boss that they are careful to conceal. They feel they could do the job better, and
they yearn to prove this. Perhaps they had competitive issues in childhood with
the father figure.
In the court of Richard Nixon, Alexander Haig (1924–2010) epitomized this
type. A graduate of West Point and a decorated war hero in Vietnam, he was hired
as one of several assistants to Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s national security adviser.
Kissinger’s own little court was filled with men with brilliant academic
backgrounds. Haig could not compete on this level; he stayed away from policy
arguments. Instead, he so expertly tailored himself to the desires and needs of
Kissinger that he quickly rose from within. He organized Kissinger’s desk,
streamlined his schedule, and would do the lowliest task, even helping his boss
dress for an important evening. He silently suffered Kissinger’s numerous and
volcanic temper tantrums. But what Kissinger did not realize was the depth of
Haig’s ambitions and his contempt for his boss. He was continually playing to the
real boss in the game, Nixon himself.
While Kissinger was out most evenings attending some party, Nixon would see
the light on in Haig’s office at all hours. Nixon, a workaholic himself, could not
help but admire this. Of course, Haig made sure he worked evenings when Nixon
was there and would notice him. Soon Nixon was borrowing him for his own tasks.
In 1973, as the Watergate scandal blossomed, Nixon appointed Haig as his chief of
staff. This infuriated Kissinger—not only did he feel Haig had used him for his
own purposes, but he was now having to report to Haig as a superior. To make
matters worse, Haig had seen up close all of Kissinger’s weaknesses and had a lot
of dirt on him, and Kissinger was certain he would be sharing this information
with Nixon, who loved such gossip. To colleagues Haig could be chummy and even
disarming. But behind the scenes he undercut almost everyone in his path,
wiretapping their phones, putting his name on their ideas and memos.
As the Watergate crisis deepened and Nixon fell into a depression, Haig slowly
took over operations, with a zeal that surprised and disgusted many. For several
months, he became the de facto president. This pattern repeated throughout his
career. As Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state, after the assassination attempt on
the president in 1981, Haig told reporters, “I am in control here.”
In identifying this type, you must look behind the efficient and loyal front and
even the charm. Keep your eye instead on their maneuvers and their impatience to
rise from within. Look at their past record for signs of intrigue. They are masters
at making leaders, and others, dependent on their efficiency as means of binding
them and securing their own position. Pay attention to that little extra zeal they
display to please the boss and make themselves useful. Realize that when they are
looking at you, they are thinking of how they can use you as a tool or stepping-
stone. Imagining themselves blessed with brilliance, they have little compunction
in doing whatever is necessary to advance themselves. It is best to keep your
distance and not become one of their pawns, nor their enemy.
The Stirrer: This type is generally riddled with insecurities but adept at
disguising them from those in the court. They feel deep wells of resentment and
envy for what others seem to have that they don’t, part of their childhood pattern.
Their game is to infect the group with doubts and anxieties, stirring up trouble,
which puts them at the center of action and may allow them to get closer to the
leader. They will often target another courtier who triggers their envy, and they
will spread rumors and innuendo about the courtier in question, playing upon the
latent envy of other courtiers. They will be full of secret information for the leader
about those who might be less than perfectly loyal. The more turmoil and
emotions they can stir up, the better they can take advantage of the situation.
If a rebellion of some sort suddenly erupts within the court, you can be sure
they had a finger in it. All it takes is one good Stirrer in a court to create endless
drama and discord, making life intolerable for everyone. They actually get a secret
pleasure from doing so. They will cover their tracks by being hyperrighteous and
indignant about the “betrayals” of others. They project such a front of loyalty and
devotion to the cause that it is hard to suspect them of being so manipulative.
If you notice courtiers who “innocently” share with you some rumor, be wary—
they could be of this type, and you may be the target of such rumors at some point.
If you feel the group succumbing to viral anxiety about some vague threat, try to
locate the source of this—you might have a Stirrer in your midst. They can be
tricky—they can project an extra cheery and optimistic front to conceal the
churning negativity within. Always look behind the mask and notice the secret
delight they have when something bad happens. When dealing with a known
Stirrer, do not directly or indirectly insult or show disrespect. Even though they
are quite insensitive to the feelings of those they malign, they are hypersensitive to
any sign of disrespect to them, and since they have fewer compunctions than you,
they will make your life miserable through their passive-aggressive campaigns.
The Gatekeeper: The goal of the game for these types is gaining exclusive access
to leaders, monopolizing the flow of information to them. They may resemble the
Intriguer in their willingness to use people to get to this position, but unlike that
type, their objective is not to take over power. They are motivated not by a secret
disdain for others but by their intense adoration for the person on top. They often
rise to the position by fawning over the genius and perfection of the leader, whom
they idealize. (There might even be a slight sexual edge to their attraction.) They
ingratiate themselves with leaders by giving them a great deal of narcissistic
supply. As Gatekeepers, they keep away irritating courtiers and buffer leaders
from petty political struggles, which seems to make them quite useful.
In gaining such proximity, they also get to see the leaders’ dark sides and learn
of their weaknesses; this unconsciously binds leaders even more tightly to
Gatekeepers, whom they might fear alienating. Having such power over the
admired leader is their endgame. This type can also become the policeman or
policewoman in the court, making sure the group adheres to the ideas and beliefs
of the leader.
 Once such types are installed in power, they are extremely dangerous—running
afoul of them in any way will cut off key access to the one player on the board who
matters the most, and other perks. Recognize them early on by their shameless
sycophancy toward the boss. These types obviously wear a very different face to
other courtiers from what they present to leaders, and you can try to gather
evidence to reveal their duplicity to the leader before it is too late. But they
generally are masters at understanding and playing to the insecurities of bosses
and come to know them better than you do. They can easily turn your efforts
around. In general, it is best to recognize their power and remain on their good
side. If you’re a leader, beware of such types. They will tend to isolate you from the
group, and isolation is dangerous.
The Shadow Enabler: Leaders are often in a difficult position. They have to bear
the responsibility for what happens to the group and the stress that goes with that.
At the same time, they must maintain a reputation that is above reproach. More
than others, they have to keep their Shadow side (see chapter 9) under wraps. This
could be extramarital desires they have had to repress, or paranoia about the
loyalty of everyone around them, or the craving to do some violence against a
hated enemy. Unconsciously their Shadow is yearning to come out. In steps the
Enabler, one of the cleverest and most diabolical courtiers of all.
These types often are closer to their own Shadow, aware of their own darkest
yearnings. In childhood they probably felt these desires deeply but had to repress
them, which made such desires all the more powerful and obsessive. As adults,
they search for complicit partners with whom they can bring the Shadow out into
the open. They are masters at detecting repressed desires in others, including
leaders. They may begin in conversation to broach somewhat taboo subjects, but
in a nonthreatening, jocular way. The leader falls into the spirit and opens up a bit.
Having established contact with the leader’s Shadow, the Enabler then takes this
further, with suggestions of possible actions for leaders, ways to vent their
frustrations, with the Enabler handling it all and serving as protection.
Charles Colson, special counsel to President Nixon, carved out just such a role
for himself. He knew his boss to be quite paranoid about all of the enemies
supposedly surrounding him. Nixon was also quite insecure about his own
masculinity and yearned to punish his purported enemies and display some
swagger. He felt deeply frustrated in not being able to act on these desires. Colson
played on his worst instincts, allowing Nixon to vent his feelings in meetings and
then insinuating ways to act on them, such as revenge schemes against hated
reporters. Nixon found this too tempting and too therapeutic to resist. Colson
shared some of these hidden sadistic desires himself, and so this was the perfect
way for him to live out his own Shadow.
In any court, there are inevitably those with a low character, who live for
scheming and knocking heads. They are not overtly violent or evil but simply have
fewer compunctions than others. If they are Enablers and inveigle their way into a
position close to the boss, there is little you can do against them. It is too
dangerous to cross such types, unless what they are planning is so dark that it is
worth risking your own position to stop them. Take heart that their careers are
generally short. They often serve as the fall guy if what they advocated, or acted
on, becomes public. Be aware that they may try to play the game with you. Do not
take the first step into any dubious actions they are trying to draw you into. Your
clean reputation is the most important thing you possess. Maintain a polite
distance.
 The Court Jester: Almost every court has its Jester. In the past they wore a cap
and bells, but today they come in different varieties and looks. They can be the
court cynic and scoffer, who has license to poke fun at almost everyone and
everything, including sometimes the leaders themselves, who tolerate this because
it shows their apparent lack of insecurity and sense of humor. Another variety is
the domesticated rebel. Such types are allowed to go against the dress code,
display looser behavior, and espouse unconventional opinions. They can be a bit
flamboyant. In meetings, unlike anyone else, they are allowed to come up with
wild opinions contrary to the group. Such nonconformists prove that the leaders
encourage the free exchange of opinions, at least in appearance.
These types fall into such roles because secretly they have a fear of
responsibility and a dread of failing. They know that as Jesters they are not taken
seriously and are given little actual power. Their humor and antics give them a
place in the court without the stress of actually having to get things done. Their
“rebelliousness” never really represents a threat or challenge to the status quo. In
fact, they make it so others in the group can feel a bit superior to the in-house
oddball, more comfortable in conforming to the norm.
Never take their existence as a sign that you can freely imitate their behavior.
There is rarely more than one Jester per court for a reason. If you feel the pull to
rebel against the norms of the group, better to keep it as subtle as possible. Often
the modern court will tolerate differences in appearances but not so much in ideas
and political correctness. Better to reserve your nonconformity for your private
life, or until you have amassed more power.
The Mirrorer: These types are often among the most successful courtiers of all,
because they are capable of playing the double game to the hilt—they are adept at
charming leaders and fellow courtiers, maintaining a broad base of support. Their
power is based on the idea that everyone at heart is a narcissist. They are masters
at reflecting back to people their own moods and ideas, making them feel
validated without sensing the manipulation, as opposed to using overt flattery.
In the court of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Frances Perkins, FDR’s secretary of
labor and longtime adviser, was the consummate player of this game. She had
high levels of empathy and could sense Roosevelt’s moods. She would adapt to
them. She knew he loved to hear stories, so any idea she presented to him she
would present with some type of story line, and this would charm him. She
listened to whatever he said with much more attention than anyone else and could
later refer verbatim to something “brilliant” he had said, which proved how deeply
she had listened.
If she was going to recommend an action that might meet some resistance, she
would couch it as one of his own ideas from the past, but with a slight modification
of her own. She could decipher the meaning of his various types of smiles,
knowing when she could go further with her idea and when to stop in her tracks.
And she made certain to confirm his idealized image of himself as the noble
warrior fighting on behalf of the disenfranchised. To other courtiers, she
presented herself in the most nonthreatening manner, never making a show of her
influence over her boss and applying the same type of charm to everyone who
crossed her path. In this way she made it hard to feel threatened or envious of her
powers.
This is a role you might want to consider playing in the court because of the
power it brings, but to pull it off you will have to be a great reader of people,
sensitive to their nonverbal cues. You want to be able to mirror their moods, not
just their ideas. This will cast a spell over them and lower their resistance. With
leaders, you must be aware of their idealized opinion of themselves and always
confirm it in some way, or even encourage them to live up to it. Those on top are
lonelier and more insecure than you imagine, and they will lap this up. As
mentioned before, overt flattery can be dangerous because people can see through
it, but even if they see through your mirroring, they will remain charmed and want
more.
These two types occupy the highest and lowest
The Favorite and the Punching Bag:
rungs of the court. Every king or queen must have his or her Favorite within the
court. As opposed to the other types, whose power generally depends on efficiency
and demonstrations of abject loyalty, the Favorite’s rise in power is often based on
cultivating a more personal, friend-like relationship. Early on, they act relaxed and
chummy with the leader, without seeming disrespectful. Many leaders are secretly
dying to not have to be so formal and in control. Sometimes leaders who are lonely
will pick out one person to occupy this position. With the Favorite, they will gladly
share secrets and bestow favors. This, of course, will stir up the envy of other
courtiers.
This position is fraught with danger. First, it depends on the friendly feelings of
leaders, and such feelings are inevitably fickle. People are more sensitive to the
words or actions of friends, and if they feel somehow disappointed or betrayed in
any way, they can go from liking to hating the former friend. Second, the Favorite
receives so much privileged treatment that they often become arrogant and
entitled. Leaders might tire of their spoiled behavior. Courtiers are already
envious of the Favorite, but their increased arrogance only alienates them further.
When Favorites fall from grace—and history is littered with such stories—the fall
is hard and painful. No one comes to their defense, and because their rise did not
depend on any special skill, they often have nowhere else to go. Try to avoid being
lured into taking this position. Make your power dependent on your
accomplishments and your usefulness, not on the friendly feelings people have for
you.
Much as in any children’s playground, in the court there is almost always a
person who plays the role of the Punching Bag, whom everyone feels encouraged
to laugh at in some way and feel superior to. People today are more politically
correct and careful, and yet this human need for a Punching Bag is too embedded
in our nature. People will base their feeling of superiority on the Punching Bag’s
supposed incompetence, or unorthodox opinions, or lack of sophistication,
whatever makes them seem different and somehow inferior. Much of their ridicule
will be behind the back of the targets, but they will sense it. Do not engage in this
dynamic. It will coarsen and debase you. See everyone in the court as your
potential ally. Within the ruthless environment of the court, try to befriend the
Punching Bag, showing a different way of behaving and taking the fun out of this
cruel game.

The Reality Group

When a group of people fails in some enterprise, we often see the following
dynamic play itself out: The first reaction is to look at the actors involved and affix
blame. Perhaps it was the overambitious leader who led the group into failure, or
the incompetent lieutenant, or the very shrewd adversary. Perhaps some bad luck
was involved as well. The leader or lieutenant may be fired and a new team
brought in. Leadership learns a few lessons from the experience, and these are
shared. Everyone in the group feels satisfied and ready to move on. Then, a few
years down the line, nearly the same problem and the same type of failure recurs,
and the same tired solutions are recycled.
The reason for this common pattern is simple: what is really at fault is the
dysfunctional dynamic of the group, which tends to produce incompetent
lieutenants and grandiose leaders. And unless it is fixed, the problems keep
recurring with different faces.
In a dysfunctional culture, the members are often confused about their roles
and the overall direction of the group. Amid such confusion, people start to think
more of their own interests and agendas, and they form factions. Worried more
about their status than the health of the group, their egos become touchy, and they
obsess over who’s getting more. In this contentious atmosphere, the bad apples—
the Stirrers, the men and women of low character—find numerous ways to stir
trouble and promote themselves. Those who excel at schmoozing and playing
politics but little else often thrive, rise to the top, and become lieutenants.
Mediocrity is preferred and rewarded.
Leaders find themselves dragged down by all the internal dissension and
gamesmanship. Feeling vulnerable, they surround themselves with courtiers who
tell them what they want to hear. Inside this court cocoon, leaders hatch ill-
conceived and grandiose plans, which are encouraged by the spineless courtiers.
Firing the leader or lieutenants won’t change anything. The next ones will simply
find themselves infected and transformed by the dysfunctional culture.
What we must do to avoid this trap is to alter our perspective: instead of
instantly focusing on individuals and the drama of the failed action, we must focus
on the overall group dynamic. Fix the dynamic, create a productive culture, and
not only will we avoid all of the above evils but we will trigger a much different,
upward pull within the group.
What creates a functional, healthy dynamic is the ability of the group to
maintain a tight relationship to reality. The reality for a group is as follows: It
exists in order to get things done, to make things, to solve problems. It has certain
resources it can draw upon—the labor and strengths of its members, its finances.
It operates in a particular environment that is almost always highly competitive
and constantly changing. The healthy group puts primary emphasis on the work
itself, on getting the most out of its resources and adapting to all of the inevitable
changes. Not wasting time on endless political games, such a group can
accomplish ten times more than the dysfunctional variety. It brings out the best in
human nature—people’s empathy, their ability to work with others on a high level.
It remains the ideal for all of us. We shall call this ideal the reality group.
Certainly, a true reality group is a rare occurrence in history—to some degree
we saw it in action with the famed battalions of Napoleon Bonaparte, or the early
years of IBM under Thomas Watson, or the initial cabinet Franklin Roosevelt
formed, or the film team assembled by the great director John Ford that worked
with him for decades, or the Chicago Bulls under basketball coach Phil Jackson.
From these examples, and others, we can learn some valuable lessons about the
components of the reality group and how leaders can shape one.
The following are five key strategies for achieving this, all of which should be
put into practice. Keep in mind that if you inherit a culture that is firmly set and
dysfunctional, your job is harder and it will take more time. You need to be
resolute in the changes you want to effect and have patience, being careful that the
culture does not slowly assimilate you. Think of it as war, and the enemy is not
individuals but the dysfunctional group dynamic.
Instill a collective sense of purpose. That social force that compels people to want to
belong and to fit in you want to capture and channel for a higher purpose. You
accomplish this by establishing an ideal—your group has a definite purpose, a
positive mission that unites its members. This could be creating a product that is
superior and unique, that makes life easier or brings pleasure; or improving
conditions for those in need; or solving some seemingly intractable problem. This
is the ultimate reality of the group, why it was formed in the first place. This
purpose is not vague or implied but clearly stated and publicized. No matter the
type of work, you want to emphasize excellence and creating something of the
highest possible quality. Making money or being successful should be a natural
result of this ideal and not the goal itself.
To make this work, the group must practice what you preach. Any signs of
hypocrisy or noticeable discrepancy between the ideal and the reality will destroy
your efforts. You want to establish a track record of results that reflect the group’s
ideal. Groups will tend to lose connection to their original purpose, particularly
with any success. You want to keep reminding the group of its mission, adapting it
if necessary but never drifting from this core.
We often like to reduce the behavior of people to base motives—greed,
selfishness, the desire for attention. Certainly we all have a base side. But we also
possess a nobler, higher side that often is frustrated and cannot find expression in
the ruthless world today. Making people feel an integral part of a group creating
something important satisfies a deep yet rarely met human need. Once members
experience this, they are motivated to keep the healthy dynamic alive and vital.
With its relatively high esprit de corps, the group will police itself. People who are
petty and all about ego will stand out and be isolated. With clarity about what the
group represents and the role they are to play, members are less likely to form
factions. Everything becomes easier and smoother if you instill this collective
purpose.
Assemble the right team of lieutenants. As the leader of a reality group, you need the
ability to focus on the larger picture and the overall goals that matter. You have
only so much mental energy, and you must marshal it wisely. The greatest obstacle
to this is your fear of delegating authority. If you succumb to micromanaging, your
mind will become clouded by all the details you try to keep on top of and the
battles among the courtiers. Your own confusion then filters down through the
group, ruining the effect of the first strategy.
What you need to do from the outset is to cultivate a team of lieutenants,
imbued with your spirit and the collective sense of purpose, whom you can trust to
manage the execution of ideas. To achieve this, you must have the right standards
—you do not base your selection on people’s charm, and never hire friends. You
want the most competent person for the job. You also give great consideration to
their character. Some people can be brilliant, but in the end their poisonous
personalities and egos make them a drain on the group’s spirit. (For more on
judging character, see chapter 4.)
You select for this team people who have skills that you lack, each individual
with their particular strengths. They know their roles. You also want this team of
lieutenants to be diverse in temperament, background, and ideas. They show a
willingness to speak up and take initiative, all within the framework of the group’s
purpose. They can even challenge some rules that seem outdated. Feeling a part of
a team but able to bring their own creativity to the tasks will bring out the best in
them, and this spirit will spread throughout the group.
For this team of lieutenants, and for the group as a whole, you want to make
sure that members are treated more or less equally—no one has special privileges;
rewards and punishments are doled out fairly and evenly. If particular individuals
are not living up to the ideal, you get rid of them. Now if you bring in new
lieutenants, they naturally are absorbed into the healthy dynamic. You are also
leading from the front. If there are sacrifices to be made, you share in them as
much as any member. In doing all of this, you will make it harder for people to feel
envious and resentful, which can sow divisions and make people political.
Let information and ideas flow freely. As the group evolves, your greatest danger is
the slow formation of a bubble around you. The lieutenants, trying to ease your
burdens, may eventually isolate you from what is happening throughout the group
and filter the information they provide you. Without realizing it, they tell you what
they believe will please you and keep out the noise that is important to hear. Your
perspective on reality slowly becomes distorted and your decisions reflect this.
Without becoming overwhelmed by details, you need to establish a very
different dynamic. Consider the open communication of ideas and information—
about rivals, about what is happening on the streets or among your audience—the
lifeblood of the group. This was the secret to the success of Napoleon Bonaparte
on the battlefield. He personally reviewed the concise reports sent to him by his
field marshals, lieutenants, and others all the way down the chain of command,
including even foot soldiers. This gave him several lines of perspective as to the
performance of the army and the actions of the enemy. He wanted as much
unfiltered information as possible before deciding on a strategy. He kept such
reports to a reasonably small number, but their diversity is what gave him such a
clear picture.
To achieve this, you want to encourage frank discussion up and down the line,
with members trusting that they can do so. You listen to your foot soldiers. You
want your meetings to be lively, with people not overly concerned about bruising
egos and causing offense; you want a diversity of opinions. To allow for such
openness, you must be careful in these discussions to not signal your own
preference for a particular option or decision, as this will subtly tip the team into
following your lead. Even bring in experts and outsiders to broaden the group’s
perspective.
The more expansive the deliberation process, the greater the connection to
reality, and the better your decisions. Of course, you can take too much time in
this process, but most people sin in the opposite direction, making hurried
decisions on highly filtered information. You also want to establish as much
transparency as possible: when decisions are made, you share with the team how
they came about and for what purpose.
Extend this open communication to the ability for the group to criticize itself
and its performance, particularly after any mistakes or failures. Try to turn this
into a positive and lively experience, with the focus not on scapegoats but on the
overall functioning of the group, which was not up to par. You want the group to
keep learning and improving. Learning from mistakes will make the team that
much more confident moving forward.
Infect the group with productive emotions. In the group setting, people are naturally
more emotional and permeable to the moods of others. You must work with
human nature and turn this into a positive by infecting the group with the proper
set of emotions. People are more susceptible to the moods and attitudes of the
leader than of anyone else. Productive emotions would include calmness. Phil
Jackson, the most successful basketball coach in history, noticed that a lot of other
coaches would try to rev up the team before a game, get them excited and even
angry. He found it much more productive to instill a sense of calmness that helped
the players execute the game plan and not overreact to the ups and downs in the
game. As part of this strategy, always keep the group focused on completing
concrete tasks, which will naturally ground and calm them.
Infect the group with a sense of resolution that emanates from you. You are not
upset by setbacks; you keep advancing and working on problems. You are
persistent. The group senses this, and individuals feel embarrassed for becoming
hysterical over the slightest shift in fortune. You can try to infect the group with
confidence, but be careful that this does not slip into grandiosity. Your confidence
and that of the group mostly stems from a successful track record. Periodically
change up routines, surprise the group with something new or challenging. This
will wake them up and stir them out of the complacency that can settle into any
group that achieves success.
Most important, showing a lack of fear and an overall openness to new ideas
will have the most therapeutic effect of all. The members will become less
defensive, which encourages them to think more on their own, and not operate as
automatons.
Forge a battle-tested group. It is essential that you know your group well, its
strengths and weaknesses and the maximum you can expect of it. But appearances
can be deceiving. In their day-to-day work, people can seem motivated, connected,
and productive. But add some stress or pressure or even a crisis, and suddenly you
see a whole other side of them. Some begin to think more about themselves and
disconnect from the group spirit; others become far too anxious and infect the
group with their fears. Part of the reality you need to be on top of is the actual
strength of your team.
You want to be able to gauge the relative inner toughness of people before you
are thrust into a crisis. Give various members some relatively challenging tasks or
shorter deadlines than usual, and see how they respond. Some people rise to the
occasion and even do better under such stress; consider such people a treasure to
hoard. Lead the team itself into an action that is novel and slightly riskier than
usual. Observe carefully how individuals react to the slight amount of chaos and
uncertainty that unfold from this. Of course, in the aftermath of any crises or
failures, use such moments as a way to review people’s inner strength or lack of it.
You can tolerate a few fearful types who have other virtues, but not too many.
In the end, you want a group that has been through a few wars, dealt with them
reasonably well, and now is battle-tested. They do not wilt at the sign of new
obstacles and in fact welcome them. With such a group, you can slowly expand the
limits of what you can ask of them, and the members feel a powerful upward pull
to meet challenges and prove themselves. Such a group can move mountains.

—
Finally, we like to focus on the psychological health of individuals, and how
perhaps a therapist could fix any problems they might have. What we don’t
consider, however, is that being in a dysfunctional group can actually make
individuals unstable and neurotic. The opposite is true as well: by participating in
a high-functioning reality group, we can make ourselves healthy and whole. Such
experiences are memorable and life-changing. We learn the value of cooperating
on a higher level, of seeing our fate as intertwined with those around us. We
develop greater empathy. We gain confidence in our own abilities, which such a
group rewards. We feel connected to reality. We are brought into the upward pull
of the group, realizing our social nature on the high level it was intended for. It is
our duty as enlightened humans to create as many such groups as possible,
making society healthier in the process.
Madness is something rare in individuals—but in groups, parties, peoples, and ages it is
the rule.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
 15

Make Them Want to Follow

You

The Law of Fickleness

A lthough styles of leadership change with the times, one

constant remains: people are always ambivalent about
those in power. They want to be led but also to feel free; they
want to be protected and enjoy prosperity without making
sacrifices; they both worship the king and want to kill him.
When you are the leader of a group, people are continually
prepared to turn on you the moment you seem weak or
experience a setback. Do not succumb to the prejudices of the
times, imagining that what you need to do to gain their loyalty
is to seem to be their equal or their friend; people will doubt
your strength, become suspicious of your motives, and respond
with hidden contempt. Authority is the delicate art of creating
the appearance of power, legitimacy, and fairness while
getting people to identify with you as a leader who is in their
service. If you want to lead, you must master this art from
early on in your life. Once you have gained people’s trust, they
will stand by you as their leader, no matter the bad
circumstances.

The Entitlement Curse

On the morning of Saturday, January 14, 1559, English people of
all ages and classes began gathering in the streets of London. It
was the day before the coronation of their new ruler, the twenty-
five-year-old Elizabeth Tudor, to be known as Queen Elizabeth
I. By tradition, the new monarch always led a ceremonial
procession through the city. For most, it would be the first time
they had ever seen Elizabeth.
 Some in the crowd were anxious—England was in bad
financial shape, the government heavily in debt; beggars were
everywhere in the streets of large cities, and thieves roamed the
countryside. Worst of all, the country had just been through a
virtual civil war between Catholics and Protestants. Elizabeth’s
father, Henry VIII (1491–1547), had created the Church of
England and had moved to transform England into a Protestant
country. The daughter from Henry’s first marriage became
Queen Mary I in 1553, and she tried to return England to the
Catholic fold, initiating a kind of English inquisition and earning
the nickname “Bloody Mary.” After Mary’s death in late 1558,
Elizabeth was next in line to succeed her, but was this the time
for England to be ruled by a woman who was so young and
inexperienced?
Others were cautiously hopeful: like the majority of the
English, Elizabeth was a solid Protestant and would return the
country to the Church of England. But optimistic or pessimistic,
no one on either side really knew much about her. After Henry
VIII had Elizabeth’s mother and his second wife, Anne Boleyn,
executed on trumped-up charges when Elizabeth was not yet
three, Elizabeth had been shunted from stepmother to
stepmother, and her presence within the court had been
minimal. The English people knew that her childhood had been
difficult and that Queen Mary had detested her, even throwing
Elizabeth into the Tower of London in 1554. (She had wanted to
have Elizabeth executed on charges of conspiring against the
Crown but could not gather enough evidence.) How had these
experiences affected the young Elizabeth? Was she as impetuous
as her father or as arrogant as her half-sister, Mary? With so
much at stake, they were beyond curious to know more about
her.
For the English, the procession was a day for celebration and
merriment, and Elizabeth did not disappoint on that score. It
was quite a spectacle—colorful tapestries on the exterior walls of
houses, banners and streamers from every window, musicians
and jesters roaming the streets entertaining the crowd.
As a light snow fell, the queen-to-be herself now appeared on
the streets, and wherever she passed the crowd grew hushed.
Carried in an open litter, she wore the most beautiful golden
royal robe and the most magnificent jewels. She had a charming
face and the liveliest dark eyes. But as the procession moved
along and various pageants were performed for her benefit, the
English saw something they had never witnessed before or could
even begin to imagine: the queen seemed to enjoy mingling with
the crowds, tears filling her eyes as she listened attentively to
the poorest of Londoners with their petitions and blessings for
her reign.
When she talked, her manner of speaking was natural and
even a bit folksy. She fed off the growing excitement in the
crowd, and her affection for the people in the streets was all too
apparent. One older and quite poor woman handed her a
withered sprig of rosemary for good luck, and Elizabeth clutched
it the entire day.
One witness wrote of Elizabeth, “If ever any person had
either the gift or the style to win the hearts of people, it was this
Queen. . . . All her faculties were in motion, and every motion
seemed a well-guided action: her eye was set upon one, her ear
listened to another, her judgment ran upon a third, to a fourth
she addressed her speech; her spirit seemed to be everywhere,
and yet so entire in herself as it seemed to be nowhere else.
Some she pitied, some she commended, some she thanked, at
others she pleasantly and wittily jested . . . and distributing her
smiles, looks, and graces . . . that thereupon the people again
redoubled the testimony of their joys, and afterwards, raising
everything to the highest strain, filled the ears of all men with
immoderate extolling of their Prince.”
That night the city of London was abuzz with stories of the
day. In taverns and homes, people commented on Elizabeth’s
strange and electrifying presence. Kings and queens would often
appear before the public, but they were surrounded with such
pomp and eager to maintain their distance. They expected the
people to obey and worship them. But Elizabeth seemed eager to
win the people’s love, and it had charmed everyone who had
seen her that day. As word spread of this throughout the
country, affection for their new queen began to swell among the
English, and they entertained some hope for the new reign.

—
Before her coronation, Elizabeth had made it known to Sir
William Cecil that she would choose him as her most trusted
minister. Cecil, thirteen years older than the queen, had served
as an important councillor under Edward VI, Elizabeth’s half-
brother, who had ruled after the death of Henry VIII in 1547
from age nine until his death at age fifteen. Cecil had known
Elizabeth since she was fourteen; they shared similar
intellectual interests and were both solid Protestants; they had
many lively conversations and a friendly rapport. For his part,
Cecil understood her well. She was extremely intelligent, was
very well read, and spoke many languages fluently. They would
often play chess, and he was impressed with her patient style
and how she often laid elaborate traps for his pieces.
He knew that Elizabeth had been schooled in hardship. She
had lost not only her mother when she was so young but also
her most beloved stepmother, Catherine Howard, when she was
eight. Catherine was Henry’s fifth wife and a cousin of Anne
Boleyn. Henry had had her beheaded on trumped-up charges of
adultery. Cecil also knew that the few months Elizabeth had
spent in the Tower of London had had a traumatic effect on her,
since she had expected to be executed at any moment. She had
emerged from all of these experiences as a remarkably affable
young woman, but Cecil knew that behind the exterior she was
willful, temperamental, and even devious.
Cecil was also certain about one more thing: ruling was not
for women. Queen Mary I had been England’s first true female
ruler, and she had proven to be a disaster. All the government
ministers and administrators were men, and a woman could not
stand up to the rough-and-tumble of dealing with them, and
with male foreign diplomats. Women were too emotional and
unsteady. Elizabeth might have a very capable mind, but she did
not have the resilience for the job. And so Cecil had formed a
plan: Slowly he and his cohorts would take over the reins, the
queen advising but mostly following her ministers’ guidance.
And as quickly as possible they would get her married,
preferably to a Protestant, and her husband would take over and
rule as the king.
Almost from the beginning of her reign, however, Cecil
realized that his plan would not be so easy to enact. The queen
was headstrong and had plans of her own. In one way, he could
not help but be impressed. Her first day on the job, she held a
meeting and made it clear to her future councillors that she
knew more than they did about the financial state of the
country; she was determined to make the government solvent.
She appointed Cecil as her secretary of state, and she began
meeting with him several times a day, giving him no spare hour
to rest.
Unlike her father, who had let his ministers run things so he
could devote himself to hunting and pursuing young women,
Elizabeth was completely hands-on; Cecil was astounded at how
many hours she put into the job, working well past midnight.
She was exacting in what she expected from him and the other
ministers, and occasionally she could be quite intimidating. If he
pleased her with what he said or did, the queen was all smiles
and a touch coquettish. But if something turned out wrong or if
he disagreed too vociferously, she would shut him out for days,
and he would return home to stew in his anxiety. Had he lost
her trust? On occasion, she looked at him harshly or even
upbraided him in the thunderous style of her father. No, the
queen would not be easy to manage, and slowly he found
himself working harder than ever to impress her.
As part of his plan for the men to slowly take over power, he
made sure that all correspondence from foreign governments
would be first routed to his desk. He would keep the queen in
the dark on several important matters. Then he discovered that
the queen had learned of this and behind his back had ordered
all diplomatic correspondence to go through her. It was like a
chess game, and she was playing several moves ahead. He got
angry and accused her of undermining him in his work, but she
stood her ground and had a very logical response: unlike Cecil,
she spoke and read all of the major European languages and
understood their nuances, and it would be better for all if she
personally conducted diplomacy and brought the ministers up
to date on foreign affairs. It was useless to argue, and he soon
realized that when it came to handling such correspondence and
meetings with diplomats, Elizabeth was a master negotiator.
Slowly his resistance wore down. Elizabeth would remain in
charge, at least for the first few years of her reign. But then she
would marry and produce the necessary heir for England, and
her husband would take over. It was unnatural for her to
continue in this role as an unwed ruler. It was rumored that she
had confided in several friends that she would never marry, and
that she had an overwhelming fear of marriage based on what
she had seen with her father. But Cecil could not take this
seriously. She kept telling everyone that all that mattered was
the greater good of England, but to keep England without an
heir apparent was to risk a future civil war. Surely she could see
the logic in this.
His goal was simple: to get the queen to agree to marry a
foreign prince in order to forge an alliance that would benefit
England in its weakened state. Preferably this would be a
Protestant prince, but as long as he was not a Catholic fanatic,
Cecil would approve the choice. The French were dangling
before her a marriage with their fourteen-year-old king, Charles
IX, and the Habsburgs were promoting a marriage with
Archduke Charles of Austria. Cecil’s great fear was that she
would marry the one man whom she had actually fallen in love
with, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, a man beneath her in
station who would stir up all kinds of dissension and intrigue
within the English court.
As representatives of different countries pressed their cases,
Elizabeth would seem to favor one, then grow cold. If the
Spanish were suddenly creating trouble on the Continent, she
would begin marriage negotiations with the French to make
King Philip II of Spain suddenly fear a French-English alliance
and back off, or with Archduke Charles of Austria to strike fear
in both the French and Spanish. Year after year she played this
game. She confessed to Cecil she had no desire to be a wife, but
when Parliament threatened to cut off funds if she did not
promise to marry, Elizabeth would soften and negotiate with
one of her suitors. Then, once the funds from Parliament had
been secured, she would find some other excuse to break off the
marriage talk—the prince or king or archduke was too young,
too fervently Catholic, not her type, too effeminate, on and on.
Not even Dudley could break her resolve and get her to marry
him.
After a few years of this, his frustration mounting, Cecil
finally saw through the game. There was nothing he could do,
but at the same time he had come to realize that Queen
Elizabeth I was almost certainly a more capable ruler than any
of the foreign matches. She was so frugal with expenses that the
government was no longer in debt. As Spain and France ruined
themselves with endless wars, Elizabeth prudently kept England
out of the conflicts, and soon the country was prospering.
Although she was Protestant, she treated the English Catholics
well, and the bitter feelings from the religious wars a decade
before were now mostly gone. “There was never so wise a
woman born as Queen Elizabeth,” he would later write, and so
he eventually dropped the marriage issue, and the country itself
slowly became used to the idea of the Virgin Queen, married to
her subjects.
Over the years, however, one issue would continue to eat
away at the people’s affection for the queen, and even made
Cecil begin to doubt her competence: the fate of Mary, Queen of
Scots, cousin to Elizabeth. Mary was a staunch Catholic, while
Scotland had become largely Protestant. Mary was next in line
to be Queen of England, and many Catholics asserted that Mary
was in fact the rightful queen. The Scots themselves came to
despise Mary for her religious sentiments, for her adulterous
affairs, and for her apparent implication in the murder of her
husband, Lord Darnley. In 1567 she was forced to abdicate the
Scottish throne in favor of her infant son, James VI. The
following year she escaped imprisonment in Scotland and fled to
England, putting herself in the hands of her cousin.
Elizabeth had every reason to despise Mary and return her to
Scotland. She was the polar opposite of Elizabeth—selfish,
flighty, and immoral. She was a fervent Catholic, and around her
she would attract all those in England and abroad who wanted
to depose Elizabeth and put a Catholic on the throne. She could
not be trusted. But to the dismay of Cecil, her councillors, and
the English people, Elizabeth allowed Mary to stay in the
country under a mild form of house arrest. Politically this
seemed to make no sense. It infuriated the Scots and threatened
relations between the two countries.
As Mary began to secretly conspire against Elizabeth, and
calls arose from all sides to have her executed for treason,
inexplicably Elizabeth refused to take what appeared to be the
rational step. Was it simply a case of one Tudor protecting
another? Did she fear the precedent of executing a queen, and
what it might mean for her own fate? In any event, it made her
look weak and selfish, as if what mattered were protecting a
fellow queen.
Then, in 1586, Mary became involved with the most
audacious plot to have Elizabeth murdered, upon which Mary
would have become Queen of England. She had secret backing
from the pope and the Spanish, and there was now
incontrovertible proof of her involvement in the plot. This
outraged the public, who could well imagine the bloody civil war
that would have ensued if the plot had gone forward. This time
the pressure on Elizabeth was too great—no matter if Mary had
been a queen, she had to be executed. But yet again Elizabeth
hesitated.
A trial convicted Mary, but Elizabeth could not bring herself
to sign the death warrant. To Cecil and those in the court who
saw her daily, the queen had never appeared so distraught.
Finally, in February of the next year, she caved to the pressure
and signed the death warrant. Mary was beheaded the next day.
The country erupted in celebration; Cecil and his fellow
ministers breathed a sigh of relief. There would be no more
conspiracies against Elizabeth, which would make the lack of an
heir easier to bear. Despite her apparent mishandling of the
situation, the English people quickly forgave her. She had
proven that she could put the welfare of the country over
personal considerations, and her reluctance only made the final
decision seem all the more heroic.

—
King Philip II of Spain had known Elizabeth for many years,
having been married to her half-sister, Queen Mary I. When
Mary had imprisoned Elizabeth in the Tower of London, Philip
had managed to soften her stance and get Elizabeth released. He
found the young Elizabeth quite charming, and he admired her
intelligence. But over the years he began to dread and despise
her. She was the main obstacle to his goal of reestablishing the
dominance of Catholicism, and he would have to humble her. In
his mind, she was not the legitimate Queen of England. He
began sneaking Jesuit priests into England to spread the
Catholic faith and secretly foment rebellion. He built up his navy
and stealthily prepared for what was known as the Enterprise of
England, a massive invasion that would overwhelm the island
and restore it to Catholicism. The execution of Mary, Queen of
Scots, was the final straw—it was time for the invasion.
Philip felt supremely confident in the success of the
Enterprise. Over the years, he had taken the measure of his
great rival. She was crafty and clever, but she had one
overwhelming disadvantage—she was a woman. As such, she
was unsuited to lead a war. In fact, she seemed to be afraid of
armed conflict, always negotiating and finding ways to avoid it.
She had never paid much attention to her military. The English
navy was relatively small, its ships not nearly as large and
powerful as the great Spanish galleons. England’s army was
quite pitiful compared with Spain’s. And Philip had the gold
from the New World to help finance the effort.
He planned for the invasion to take place in the summer of
1587, but that year Sir Francis Drake raided the Spanish coast
and destroyed many of its ships in the harbor of Cádiz, while
seizing great treasures of gold. Philip postponed the invasion to
the following year, the costs slowly mounting for maintaining
his army and building more galleons.
Philip had overseen every detail of the invasion. He would
launch an invincible armada of some 130 ships, manned by over
thirty thousand men. They would easily destroy the English
navy, link up with a large Spanish force in the Netherlands,
cross the Channel, and sweep their way to London, where they
would capture the Queen and put her on trial for the execution
of Mary Queen of Scots; he would then put his own daughter on
the throne of England.
Finally, the armada was launched in May of 1588, and by
July the Spanish fleet was maneuvering around the
southwestern coast of England. The Spanish galleons had
perfected a certain form of warfare: they were so large they
would maneuver close to the enemy ships, grapple, and board
them with a virtual army. But they had never done battle with
the much smaller and faster English ships, with their long-range
cannons, and in waters much rougher than the Mediterranean.
They did not do well.
On July 27, the armada anchored at Calais, just a few miles
from where the Spanish army awaited them. In the middle of
the night, the English sent five unmanned “fireships”—loaded
with flaming wood and pitch—toward the anchored galleons.
With the high winds that evening, the fire spread quickly from
ship to ship. The Spanish galleons tried to regroup farther out to
sea, but their formation was loose and scattered, and the fast
English ships fired at them like ducks in the water. As the winds
changed again, the Spanish were forced to retreat northward,
into the stormiest parts of the North Sea. Trying to round
England and retreat to Spain, they lost most of their ships and
over twenty thousand Spanish soldiers died. The English had
lost no ships and had only around a hundred casualties. It was
one of the most lopsided victories in military history.
For Philip, it was the most humiliating moment in his life. He
retired into his palace, where he holed himself up for months
contemplating the disaster. The armada had left Spain utterly
bankrupt, and in the years to come England would prosper
while Spain became the second-rate power. Somehow Elizabeth
had outwitted him. To the other leaders in Europe who hated
her, she now seemed invincible and a ruler to be feared. Pope
Sixtus V, who had excommunicated her and had given his
blessing to the armada, now exclaimed, “Just look how well she
governs! She is only a woman, only mistress of half an island,
and yet she makes herself feared by Spain, by France, by the
Empire, by all!”

—
Now in England there arose a veritable cult around the Virgin
Queen. She was now referred to as “Her Sacred Majesty.” To
catch a glimpse of her riding through London or passing on her
barge on the Thames seemed like a religious experience.
One group, however, proved less susceptible to this powerful
aura—the new generation of young men now filling the royal
court. To them, the queen was showing her age. They respected
her accomplishments, but they saw her more as a domineering
mother figure. England was a rising power. These young men
yearned to make a name for themselves on the battlefield and so
earn public acclaim. Yet Elizabeth continually thwarted this
desire. She refused to finance a large-scale campaign to finish
off Philip, or to aid the French in their fight against the Spanish.
They saw her as tired and felt it was time for their spirited,
masculine generation to lead England. And the young man who
came to epitomize this new spirit was Robert Devereux, 2nd
Earl of Essex.
Born in 1566, Essex was handsome and high-strung. He
knew the queen had a weakness for young men, and he quickly
charmed her, becoming her new favorite. He genuinely liked
and admired her, but at the same time he resented the power
she possessed over his fate. He began to test her: he asked for
favors, mostly money. She gave these to him. She seemed to
enjoy spoiling him. And as the relationship progressed, Essex
began to see her as a woman he could manipulate. He started to
criticize her rather boldly in front of other courtiers, and the
queen let him get away with it. She drew a line, however, when
he asked for high political positions for himself and his friends,
and then he would fly into a rage. It was humiliating to depend
on the whims of a woman! But days later he would calm down
and return to his charm offensive.
Kept away from political power, he saw that his only chance
for fame and glory was to lead an English army to victory.
Elizabeth allowed him to lead some smaller military expeditions
on the Continent. His record was mixed—he was brave but not
very good at strategy. Then, in 1596, he persuaded her to let him
lead a Drake-like raid on the Spanish coast. This time his
boldness paid off, and the campaign was a success. To the
English people, now somewhat drunk on their new status as a
European power, Essex represented their new swagger, and he
became their darling. Essex wanted more of this and kept asking
the queen for another chance in battle. He attributed her
reluctance to the many enemies he had made in the court, men
who envied him.
In 1598 news reached the court that a band of Irish rebels
under Hugh O’Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone, was moving through
English-controlled territory in Ireland and wreaking havoc. Now
Essex offered his services to lead a force to crush Tyrone. He
pleaded and persisted, and Elizabeth finally relented. Feeling
confident of his powers over the queen, he requested for the
campaign the largest army yet assembled by the English.
Elizabeth granted his wish. For the first time, he felt truly
appreciated by her. She did have a strange ability to make him
want to please her. He expressed his gratitude and promised to
finish the job quickly. Ireland would be the means for him to
rise to the top.
Once he was there, however, the troubles mounted. It was the
winter of 1599; the weather was awful and the terrain hopelessly
boggy. He could not advance his enormous force. The Irish were
elusive and masters at guerrilla warfare. While the English
remained hobbled in their camps, thousands of soldiers died
from disease and just as many began to desert. Essex could only
imagine his many enemies at court talking behind his back. He
felt certain the queen and several ministers were somehow
plotting his downfall.
He had to test her again—he asked for reinforcements. The
queen agreed, but she ordered him to finally find and fight
Tyrone. Suddenly the pressure was too much, and he blamed
the queen and her envious courtiers for trying to rush him. He
felt humiliated by the position he was in, and by the end of the
summer he had decided upon a plan that would put an end once
and for all to his misery—he would secretly negotiate a truce
with Tyrone, then return to England and march on London with
his troops. He would force the queen to get rid of his enemies
within the court and secure his position as her lead councillor.
He would be forceful but respectful of her position; seeing him
in person and with his troops, the queen would certainly relent.
After a swift march through England, he suddenly showed up
one morning in her bedchamber, his uniform caked in mud. The
queen, caught by surprise and not knowing if he had come to
arrest her and launch a coup, retained her composure. She
offered him her hand to kiss and told him they would talk of
Ireland later that day. Her calmness discomfited him; it was not
what he had expected. She possessed a strange kind of power
over him. Somehow the tables had been turned, and now he
agreed to postpone their talk to the afternoon. Within hours, he
found himself taken by her soldiers and placed under house
arrest.
Counting on his influence over the queen and how often she
had forgiven him, he wrote her letter after letter, apologizing for
his actions. She did not respond. This had never happened
before, and it frightened him. Finally, in August of 1600, she
freed him. Grateful for this and plotting his comeback, he asked
just one favor—to restore to him the monopoly he had possessed
over the sale of sweet wines in England; he was hopelessly in
debt and this was his principal source of income. Much to his
chagrin, she refused to honor his request. She was playing some
game, trying to teach him a lesson or tame him, but that would
never happen. She had pushed him too far.
He retired to his house in London and gathered around him
all of the disgruntled noblemen in England. Together he would
lead them on a march to the queen’s residence and take over the
country. He predicted that thousands of Englishmen, who still
adored him, would rally to his cause and swell the ranks of his
troops. In early February 1601, he finally put his plan into
action. To his utter dismay, Londoners stayed in their houses
and ignored him. Sensing the foolhardiness of the venture, his
fellow soldiers quickly deserted. Virtually alone, he retreated to
his house. He knew this was the end for him, but at least he
would remain defiant.
That afternoon, soldiers came to arrest Essex. Elizabeth
arranged for a quick trial, and Essex was found guilty of treason.
This time Elizabeth did not hesitate to sign the death warrant.
During his trial, Essex maintained the most insolent air. He
would go to his death denying his guilt and refusing to ask
forgiveness.
The night before he was to be beheaded, the queen sent her
own chaplain to prepare him for the end. Confronted with this
representative of Elizabeth, who relayed her last words to him,
Essex broke down. All those moments in which he had sensed
her authority but had tried to resist its power, including that
morning in her bedchamber when she had stood before him so
regal and self-possessed, suddenly overwhelmed him. He
confessed his crimes to the chaplain. In his mind, he mixed the
image of his imminent judgment before God with the majesty of
the queen, and he felt the full weight of his betrayal. He could
see her face before him, and it frightened him.
He told the chaplain, “I must confess to you that I am the
greatest, the vilest, and most unthankful traitor that ever has
been in the land.” The queen was right to execute him, he said.
He requested a private execution so as not to inflame the public.
In his last words, he asked God to preserve the queen. He went
to his death with a submissiveness and quiet dignity that no one
had seen or suspected in him before.

• • •
Interpretation: When Elizabeth Tudor became queen, she
understood her supremely fragile position. Unlike her father or
almost any other English monarch, she had zero credibility as a
ruler, and no respect or authority to draw upon. The country
was in a weakened state. She was too young, with no political
experience or prior proximity to power to learn from. Yes, by
merely occupying the throne she could expect some obedience,
but such loyalty was thin and could change with the slightest
mistake or crisis. And within months or years she would be
forced to marry, and as she knew, being married could lead to
all sorts of problems if she did not quickly produce a male heir.
What made this even more troubling was that Elizabeth was
ambitious and highly intelligent; she felt more than capable of
ruling England. She had a vision of how she could solve its many
problems and transform it into a European power. Marriage
would not only be bad for her but for the country as well. Most
likely she would have to marry a foreign prince, whose
allegiance would be to his country of origin. He would use
England as a pawn in the Continent’s power games and drain its
resources even further. But given all the odds against her, how
could she hope to rule England on her own? She decided the
only way forward was to turn her weak position into an
advantage, forging her own type of credibility and authority, one
that in the end would give her powers far greater than any
previous king.
Her plan was based on the following logic: Kings and queens
of her time ruled with a tremendous sense of entitlement due to
their bloodline and semidivine status. They expected complete
obedience and loyalty. They did not have to do anything to earn
this; it came with the position. But this sense of entitlement had
its consequences. Their subjects would pay homage, but the
emotional connection to such rulers was in most cases not very
deep. The English people could feel the distance separating
themselves from the monarch, and how little their rulers really
considered them.
This feeling of entitlement also blunted their political
effectiveness. The government ministers were cowed and
intimidated by someone like Henry VIII, and so their energy
went into appeasing the king rather than using their own
intelligence and creative powers. With this sense of entitlement,
rulers paid less attention to the details of governing, which were
too boring; wars of conquest became their chief means of getting
glory and providing riches for the aristocracy, even though such
wars drained a country’s resources. These rulers could be
incredibly selfish—Henry VIII had Elizabeth’s mother executed
so he could marry his latest mistress, not caring how tyrannical
this made him seem to the English. Mary, Queen of Scots, had
her husband murdered so she could marry her lover.
 It would be easy for Elizabeth to delude herself and simply
expect the loyalty that came with her august position. But she
was too smart to fall into that trap. She would deliberately go in
the opposite direction. She would feel no sense of entitlement.
She would keep in mind the weakness of her actual position. She
would not passively expect loyalty; she would turn active. She
would earn the trust and credibility she required through her
actions over time. She would demonstrate that she was not
selfish, that everything she did was motivated by what was for
the greater good of the country. She would be alert and
relentless in this task. She would alter the way people (her
subjects, her ministers, her foreign rivals) perceived her—from
an inexperienced and weak woman to a figure of authority and
great power. By forging much deeper ties with her ministers and
the commoners, she would overcome people’s natural fickleness
and channel their energies for the purpose of rebuilding
England.
Her first appearances before the English people were cleverly
crafted to set the stage for a new type of leadership. Surrounded
by all the usual royal pomp, she mixed in a common touch,
making her seem both comforting and regal. She was not faking
this. Having felt powerless in her youth, she could identify with
the poorest charwoman of England. She indicated through her
attitude that she was on their side, sensitive to their opinions of
her. She wanted to earn their approval. She would build on this
empathy throughout her reign, and the bonds between her and
subjects became much more intense than with any previous
ruler.
With her ministers, the task was more delicate and difficult.
It was a group of power-hungry men, with their egos and need
to feel smarter than and superior to a woman. She depended on
their help and goodwill to run the country, but if she revealed
too much dependence on them, they would walk all over her.
And so, from the first days of her rule, she made the following
clear: she was all business; she would work harder than all of
them; she would reduce expenditures for the court, sacrificing
her own income in the process; and all activity was to be
directed toward lifting England out of the hole it had fallen into.
She showed early on her superior knowledge of the finances of
the country and the tough side of herself in any negotiation.
Upon occasion, she would flash her anger if a minister seemed
to be furthering a personal agenda, and such outbursts could be
quite intimidating.
Mostly, though, she was warm and empathetic, attuned to
the various moods of these men. Soon they wanted to please her
and win her approval. To not work hard or smart enough could
mean isolation and some coldness, and unconsciously they
wanted to avoid this. They respected the fact that she lived up to
her own high standards. In this way, she slowly placed these
ministers into the same position that she had found herself in:
needing to gain her trust and respect through their actions.
Now, instead of a cabal of conspiring, selfish ministers, the
queen had a team working to further her agenda, and the results
soon spoke for themselves.
By these methods, Elizabeth acquired the credibility she
needed, but she made one major mistake—her handling of
Mary, Queen of Scots. Elizabeth had become somewhat entitled
herself, feeling in this case that she knew better than her
ministers and that her personal qualms about executing a fellow
queen trumped everything else. She paid a price for this policy,
as she felt the people’s respect for her draining away, and it
pained her. Her sense of the greater good was what guided her,
but in this case the greater good would be served by having
Mary executed. She was violating her own principles.
It took some time, but she realized her mistake. She tasked
the head of her secret service to lure Mary into her most far-
reaching conspiracy to get rid of Elizabeth. Now with solid
evidence of Mary’s complicity, Elizabeth could take the dreaded
step. In the end, going against her own feelings for the sake of
the country, in essence admitting her mistake, gained her even
more trust from the English. It was the kind of response to
public opinion that almost no rulers of the time were capable of.
When it came to her foreign rivals, particularly Philip II,
Elizabeth was not naive and understood the situation: Nothing
she had done had earned her any respect or respite from their
endless conspiracies to get rid of her. They disrespected her as
an unmarried queen and as a woman who seemed to fear
conflict and warfare. She largely ignored all of this and kept to
her mission of securing England’s finances. But when the
invasion of England seemed imminent, she knew it was time to
finally prove herself as the great strategist that she was. She
would play on Philip’s underestimating of her craftiness and her
toughness as a leader.
If war was necessary, she would do it as economically and
efficiently as possible. She invested large sums in creating the
most elaborate spy system in Europe, which allowed her to
know in advance Spain’s plans for the invasion, including the
date of the launch. With such knowledge, she could commission
and pay for an army at the last minute, saving huge sums of
money. She financed Sir Frances Drake’s raids on the coast of
Spain and its galleons at sea. This allowed her to enrich
England’s coffers and delay the launching of the armada, which
made it all the more expensive for Philip.
When it seemed certain the launch would occur within a few
months, she quickly built up the English navy, commissioning
smaller and faster ships, cheaper to build in bulk and well suited
to the English seas. Unlike Philip, she left battle strategy in the
hands of her admirals, but she overruled them on one score—
she wanted them to fight the armada as close to England as
possible. This would play into English hands, as the Spanish
galleons were not suited for the stormy northern seas, and the
English soldiers, fighting with their backs to their country,
would fight all the harder. In the end, Spain was bankrupted
and never to return to her former glory, while England under
Elizabeth was now the rising power. But after this great victory,
she resisted the calls to take the battle to Spain and deal the
country a fatal blow. She was not interested in war for glory or
conquest but only to safeguard the country’s interests.
After the defeat of the armada, her authority and credibility
seemed invulnerable, but Elizabeth would never let her guard
down. She knew that with age and success would naturally come
that dreaded sense of entitlement and the insensitivity that went
with it. As a woman ruling the country by herself, she could not
afford such a letdown. She retained her receptiveness to the
moods of those around her, and she could sense that the
younger men now filling the court had a much different attitude
toward her. Their respect was for her position as queen, but it
did not run much deeper than that. Once again she would have
to struggle against masculine egos, but this time without her
own youthful charms and coquetry to fall back on.
Her goal with Essex was to tame and channel his spirit for
the good of the country, as she had done with her ministers. She
indulged him in his endless desires for money and perks, trying
to calm his insecurities, but when it came to giving him any
political power, she set limits. He had to prove himself, to rise to
her level, before she would grant him such powers. When he
threw tantrums, she remained calm and steady, unconsciously
proving to him her superiority and the need for self-control.
When it became clear he could not be tamed, she let him go far
enough with his conspiring to ruin his reputation and allow her
to get rid of this cancer. And when he faced death for his crime,
it was not simply the image of God that terrified him but that of
the queen, whose aura of authority finally overwhelmed this
most insolent and self-entitled of men.
Understand: Although there are no longer powerful kings
and queens in our midst, more of us than ever operate as if we
consider ourselves royalty. We feel entitled to respect for our
work, no matter how little we have actually accomplished. We
feel people should take our ideas and projects seriously, no
matter how little thought went into them or how meager our
track record. We expect people to help us in our careers, because
we are sincere and have the best intentions. Some of this
modern form of entitlement might come from being especially
spoiled by our parents, who made us feel that anything we did
was golden. Some of it might come from the technology that so
dominates our lives and spoils us as well. It gives us immense
powers without our having to exert any real effort. We have
come to take such powers for granted and expect everything in
life to be so fast and easy.
Whatever the cause, it infects all of us, and we must see this
sense of entitlement as a curse. It makes us ignore the reality—
people have no inherent reason to trust or respect us just
because of who we are. It makes us lazy and contented with the
slightest idea or the first draft of our work. Why do we have to
raise our game or strain to improve ourselves when we feel we
are already so great? It makes us insensitive and self-absorbed.
By feeling that others owe us trust and respect, we negate their
willpower, their ability to judge for themselves, and this is
infuriating. We may not see it, but we inspire resentment.
And if we become leaders or subleaders, the effect of this
curse only gets worse. Unconsciously, we tend to sit back and
expect people to come to us with their loyalty and respect for the
high position we occupy. We grow defensive and prickly if our
ideas are challenged, putting our intelligence and wisdom into
question, even on the smallest of matters. We expect certain
perks and privileges, and if there are sacrifices to be made, we
somehow feel we should be exempted. If we make a mistake, it
is always the fault of someone else, or circumstances, or some
momentary inner demon beyond our control. We are never
really to blame.
We are not aware of how this affects those whom we lead,
because we notice only people’s smiles and nods of approval at
what we say. But they see through us. They feel the entitlement
we project, and over time it diminishes their respect and
disconnects them from our influence. At a certain tipping point,
they may turn against us with a suddenness that is shocking.
Like Elizabeth, we must realize that we are actually in a weak
position, and we must struggle to adopt the opposite attitude:
We expect nothing from the people around us, from those whom
we lead. We are not defensive or sitting back but completely
active—everything we get from others, and most definitely their
respect, must be earned. We have to continually prove
ourselves. We have to show that our primary consideration is
not ourselves and our sensitive egos but the welfare of the
group. We must be responsive and truly empathetic to people’s
moods, but with limits—to those who show themselves to be
mostly self-promoting, we are tough and merciless. We practice
what we preach, working harder than others, sacrificing our own
interests if necessary, and being accountable for any mistakes.
We expect the members of the group to follow our lead and
prove themselves in return.
With such an attitude, we will notice a very different effect.
People will open themselves to our influence; as we move
toward them, they move toward us. They want to win our
approval and respect. With such an emotional connection, we
are more easily forgiven for mistakes. The group energy is not
squandered on endless infighting and the clashing of egos but is
directed toward reaching goals and accomplishing great things.
And in achieving such results, we can forge an aura of authority
and power that only grows with time. What we say and do seems
to carry extra weight, and our reputation precedes us.
That . . . is the road to the obedience of compulsion. But there is a
shorter way to a nobler goal, the obedience of the will. When the
interests of mankind are at stake, they will obey with joy the man
 whom they believe to be wiser than themselves. You may prove this
on all sides: you may see how the sick man will beg the doctor to tell
him what he ought to do, how a whole ship’s company will listen to
the pilot.
—Xenophon

Keys to Human Nature

We humans like to believe that the emotions we experience are
simple and pure: we love certain people and hate others, we
respect and admire this individual and have nothing but disdain
for another. The truth is that this is almost never the case. It is a
fundamental fact of human nature that our emotions are
almost always ambivalent, rarely pure and simple. We can feel
love and hostility at the same time, or admiration and envy.
This ambivalence began in our childhood and set the pattern
for the rest of our lives. If our parents were relatively attentive
and loving, we remember our childhood fondly, as a golden
period. What we conveniently forget is that even with such
parents we tended to feel resentful of our dependence on their
love and care. In some cases, we felt smothered. We yearned to
assert our willpower, to show we could stand on our own.
Feeling too dependent on their attention could open up
tremendous anxieties about our vulnerability if they were gone.
And so we inevitably felt some hostility and desire to disobey,
along with our affection.
If they were not kind and caring, later in life we resent them
and can remember only their coldness and our present
antipathy. But we forget that in our childhood we tended to
gloss over their negative traits and find ways to love them
despite their treatment, and to somehow blame ourselves for
not deserving their affection. Given the fact that we depended
on them for our survival, to feel they truly did not care would
have stirred up far too much anxiety. Mixed with moments of
anger and frustration were feelings of need and love.
And so as children, when one emotion dominated us, the
other lay underneath, a continual ambivalent undertone. As
adults, we experience similar ambivalence with our friends and
intimate partners, particularly if we feel dependent on them and
vulnerable.
Part of the reason for this essential ambivalence is that
strong, pure emotions are frightening. They represent a
momentary loss of control. They seem to negate our willpower.
We unconsciously balance them with contrary or conflicting
emotions. And part of it stems from the fact that our moods are
continually shifting and overlapping. Whatever the cause, we
are not aware of our own ambivalence because contemplating
the complexity of our emotions is baffling, and we prefer to rely
on simple explanations for who we are and what we are feeling.
We do the same with the people around us, reducing our
interpretations of their feelings to something simple and
digestible. It would take effort, and much honesty on our part,
to catch our own underlying ambivalence in action.
Nowhere is this fundamental aspect of human nature more
evident than in our relationship toward leaders, whom we
unconsciously associate with parental figures. This ambivalence
toward leaders operates in the following way.
On the one hand, we intuitively recognize the need for
leaders. In any group, people have their narrow agendas and
competing interests. The members feel insecure about their own
position and work to secure it. Without leaders who stand above
these competing interests and who see the larger picture, the
group would be in trouble. Hard decisions would never be made.
No one would be guiding the ship. Therefore, we crave
leadership and unconsciously feel disoriented, even hysterical,
without someone fulfilling this role.
On the other hand, we also tend to fear and even despise
those who are above us. We fear that those in power will be
tempted to use the privileges of their position to accumulate
more power and enrich themselves, a common enough
occurrence. We are also willful creatures. We don’t feel
comfortable with the inferiority and dependence that comes
with serving under a leader. We want to exercise our own will
and feel our autonomy. We secretly envy the recognition and
privileges that leaders possess. This essential ambivalence tips
toward the negative when leaders show signs of abuse,
insensitivity, or incompetence. No matter how powerful the
leaders, no matter how much we might admire them, below the
surface sits this ambivalence, and it makes people’s loyalties
notoriously fickle and volatile.
Those in power will tend to notice only the smiles of their
employees and the applause they receive at meetings, and they
will mistake such support for reality. They do not realize that
people almost always show such deference to those above them,
because their personal fate is in the hands of such leaders and
they cannot afford to show their true feelings. And so leaders are
rarely aware of the underlying ambivalence that is there even
when things are going well. If leaders make some mistakes, or if
their power seems shaky, suddenly they will see the mistrust
and loss of respect that had been invisibly building up, as the
members of the group or the public turn on them with an
intensity that is surprising and shocking. Look at the news to see
how quickly leaders in any field can lose support and respect,
and how quickly they are judged by their latest success or
failure.
We might be tempted to believe that such fickleness is more
of a modern phenomenon, a product of the fiercely democratic
times we live in. After all, our ancestors were much more
obedient than we moderns, or so we think. But this was hardly
the case. Far back in time, among indigenous cultures and early
civilizations, once-revered chiefs and kings were routinely put to
death if they showed signs of aging or weakness; or if they lost a
battle; or if a sudden drought occurred, meaning the gods no
longer blessed them; or if they were seen as favoring their own
clan at the expense of the group. These executions were
moments of great celebration, a time to release all of the pent-
up hostility toward leaders. (See The Golden Bough, by James
Frazer, for innumerable examples of this.)
Perhaps unconsciously our ancestors feared any one
individual lasting long in power, because they sensed the
corrupting aspect of power; and with someone new and fresh,
they could control him better. In any case, underneath their
obedience lay tremendous wariness. We may not execute our
chiefs anymore, but we do so symbolically in our elections and
in the media, taking joy in witnessing the ritualistic fall of the
powerful. We may not blame them for a lack of rainfall, but we
will blame them for any downturn in the economy, even though
most of what happens in the economy is beyond their control.
As with the rainfall, they seem to have lost the blessings of good
fortune, of the gods. When it comes to our ambivalence and
mistrust, we have not changed as much as we think.
Throughout history, however, certain notable leaders have
been able to erect a bulwark against this volatility, to earn a type
of solid respect and support that allowed them to accomplish
great things over time. We think of Moses, or the ancient Indian
emperor Asoka, or Pericles (see chapter 1), or the Roman
general Scipio Africanus, or Queen Elizabeth I. In more modern
times we can think of Abraham Lincoln, or Martin Luther King
Jr., or Warren Buffett, or Angela Merkel, or Steve Jobs. We shall
call such power authority, reverting to the original significance
of the word, which comes from the Latin auctoritas, the root
meaning “to increase or augment.”
To the ancient Romans, those who had founded their
republic possessed tremendous wisdom. Their ancestors had
demonstrated this wisdom by how strong and long-lasting were
the institutions they had established, and how they had
transformed their provincial town into the preeminent power in
the known world. To the extent that Roman senators and
leaders returned to this basic wisdom and embodied the ideals
of the founders, they had authority—an augmented presence, an
increased prestige and credibility. Such leaders did not have to
resort to speeches or to force. Roman citizens willingly followed
their lead and accepted their ideas or advice. Their every word
and deed seemed to carry extra weight. This gave them greater
leeway in making hard decisions; they were not judged merely
by their latest success.
The Romans were notoriously fractious and mistrustful of
those in power. Their politics could easily descend into civil war,
which in fact happened on several occasions. Having leaders
who exuded authority was a way to control this combativeness,
to get things done, to maintain a degree of unity. And it required
that such leaders embody the highest of ideals, ones that
transcended the pettiness of daily political life.
This Roman model, which represents an adherence to a
higher purpose, remains the essential ingredient for all true
forms of authority. And this is how we must operate if we wish
to establish such authority in the world today.
First and foremost, we must understand the fundamental
task of any leader—to provide a far-reaching vision, to see the
global picture, to work for the greater good of the group and
maintain its unity. That is what people crave in their leaders. We
have to avoid ever seeming petty, self-serving, or indecisive.
Showing signs of that will stir up the ambivalence. Focusing on
the future and the larger picture should consume much of our
thinking. Based on this vision, we must set practical goals and
guide the group toward them. We need to become masters of
this visionary process through practice and experience.
Attaining such mastery will give us tremendous confidence in
ourselves, as opposed to the fake confidence of those who are
merely grandiose. And when we exude this confidence, people
will be drawn to us and want to follow our lead.
At the same time, however, we must see leadership as a
dynamic relationship we have with those being led. We have to
understand that our slightest gesture has an unconscious effect
on individuals. And so we must pay great attention to our
attitude, to the tone that we set. We need to attune ourselves to
the shifting moods of the members of the group. We must never
assume we have their support. Our empathy must be visceral—
we can feel when members are losing respect for us. As part of
the dynamic, we need to realize that when we show our respect
and trust toward those below us, such feelings will flow back to
us. The members will open up to our influence. We must try as
much as possible to engage people’s willpower, to make them
identify with the group’s mission, to want to actively participate
in realizing our higher purpose.
This empathy, however, must never mean becoming
needlessly soft and pliant to the group’s will. That will only
signal weakness. When it comes to our primary task—that of
providing a vision for the group and leading it toward the
appropriate goals—we must be stern and immovable. Yes, we
can listen to the ideas of others and incorporate the good ones.
But we must keep in mind that we have a greater command of
the overall details and global picture. We must not succumb to
political pressures to seem fairer, and so dilute our vision. This
vision of ours is beyond politics. It represents truth and reality.
We have to be resilient and tough when it comes to realizing it,
and merciless with those who try to sabotage this vision or work
against the greater good. Toughness and empathy are not
incompatible, as Queen Elizabeth I demonstrated.
When leaders fail to establish these twin pillars of authority—
vision and empathy—what often happens is the following: Those
in the group feel the disconnect and distance between them and
leadership. They know that deep down they are viewed as
replaceable pawns. They sense the overall lack of direction and
the constant tactical reactions to events. And so, in subtle ways,
they begin to feel resentful and to lose respect. They listen less
attentively to what such leaders say. They spend more hours in
the day thinking of their own interests and future. They join or
form factions. They work at half or three-quarter speed.
If such leaders, sensing all of this, become more forceful and
demanding, the members become more passive-aggressive. If
the leaders become pliant and plead for more support, the
members feel even less respect, as if the group were now leading
the leader. In this way, the members create endless forms of
friction for leaders, who might now feel like they have to drag
the group up a hill. This friction, caused by their own
inattentiveness, is why so many leaders get so little done and are
so mediocre.
On the other hand, if we intuitively or consciously follow the
path of establishing authority, as described above, we have a
much different effect on the group dynamic. The ambivalence of
the members or the public does not go away—that would violate
human nature—but it becomes manageable. People will still
waver and have moments of doubt or envy, but they will more
quickly forgive us for any mistakes and move past their
suspicions. We have established enough trust for that to happen.
Besides, the members have come to dread what could occur if
we no longer were the leaders—the disunity, the lack of clarity,
the bad decisions. Their need for us is too strong.
Now we are no longer dealing with the invisible friction from
the group but the opposite. The members feel engaged in the
larger mission. We are able to channel their creative energy,
instead of having to drag them along. With this loyalty in place,
it is easier to reach goals and realize our vision. This gives us the
augmented presence of authority, in which everything we say
and do has added weight.
It is always within our capacity to reach this ideal, and if the
members lose respect and trust in us, we must see this as our
own fault.

—
Your task as a student of human nature is threefold: First, you
must make yourself a consummate observer of the phenomenon
of authority, using as a measuring device the degree of influence
people wield without the use of force or motivational speeches.
You begin this process by looking at your own family and
gauging which parent, if any, exercised greater authority over
you and your siblings. You look at the teachers and mentors in
your life, some of whom distinguished themselves by the
powerful effect they had on you. Their words and the example
they set still reverberate in your mind. You observe your own
bosses in action, looking at their effect not only on you and
other individuals but also on the group as a whole. Lastly, you
look at the various leaders in the news. In all these cases, you
want to determine the source of their authority or lack of it. You
want to discern moments when their authority waxes or wanes,
and figure out why.
Second, you want to develop some of the habits and
strategies (see the next section) that will serve you well in
projecting authority. If you are an apprentice who aspires to a
position of leadership, developing these strategies early on will
give you an impressive and appealing aura in the present,
making it seem as if you were destined to be powerful. If you are
already in a leadership position, these strategies will strengthen
your authority and connectedness to the group.
As part of this process, you need to reflect on the effect you
have on people: Are you constantly arguing, trying to impose
your will, finding much more resistance than you expect to your
ideas and projects? Do people nod as they listen to your advice
and then do the opposite? If you are just starting out, sometimes
this cannot be helped—people generally don’t respect the ideas
of those lower down in the hierarchy; the same ideas
promulgated by a boss would have a different effect. But
sometimes it could stem from your own actions, as you violate
many of the principles described above.
Do not take people’s smiles and expressions of assent for
reality. Notice their tension as they do so; pay particular
attention to their actions. Take any grumbling as a reflection on
your authority. In general, you want to heighten your sensitivity
to others, looking in particular at those moments when you can
feel people’s disrespect, or your authority on the wane. But keep
in mind that there are always bad apples within any group,
people who will grumble and not be won over by you no matter
what you do. They live to be passive-aggressive and undermine
anyone in a leadership position. Don’t bother with empathy;
nothing will work on them. The art is to recognize them as
quickly as possible and either fire or marginalize them. Having a
group that is tight and committed will also make it much easier
to control such malevolent types.
Third and most important, you must not fall for the
counterproductive prejudices of the times we live in, in which
the very concept of authority is often misunderstood and
despised. Today we confuse authority with leaders in general,
and since so many of them in the world seem more interested in
preserving their power and enriching themselves, naturally we
have doubts about the very concept itself. We also live in fiercely
democratic times. “Why should we ever have to follow a person
of authority, and assume such an inferior role?” we might ask
ourselves. “People in power should simply get the job done;
authority is a relic of kings and queens. We have progressed far
beyond that.”
This disdain for authority and leadership has filtered its way
throughout our culture. We no longer recognize authority in the
arts. Everyone is a legitimate critic, and standards should be
personal—nobody’s taste or judgment should be seen as
superior. In the past, parenting was considered the model of
authority, but parents no longer want to see themselves as
authority figures whose role is to inculcate children with
particular values and culture. Instead, parents like to see
themselves more as equals, with a bit more knowledge and
experience, whose role is really to validate their children’s
feelings and make sure they are continually entertained and
occupied. They are more like older friends. This same leveling
dynamic applies to teachers and students, where learning must
be fun.
In this atmosphere, leaders begin to believe that they are
more like caretakers, there to stand back and enable the group
to make the right decisions, doing everything by consensus. Or
they entertain the idea that what matters more than anything
else is crunching numbers, absorbing the mass of information
available today. Data and algorithms will determine the
direction to take and are the real authority.
All of these ideas and values have unintended consequences.
Without authority in the arts, there is nothing to rebel against,
no prior movement to overturn, no deep thinking to assimilate
and later even reject. There is only an amorphous world of
trends that flicker away with increasing speed. Without parents
as authority figures, we cannot go through the critical stage of
rebellion in adolescence, in which we reject their ideas and
discover our own identity. We grow up lost, constantly searching
outside ourselves for that identity. Without teachers and
masters whom we acknowledge as superior and worthy of
respect, we cannot learn from their experience and wisdom,
perhaps even seeking later on to surpass them with new and
better ideas.
Without leaders who dedicate much mental energy to
foreseeing trends and guiding us to long-term solutions, we are
lost. And as this situation becomes the norm, because we
humans have always needed some form of authority as a guide,
we tend to fall for certain fake forms of authority that proliferate
in times of chaos and uncertainty.
This could be the strongman, who gives the illusion of
leadership and direction but has no real vision of where to go,
just ideas and actions that serve his ego and enhance his sense
of control. This could be the panderer, the leader who cleverly
mimics what the public wants to hear, creating the illusion of
being sensitive to the group and giving it what it wants. This
could be the chummy leader, who affects the style and
mannerisms of everyone else, offering what seems to be the
ultimate in fairness, fun, and consensus. This could also be the
authority of the group, which becomes that much more powerful
in the age of social media: what other people are saying and
doing must be true and respected, by dint of sheer numbers. But
all of these false forms only lead to more turmoil, chaos, and bad
decisions.
As students of human nature, we must recognize the myriad
dangers of our prejudice against authority figures. To
acknowledge people of authority in the world is not an
admission of our own inferiority but rather an acceptance of
human nature and the need for such figures. People of authority
should not be seen as self-serving or tyrannical—in fact, those
are the qualities that diminish their authority. They are not
relics of the past but people who fulfill a necessary function and
whose style adapts with the times. Authority can be an
eminently democratic phenomenon. We must realize that much
of what is behind progressive ideas of consensus, the minimal
leader, and the parent as friend, is actually a great fear of
responsibility, of the tough choices that must be made, of
standing out and taking the heat. We must move in the opposite
direction, embracing the risks and dangers that come with
leadership and authority.
In the world today, we humans have become more self-
absorbed, more tribal and tenacious in holding on to our narrow
agendas; we have become consumed by the barrage of
information inundating us; we are even more fickle when it
comes to leaders. And so the need for true figures of authority—
with an elevated perspective, a high attunement to the group,
and a feel for what unifies it—has never been greater. And
because of that, we are tasked with establishing our authority
and assuming such a necessary role.

Strategies for Establishing Authority

Remember that the essence of authority is that people willingly
follow your lead. They choose to adhere to your words and
advice. They want your wisdom. Certainly at times you may
have to use force, rewards and punishments, and inspiring
speeches. It is only a matter of degree. The less your need of
such devices, the greater your authority. And so you must think
of continually striving to engage people’s willpower and
overcome their natural resistances and ambivalence. That is
what the following strategies are designed to do. Put them all
into practice.
The authority you
Find your authority style: Authenticity.
establish must emerge naturally from your character, from the
particular strengths you possess. Think of certain archetypes of
authority: one of them suits you best. A notable archetype is the
Deliverer, such as Moses or Martin Luther King Jr., an
individual determined to deliver people from evil. Deliverers
have an acute dislike of any kind of injustice, particularly those
that affect the group they identify with. They have so much
conviction, and most often such a way with words, that people
are drawn to them.
Another archetype would be the Founder. These are the ones
who establish a new order in politics or business. They generally
have a keen sense of trends and a great aversion to the status
quo. They are unconventional and independent minded. Their
greatest joy is to tinker and invent something new. Many people
naturally rally to the side of Founders, because they represent
some form of progress. Related to this archetype would be the
Visionary Artist, such as Pablo Picasso or the jazz artist John
Coltrane or the film director David Lynch. These artists learn
the conventions in their field and then turn them upside down.
They crave some new style and they create it. With their skill,
they always find an audience and followers.
Other archetypes could include the Truth Seeker (people who
have no tolerance for lies and politicking); the Quiet Pragmatist
(they want nothing more than to fix things that are broken, and
have infinite patience); the Healer (they have a knack for
finding what will fulfill and unify people); the Teacher (they
have a way of getting people to initiate action and learn from
their mistakes). You must identify with one of these archetypes,
or any others that are noticeable in culture.
By bringing out a style that is natural to you, you give the
impression that it is something beyond you, as if your sense of
justice or nose for trends came from your DNA or were a gift
from the gods. You cannot help but fight for your cause or create
a new order. Without this naturalness, it might seem that your
attempt at authority is too opportunistic and manipulative, that
your support for some cause or trend is a mere ploy for power.
The earlier you recognize this style the better; you will have
more time to hone it, to adapt it to changes in yourself and in
the culture, to bring out new facets to impress and fascinate
people. And having left signs of this style from the beginning of
your career, it will seem all the more like a higher power that
you cannot help but follow.
We humans are self-absorbed by
Focus outwardly: the Attitude.
nature and spend most of our time focusing inwardly on our
emotions, on our wounds, on our fantasies. You want to develop
the habit of reversing this as much as possible. You do this in
three ways. First, you hone your listening skills, absorbing
yourself in the words and nonverbal cues of others. You train
yourself to read between the lines of what people are saying. You
attune yourself to their moods and their needs, and sense what
they are missing. You do not take people’s smiles and approving
looks for reality but rather sense the underlying tension or
fascination.
Second, you dedicate yourself to earning people’s respect.
You do not feel entitled to it; your focus is not on your feelings
and what people owe you because of your position and greatness
(an inward turn). You earn their respect by respecting their
individual needs and by proving that you are working for the
greater good. Third, you consider being a leader a tremendous
responsibility, the welfare of the group hanging on your every
decision. What drives you is not getting attention but bringing
about the best results possible for the most people. You absorb
yourself in the work, not your ego. You feel a deep and visceral
connection to the group, seeing your fate and theirs as deeply
intertwined.
If you exude this attitude, people will feel it, and it will open
them up to your influence. They will be drawn to you by the
simple fact that it is rare to encounter a person so sensitive to
people’s moods and focused so supremely on results. This will
make you stand out from the crowd, and in the end you will gain
far more attention this way than by signaling your desperate
need to be popular and liked.
In 401 BC, ten thousand Greek
Cultivate the third eye: the Vision.
mercenary soldiers, fighting on behalf of the Persian prince
Darius in his attempt to take over the empire from the king, his
brother, suddenly found themselves on the losing side of the
battle, and now trapped deep in the heart of Persia. When the
victorious Persians tricked the leaders of the mercenaries into
coming to a meeting to discuss their fate and then executed
them all, it became clear to the surviving soldiers that they
would be either executed as well or sold into slavery by the next
day. That night they wandered through their camp bemoaning
their fate.
Among them was the writer Xenophon, who had gone along
with the soldiers as a kind of roving reporter. Xenophon had
studied philosophy as a student of Socrates. He believed in the
supremacy of rational thinking, of seeing the entire picture, the
general idea behind the fleeting appearances of daily life. He
had practiced such thinking skills over several years.
That night he had a vision of how the Greeks could escape
their trap and return home. He saw them moving swiftly and
stealthily through Persia, sacrificing everything for speed. He
saw them leaving right away, using the element of surprise to
gain some distance. He thought ahead—of the terrain, the route
to take, the many enemies they would face, how they could help
and use citizens who revolted against the Persians. He saw them
getting rid of their wagons, living off the land and moving
quickly, even in winter. In the space of a few hours, he had
conjured up the details of the retreat, all inspired by his overall
vision of their fast zigzag route to the Mediterranean and home.
Although he had no military experience, his vision was so
complete, and he communicated it with such confidence, that
the soldiers nominated him as their de facto leader. It took
several years and involved many ensuing challenges, each time
Xenophon applying his global vision to determine a strategy, but
in the end, he proved the power of such rational thinking by
leading them to safety despite the immense odds against them.
This story embodies the essence of all authority and the most
essential element in establishing it. Most people are locked in
the moment. They are prone to overreacting and panicking, to
seeing only a narrow part of the reality facing the group. They
cannot entertain alternative ideas or prioritize. Those who
maintain their presence of mind and elevate their perspective
above the moment tap into the visionary powers of the human
mind and cultivate that third eye for unseen forces and trends.
They stand out from the group, fulfill the true function of
leadership, and create the aura of authority by seeming to
possess the godlike ability to read the future. And this is a power
that can be practiced and developed and applied to any
situation.
As early in life as possible, you train yourself to disconnect
from the emotions roiling the group. You force yourself to raise
your vision, to imagine the larger picture. You strain to see
events in themselves, uncolored by people’s partisan opinions.
You entertain the perspective of the enemy; you listen to the
ideas of outsiders; you open your mind to various possibilities.
In this way, you gain a feel for the gestalt, or overall shape of the
situation. You game out the possible trends, how things might
play out in the future, and in particular how things could go
wrong. You have infinite patience for this exercise. The more
deeply you go into it, the more you can acquire the power to
discern the future in some form.
Those who faced Napoleon Bonaparte on the battlefield often
had the impression he read their minds and knew of their plans,
but he had merely thought forward more thoroughly than the
other side. The great German thinker and writer Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe seemed to have the uncanny ability to
predict future trends, but it came from years of study and global
thinking.
Once you have your vision, you then slowly work backward to
the present, creating a reasonable and flexible way to reach your
goal. The more thinking that goes into this process, the more
confident you will feel about your plan, and this confidence will
infect and convince others. If people doubt your vision, you stay
inwardly firm. Time will prove you right. If you fall short of your
goals, take this as a sign you have not gone far enough with your
thinking.
As the leader, you must be seen
Lead from the front: the Tone.
working as hard as or even harder than everyone else. You set
the highest standards for yourself. You are consistent and
accountable. If there are sacrifices that need to be made, you are
the first to make them for the good of the group. This sets the
proper tone. The members will feel compelled to raise
themselves up to your level and gain your approval, much like
Elizabeth’s ministers. They will internalize your values and
subtly imitate you. You will not have to yell and lecture them to
make them work harder. They will want to.
It is important that you set this tone from the beginning.
First impressions are critical. If you try later on to show you
want to lead from the front, it will look forced and lack
credibility. Equally important is to show some initial toughness;
if people get the impression early on that they can maneuver
you, they will do so mercilessly. You set limits that are fair. If
members don’t rise to the high levels you uphold, you punish
them. Your tone in speaking or writing is peremptory and bold.
People always respect strength in the leader, as long as it does
not stir up fears of the abuse of power. If such toughness is not
natural to you, develop it, or you will not last very long in the
position. You will always have plenty of time to reveal that
softer, kinder side that is really you, but if you start soft, you
signal that you are a pushover.
Begin this early on in your career by developing the highest
possible standards for your own work (see the next section for
more on this) and by training yourself to be constantly aware of
how your manner and tone affect people in the subtlest of ways.
Most people are too
Stir conflicting emotions: the Aura.
predictable. To mix well in social situations, they assume a
persona that is consistent—jovial, pleasing, bold, sensitive. They
try to hide other qualities that they are afraid to show. As the
leader, you want to be more mysterious, to establish a presence
that fascinates people. By sending mixed signals, by showing
qualities that are ever so slightly contrary, you cause people to
pause in their instant categorizations and to think about who
you really are. The more they think about you, the larger and
more authoritative your presence.
So, for instance, you are generally kind and sensitive, but you
show an undertone of harshness, of intolerance toward certain
types of behavior. This is the pose of parents, who demonstrate
their love while indicating limits and boundaries. The child is
trapped between affection and a touch of fear, and from that
tension comes respect. In general, try to keep your bursts of
anger or recriminations as infrequent as possible. Because you
are mostly quiet and empathetic, when your anger flares, it
really stands out and has the power to make people truly
intimidated and contrite.
You can mix prudence with an undertone of boldness that
you occasionally display. You deliberate long on problems, but
once a decision is made, you act with great energy and audacity.
Such boldness comes out of nowhere and creates a strong
impression. Or you can blend the spiritual with an undertone of
earthy pragmatism. Those were the paradoxical qualities of
Martin Luther King Jr. that fascinated people. Or you can be
folksy and regal, like Queen Elizabeth I. Or you can blend the
masculine and the feminine. (See chapter 12 for more on this.)
Related to this, you must learn to balance presence and
absence. If you are too present and familiar, always available
and visible, you seem too banal. You give people no room to
idealize you. But if you are too aloof, people cannot identify with
you. In general, it is best to lean slightly more in the direction of
absence, so that when you do appear before the group, you
generate excitement and drama. If done right, in those moments
when you are not available, people will be thinking of you.
Today people have lost this art. They are far too present and
familiar, their every move displayed on social media. That might
make you relatable, but it also makes you seem just like
everyone else, and it is impossible to project authority with such
an ordinary presence.
 Keep in mind that talking too much is a type of overpresence
that grates and reveals weakness. Silence is a form of absence
and withdrawal that draws attention; it spells self-control and
power; when you do talk, it has a greater effect. In a similar
fashion, if you commit a mistake, do not overexplain and
overapologize. You make it clear you accept responsibility and
are accountable for any failures, and then you move on. Your
contrition should be relatively quiet; your subsequent actions
will show you have learned the lesson. Avoid appearing
defensive and whiny if attacked. You are above that.
Develop this aura early on, as a way to enthrall people. Do
not make the mix too strong, or you will seem insane. It is an
undertone that makes people wonder in a good way. It is a
matter not of faking qualities you do not have, but rather of
bringing out more of your natural complexity.
Taking something
Never appear to take, always to give: the Taboo.
from people they have assumed they possessed—money, rights
or privileges, time that is their own—creates a basic insecurity
and will call into question your authority and all the credit you
have amassed. You make the members of the group feel
uncertain about the future in a most visceral manner. You stir
up doubts about your legitimacy as a leader: “What more will
you take? Are you abusing the power that you have? Have you
been fooling us all along?” Even the hint of this will harm your
reputation. If sacrifices are necessary, you are the first to make
them, and they are not simply symbolic. Try to frame any loss of
resources or privileges as temporary, and make it clear how
quickly you will restore them. Follow the path of Queen
Elizabeth I and make the husbanding of resources your primary
concern, so that you never end up in this position. Make it so
that you can afford to be generous.
Related to this, you must avoid overpromising to people. In
the moment, it might feel good to let them hear of the great
things you will do for them, but people generally have an acute
memory for promises, and if you fail to deliver, it will stick in
their mind, even if you try to blame others or circumstances. If
this happens a second time, your authority begins to sharply
erode. Not giving what you promised to deliver will feel like
something you have taken away. Everyone can talk a good game
and promise, and so you seem like just anyone else we
encounter, and the disappointment can be profound.
 Your authority will grow
Rejuvenate your authority: Adaptability.
with each action that inspires trust and respect. It gives you the
luxury to remain in power long enough to realize great projects.
But as you get older, the authority you established can become
rigid and stodgy. You become the father figure who starts to
seem oppressive by how long he has monopolized power, no
matter how deeply people admired him in the past. A new
generation inevitably emerges that is immune to your charm, to
the aura you have created. They see you as a relic. You also have
the tendency as you get older to become ever so slightly
intolerant and tyrannical, as you cannot help but expect people
to follow you. Without being aware, you start to feel entitled,
and people sense this. Besides, the public wants newness and
fresh faces.
The first step in avoiding this danger is to maintain the kind
of sensitivity that Elizabeth displayed throughout her life, noting
the moods behind people’s words, gauging the effect you have
on newcomers and young people. Losing that empathy should
be your greatest fear, as you will begin to cocoon yourself in
your great reputation.
The second step is to look for new markets and audiences to
appeal to, which will force you to adapt. If possible, expand the
reach of your authority. Without making a fool of yourself by
attempting to appeal to a younger crowd that you cannot really
understand, try to alter your style somewhat with the passing
years. In the arts, this has been the secret to success of people
like Pablo Picasso, or Alfred Hitchcock, or Coco Chanel. Such
flexibility in those who are in their fifties and beyond will give
you a touch of the divine and immortal—your spirit remains
alive and open, and your authority is renewed.

The Inner Authority

We all have a higher and a lower self. At certain moments in life,
we can definitely feel one part or the other as the stronger.
When we accomplish things, when we finish what we start, we
can sense the outlines of this higher self. We feel it as well when
we think of others before ourselves, when we let go of our ego,
when instead of merely reacting to events, we step back and
think and strategize the best way forward. But equally we know
all too well the stirrings of the lower self, when we take
everything personally and become petty, or when we want to
escape reality through some addictive pleasure, or when we
waste time, or when we feel confused and unmotivated.
Although we most often float between these two sides, if we
look at ourselves closely, we have to admit that the lower half is
the stronger one. It is the more primitive and animal part of our
nature. If nothing impels us to do otherwise, we naturally
become indolent, crave quick pleasures, turn inward, and brood
over petty matters. It often takes great effort and awareness to
tame this lower half and bring out the higher side; it is not our
first impulse.
The key to making the struggle between the two sides more
even and to perhaps tip the scales toward the higher is to
cultivate what we shall call the inner authority. It serves as the
voice, the conscience of our higher self. This voice is already
there; we hear it at times, but it is weak. We need to increase the
frequency with which we hear it and its volume. Think of this
voice as dictating a code of behavior, and every day we must
make ourselves listen to it. It tells us the following.
You have a responsibility to contribute to the culture and times you
live in.Right now, you are living off the fruits of millions of
people in the past who have made your life incomparably easier
through their struggles and inventions. You have benefited from
an education that embodies the wisdom of thousands of years of
experience. It is so easy to take this all for granted, to imagine
that it all just came about naturally and that you are entitled to
have all of these powers. That is the view of spoiled children,
and you must see any signs of such an attitude within you as
shameful. This world needs constant improvement and renewal.
You are here not merely to gratify your impulses and consume
what others have made but to make and contribute as well, to
serve a higher purpose.
To serve this higher purpose, you must cultivate what is unique about
you. Stop listening so much to the words and opinions of others,
telling you who you are and what you should like and dislike.
Judge things and people for yourself. Question what you think
and why you feel a certain way. Know yourself thoroughly—your
innate tastes and inclinations, the fields that naturally attract
you. Work every day on improving those skills that mesh with
your unique spirit and purpose. Add to the needed diversity of
culture by creating something that reflects your uniqueness.
Embrace what makes you different. Not following this course is
the real reason you feel depressed at times. Moments of
depression are a call to listen again to your inner authority.
In a world full of endless distractions, you must focus and prioritize.
Certain activities are a waste of time. Certain people of a low
nature will drag you down, and you must avoid them. Keep your
eye on your long- and short-term goals, and remain
concentrated and alert. Allow yourself the luxury of exploring
and wandering creatively, but always with an underlying
purpose.
You must adhere to the highest standards in your work.You strive
for excellence, to make something that will resonate with the
public and last. To fall short of this is to disappoint people and
to let down your audience, and that makes you feel ashamed. To
maintain such standards, you must develop self-discipline and
the proper work habits. You must pay great attention to the
details in your work and place a premium value on effort. The
first thought or idea that comes to you is most often incomplete
and inadequate. Think more thoroughly and deeply about your
ideas, some of which you must discard. Do not become attached
to your initial ideas, but rather treat them roughly. Keep in mind
that your life is short, that it could end any day. You must have a
sense of urgency to make the most of this limited time. You
don’t need deadlines or people telling you what to do and when
to finish. Any motivation you need comes from within. You are
complete and self-reliant.
When it comes to operating with this inner authority, we can
consider Leonardo da Vinci our model. His motto in life was
ostinato rigore, “relentless rigor.” Whenever Leonardo was
given a commission, he went well beyond the task, poring over
every detail to make the work more lifelike or effective. No one
had to tell him to do this. He was ferociously diligent and hard
on himself. Although his interests ranged far and wide, when he
attacked a particular problem, it was with complete focus. He
had a sense of a personal mission—to serve mankind, to
contribute toward its progress. Impelled by this inner authority,
he pushed beyond all of the limits that he had inherited—being
an illegitimate son with little direction or education early on in
his life. Such a voice will likewise help us push beyond the
obstacles that life places in our path.
 It might seem at first glance that having such a voice from
within could lead to a rather harsh and unpleasant life, but in
fact it is the opposite. There is nothing more disorienting and
depressing than to see the years pass by without a sense of
direction, grasping to reach goals that keep changing, and
squandering our youthful energies. Much as the outer authority
helps keep the group unified, its energy channeled toward
productive and higher ends, the inner authority brings you a
sense of cohesion and force. You are not gnawed by the anxiety
that comes with living below your potential.
Feeling the higher self in ascendance, you can afford to
indulge that lower self, to let it out at moments to release
tension and not become a prisoner of your Shadow. And most
important, you no longer need the comfort and guidance of a
parent or leader. You have become your own mother and father,
your own leader, truly independent and operating according to
your inner authority.
The select man, the excellent man is urged, by interior necessity, to
appeal from himself to some standard beyond himself, superior to
himself, whose service he freely accepts. . . . We distinguished the
excellent man from the common man by saying that the former is
one who makes great demands on himself, and the latter the one
who makes no demands on himself, but contents himself with what
he is, and is delighted with himself. Contrary to what is usually
thought, it is the man of excellence . . . who lives in essential
servitude. Life has no savor for him unless he makes it consist in
service to something transcendental. Hence he does not look upon
the necessity of serving as an oppression. When, by chance, such
necessity is lacking, he grows restless and invents some new
standard, more difficult, more exigent, with which to coerce himself.
This is life lived as a discipline—the noble life.
—José Ortega y Gasset
 16

See the Hostility Behind the Friendly

Façade

The Law of Aggression

O n the surface, the people around you appear so polite and civilized. But
beneath the mask, they are all inevitably dealing with frustrations. They
have a need to influence people and gain power over circumstances. Feeling
blocked in their endeavors, they often try to assert themselves in manipulative
ways that catch you by surprise. And then there are those whose need for power
and impatience to obtain it are greater than others. They turn particularly
aggressive, getting their way by intimidating people, being relentless and willing
to do almost anything. You must transform yourself into a superior observer of
people’s unsatisfied aggressive desires, paying extra attention to the chronic
aggressors and passive aggressors in our midst. You must recognize the signs—
the past patterns of behavior, the obsessive need to control everything in their
environment—that indicate the dangerous types. They depend on making you
emotional—afraid, angry—and unable to think straight. Do not give them this
power. When it comes to your own aggressive energy, learn to tame and channel
it for productive purposes—standing up for yourself, attacking problems with
relentless energy, realizing great ambitions.

The Sophisticated Aggressor

In late 1857, Maurice B. Clark, a twenty-eight-year-old Englishman living in
Cleveland, Ohio, made the most important decision yet in his young life: he would
quit his comfortable job as a high-level buyer and seller for a produce firm and
start his own business in the same line. He had the ambition of becoming yet
another new millionaire in this bustling city, and he had nothing but confidence in
his powers to get there: he was a born hustler with a nose for making money.
Clark had fled England some ten years earlier, fearing imminent arrest for
having struck his employer and knocked him unconscious. (He always had a bit of
a temper.) He had emigrated to the United States, traveled west from New York,
landed all kinds of odd jobs, and then ended up in Cleveland, where he quickly
rose through the ranks of merchants. Cleveland was something of a boomtown,
located on a river and Lake Erie and serving as a key transportation hub
connecting the East to the West. There would never be a better time for Clark to
push his way forward and make a fortune.
There was only one problem—he did not have enough money to start the
business. He would need a collaborator with some capital, and as he thought
about this, he came up with a possible business partner, a young man named John
D. Rockefeller whom Clark had befriended at a commercial college both had
attended a few years before.
At first glance, it seemed an odd choice. Rockefeller was only eighteen years
old. He was working as a bookkeeper at a fairly large produce-shipping firm
named Hewitt and Tuttle, and he was in so many ways the polar opposite of Clark:
Clark loved to live well, with a taste for fine things, gambling, and the ladies; he
was feisty and combative. Rockefeller was fiercely religious, unusually sober and
mild-mannered for his age. How could they possibly get along? And Clark had
calculated that his partner would have to put up at least $2,000 to get the
company under way. How would a bookkeeper from a family of limited means
have such savings? On the other hand, in his two years at Hewitt and Tuttle,
Rockefeller had earned a reputation as one of the most fiercely efficient and
honest clerks in town, a man who could be relied upon to account for every penny
spent and keep the company in the black. More important, as Rockefeller was so
young, Clark could dominate the relationship. It was worth asking him.
To Clark’s surprise, when he suggested the partnership, Rockefeller not only
jumped at the opportunity with uncharacteristic zeal but quickly came up with the
$2,000, somehow borrowing the funds. Rockefeller quit his job and the new
company, called Clark and Rockefeller, opened for business in April 1858.
In its first years Clark and Rockefeller was a thriving enterprise. The two men
balanced each other out, and there was much business to be had in Cleveland. But
as time went on, Clark began to feel increasingly irritated by the young man, and
even a bit contemptuous of him. He was more straitlaced than Clark had
imagined; he had no discernible vices. His main pleasure seemed to come from
the accounting books that he kept so well and finding ways to save money.
Although still so young, he already had a slumped posture from poring over his
ledgers day and night. He dressed like a middle-aged banker, and acted that way
as well. Clark’s brother James, who worked in the office, dubbed him “the Sunday-
school superintendent.”
Slowly Clark began to see Rockefeller as too dull and dreary to be one of the
faces of the company. Clark brought in a new partner from an elite Cleveland
family and dropped Rockefeller’s name from the company title, hoping that would
draw even more business. Surprisingly, Rockefeller did not seem to object to this;
he was all in favor of making more money and cared little about titles.
Their produce business was booming, but soon word spread through Cleveland
of a new commodity that could spark the region’s equivalent of a gold rush—the
recent discovery of rich veins of oil in nearby western Pennsylvania. In 1862 a
young Englishman named Samuel Andrews—an inventor/entrepreneur who had
known Clark in England—visited their offices and pleaded with Clark to become
partners in the oil business. He bragged of the limitless potential in oil—the
lucrative series of products that could be made out of the material and the
cheapness of producing them. With just a little capital they could start their own
refinery and make a fortune.
Clark’s response was lukewarm—it was a business that experienced
tremendous ups and downs, prices continually rising and falling, and with the
Civil War now raging, it seemed a bad time to commit so fully. It would be better
to get involved on some lower level. But then Andrews gave his pitch to
Rockefeller, and something seemed to spark to life in the young man’s eyes.
Rockefeller convinced Clark that they should fund the refinery—he would
personally ensure its success. Clark had never seen Rockefeller so enthusiastic
about anything. It must mean something, he thought, and so he relented to the
pressure from the two men. In 1863 they formed a new refining business called
Andrews, Clark and Company.
That same year, twenty other refineries sprouted up in Cleveland, and the
competition was fierce. To Clark, it was quite amusing to watch Rockefeller in
action. He spent hours in the refinery, sweeping the floors, polishing the metal,
rolling out barrels, stacking hoops. It was like a love affair. He worked well into
the night trying to figure out ways to streamline the refinery and squeeze more
money out of it. It had become the principal generator of profit for their firm, and
Clark could not help but be pleased that he had agreed to fund it. Oil, however,
had become Rockefeller’s obsession, and he constantly bombarded Clark with new
ideas for expansion, all at a time when the price of oil was fluctuating more than
ever. Clark told him to go more slowly; he found the chaos in the oil business
unnerving.
Increasingly, Clark found it hard to hide his irritation: Rockefeller was getting a
bit puffed up with the success of the refinery. Clark had to remind the former
bookkeeper of whose idea it had been all along to start their business. Like a
refrain, he kept telling Rockefeller, “What in the world would you have done
without me?” Then he discovered that Rockefeller had borrowed $100,000 for the
refinery without consulting him, and he angrily ordered Rockefeller to never go
behind his back again and to stop looking to expand the business. But nothing he
said or did seemed to stop him. For someone so quiet and unassuming,
Rockefeller could be annoyingly relentless, like a child. A few months after Clark
had berated him, Rockefeller hit him with another request to sign for a big loan,
and Clark finally exploded: “If that’s the way you want to do business, we’d better
dissolve, and let you run your own affairs to suit yourself.”
Clark had no desire to break up the partnership at this point—it was too
profitable, and despite the qualities that grated on his nerves, he needed
Rockefeller as the man to look after the dull details of their growing enterprise. He
simply wanted to intimidate Rockefeller with this threat, which seemed to be the
only way to get him to back off on his tireless quest to quickly grow the refinery
business. As usual, Rockefeller said little and seemed to defer.
Then, the following month, Rockefeller invited Clark and Andrews to his house
to discuss future plans. And despite all of Clark’s previous admonitions,
Rockefeller outlined even bolder ideas for expanding the refinery, and once again
Clark could not control himself. “We’d better split up!” he yelled. Then something
odd happened—Rockefeller agreed to this and got Clark and Andrews to affirm
that they were all in favor of dissolving the partnership. He did this without the
slightest trace of anger or resentment.
Clark had played a lot of poker, and he felt certain Rockefeller was bluffing,
trying to force his hand. If he refused to budge on the young man’s desire to
expand the business, Rockefeller would have to back down. He could not afford to
be on his own; he needed Clark more than the other way around. He would be
forced to realize his rashness and ask to resume the partnership. In doing so,
Rockefeller would be humbled. Clark could set the terms and demand that
Rockefeller follow his lead.
To his amazement, however, the next day Clark read in the local newspaper the
announcement of the dissolution of their business, the notice obviously placed
there by Rockefeller himself. When Clark confronted him later that day,
Rockefeller calmly replied he was merely putting into action what they had agreed
upon the day before, that it had been Clark’s idea to start with, and that he
thought Clark was right. He suggested they hold an auction and sell the company
to the highest bidder. Something about his dull, businesslike manner was
infuriating. At this point, agreeing to the auction was not the worst option. Clark
would outbid him and be rid of this insufferable upstart once and for all.
On the day of the auction in February 1865, Clark used a lawyer to represent
his side, while Rockefeller represented himself, yet another sign of his arrogance
and lack of sophistication. The price kept ticking upward, and finally Rockefeller
bid $72,500, a rather ridiculous and shocking price to pay, a sum that Clark could
not possibly afford. How would Rockefeller have so much money, and how could
he possibly run this business without Clark? He clearly had lost any business sense
that he had had. If that was what he was willing to pay, and he had the funds, let
him have it and good riddance. As part of the sale, Rockefeller got the refinery but
had to let go of the produce business with no compensation. Clark was more than
satisfied, although it bothered him that Andrews had decided to go along with
Rockefeller and remain his partner.
In the months to come, however, Maurice Clark began to reassess what had
happened: he started to have the uneasy feeling that Rockefeller had been
planning this for months, perhaps more than a year. Rockefeller must have
courted bankers and secured bank loans well before the auction, to be able to
afford the high price. He must have also secured Andrews to his side in advance.
He could detect a gloating look in Rockefeller’s eye the day the refinery became
his, something he had never seen before in the sober young man. Was that quiet
and dull appearance of his merely an act? As the years revealed the immense
wealth Rockefeller would accumulate through this first move, Clark could not help
but entertain the thought he had somehow been played.

—
Colonel Oliver H. Payne was the equivalent of Cleveland aristocracy. He came
from an illustrious family that included one of the founders of the city itself. He
had attended Yale University and had become a decorated Civil War hero. And
after the war he had started several successful business enterprises. He had one of
the finest mansions in town on Euclid Avenue, nicknamed Millionaire’s Row. But
he had larger ambitions, perhaps politics; he thought of himself as presidential
material.
One of his thriving businesses was a refinery, which was the second biggest in
town. But toward the end of 1871, Payne began to hear strange rumors of some
kind of agreement between a few refinery owners and the largest railroads: the
railroads would lower their rates for the particular refineries that had joined this
secret organization, in exchange for a guaranteed volume of traffic. Those outside
this organization would find their rates rising, making business difficult if not
impossible. And the chief refinery owner, and the only one in Cleveland, behind
this agreement was apparently none other than John D. Rockefeller.
Rockefeller had expanded to two refineries in Cleveland and had renamed the
company Standard Oil. Standard Oil was now the country’s largest refining
business, but the competition remained stiff, even within Cleveland and its now
twenty-eight refineries, including those of Standard Oil. Because of this booming
business, more and more millionaires had built their mansions on Euclid Avenue.
But if Rockefeller controlled entrée into this new organization, he could do great
damage to his competitors. It was in the midst of these rumors that Rockefeller
arranged for a very private meeting between him and Payne at a Cleveland bank.
Payne knew Rockefeller well. They had been born two weeks apart, had gone to
the same high school, and lived near each other on Euclid Avenue. He admired
Rockefeller’s business savvy but also feared him. Rockefeller was the kind of man
who could not stand to lose in anything. If someone passed him by in a horse-
drawn carriage, Rockefeller would have to whip his horses and overtake it. They
worshipped in the same church; Payne knew he was a man of high principle, but
he was also quite mysterious and secretive.
In their meeting, Rockefeller confided in Payne: he was the first outsider to be
told of the existence of this secret organization, to be called the Southern
Improvement Company (SIC). Rockefeller claimed it was the railroads that had
come up with the idea of the SIC to increase their profits, and that he had really
had no choice but to enter into the agreement. He did not invite Payne to join the
SIC. Instead he offered to buy out Payne’s refinery at a very nice price, to give
Payne a hefty amount of Standard Oil stock that would certainly mint him a
fortune, and to bring him in as a high-level executive with an illustrious title. He
would make far more money this way than by trying to compete with Standard Oil.
Rockefeller said all of this in the politest tone. He was going to keep expanding
and bring some much-needed order to the anarchic oil industry. It was a crusade
of his, and he was inviting Payne to be a fellow crusader from within Standard Oil.
It was a compelling way to present his case, but Payne hesitated. He had moments
of exasperation in dealing with this unpredictable business, but he had not
thought of selling the refinery. It was all so sudden. Sensing his indecision,
Rockefeller gave him a look of great sympathy and offered Payne the chance to
examine Standard Oil’s ledgers, to convince him of the futility of resistance. Payne
could hardly turn that down, and what he saw in a few short hours astounded him:
Standard Oil had considerably higher profit margins than his own. Nobody had
suspected to what extent Standard Oil was outpacing its rivals. For Payne, it was
enough, and he accepted Rockefeller’s offer.
News of the sale of Payne’s refinery, as well as the growing rumors of the
existence of the SIC, completely rattled the other refinery owners in town. With
Payne’s refinery in his pocket, Rockefeller was in a very strong position.
Within weeks, J. W. Fawcett of Fawcett and Critchley, another major refinery
in town, received a visit from Rockefeller. His pitch was ever so slightly more
ominous than what he had delivered to Payne: the business was too unpredictable;
Cleveland was farther away from the oil-producing towns, and the refiners had to
pay more for crude oil to be shipped there; they were at a continual disadvantage;
with the prices of oil continuing to fluctuate, many of them would go bust;
Rockefeller was going to consolidate them and give Cleveland some leverage with
the railroads; he was doing them all a favor, relieving them of the tremendous
burdens of the business and giving them money before they went broke, which
with the SIC was certain to happen.
The price he offered for Fawcett’s refinery was certainly less generous than
what he had paid Payne, as were the shares and the position within Standard Oil
that went along with the proposition, and Fawcett was quite reluctant to sell, but a
glance at Standard Oil’s books overwhelmed him, and he surrendered to
Rockefeller’s terms.
Now more and more refinery owners received a visit from Rockefeller, and one
after another succumbed to the pressure, since holding out put them in a weaker
negotiating position, as the price Rockefeller offered for their refineries kept
getting lower. One holdout owner was Isaac Hewitt, Rockefeller’s former boss
when he was a fledgling bookkeeper. Selling the refinery at such a low price could
ruin Hewitt. He begged Rockefeller for mercy and to be left alone with his
business. Rockefeller, ever gentle and polite, told him that he could not possibly
compete with Standard Oil moving forward. “I have ways of making money you
know nothing about,” he explained. Hewitt sold his refinery for more than half the
price he had wanted.
By the middle of March, the existence of the SIC had become public and the
pressure had mounted for such an organization to be disbanded or suffer legal
consequences. The railroads relented, and so did Rockefeller, who did not seem all
that upset at this news. The matter was settled, the SIC disappeared, but in the
months to come some people in Cleveland began to wonder if all was not what it
had appeared to be. The SIC had never really taken effect; it had remained just a
rumor, and Standard Oil, it seemed, was the principal source of that rumor. In the
meantime, Rockefeller had effected what had become known as the Cleveland
Massacre—in just a few months, he had bought out twenty of the twenty-six
refineries outside his control. Many elegant mansions of former millionaires on
Euclid Avenue were now being sold or boarded up, as Rockefeller had carefully
knocked them out of the business. He had acted as if the railroads were calling all
the shots with the SIC, but perhaps it had been the other way around.

—
In the years to come, those in the railroad business began to greatly fear the
growing power of Standard Oil. After the Cleveland Massacre, Rockefeller applied
the same tactics to refineries in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and New York. His
method was always the same: aiming first for the biggest refineries in the
respective town, showing them his books, which were now even more impressive,
getting a few big fish to surrender, and instilling panic in the others. Those who
held out he would ruthlessly undersell and drive out of the market. By 1875,
Rockefeller controlled all of the major refining centers in the United States and
virtually monopolized the worldwide market for kerosene, the principal product
used for lighting.
Such power gave him far too much leverage over railroad rates, but to make
matters worse, Rockefeller had begun to dominate the pipeline business, the other
way of transporting oil. He built up a whole series of pipelines throughout
Pennsylvania and had gained control of several railroads that helped ship the oil
the rest of the way to the East Coast, giving him his own transportation networks.
If he continued unimpeded in this campaign, his position would be impregnable.
And nobody was more afraid of this prospect than Tom Scott, president of the
Pennsylvania Railroad, at the time the largest and most powerful corporation in
America.
Scott had led a most distinguished life. During the Civil War, he had served as
Lincoln’s assistant secretary of war, in charge of ensuring the smooth functioning
of the railroads in aiding the North’s effort. As head of the Pennsylvania Railroad,
he had ambitions of endlessly expanding the company’s reach, but Rockefeller
stood in the way, and it was time to do battle with Standard Oil.
Scott had all the necessary resources to take on Rockefeller, and he had a plan.
For the past few years, anticipating Rockefeller’s maneuvers, he had built up his
own enormous network of pipelines that would work in conjunction with his
railroad to move oil to refineries. He would ramp up the construction of new
pipelines and purchase new refineries that sprang up, creating his own rival
network, ensuring his railroad enough business to check Rockefeller’s progress,
then work to weaken him further. But as it became clear what he was up to,
Rockefeller’s response was totally unexpected and rather shocking: Standard Oil
shut down almost all its Pennsylvania refineries, giving Scott’s pipelines and
railroads virtually no oil to ship. If they managed to get their hands on some oil,
Rockefeller rigorously undersold them to any refineries outside his system, and he
seemed to not care how low the price would go. He also made it hard for Scott to
get his hands on the oil the company needed to lubricate train engines and wheels.
Pennsylvania Railroad had overextended itself in this campaign and was losing
money at a rapid rate, but Rockefeller had to be losing just as much. He seemed to
be aiming for mutual suicide. Scott was in too deep to back out of this war, and so
he was forced to cut costs by firing hundreds of railroad workers and reducing
wages for those who remained. Scott’s workers retaliated with a general railroad
strike that quickly turned violent and bloody, as workers spread throughout the
state destroying thousands of Pennsylvania Railroad freight cars. Scott retaliated
brutally, but the strike persisted and the shareholders in the Pennsylvania
Railroad were growing quite nervous. All the while, Rockefeller seemed
unperturbed and continued with his pressure campaign, as if he had nothing to
lose.
Scott had had enough. Somehow Rockefeller could absorb these huge losses,
but he could not. He had literally run out of money. Not only did he agree to put a
stop to his campaign, but he had to sell to Rockefeller the lion’s share of his
refineries, storage tanks, steamships, and pipelines. Scott would never recover
from this humiliating and rather sudden defeat: a year later he suffered a stroke,
and within a few years he died at the age of fifty-eight.

—
Although it appeared that Rockefeller’s control of the oil business was now
complete, a businessman and engineer named Byron Benson had an idea about
how to poke a hole in his expanding empire. Rockefeller could call the shots with
his immense resources, but he could not compete with technological progress.
What gave Rockefeller an advantage was that pipelines were relatively short, at
most thirty miles long. He could dominate by creating pipeline networks all across
Pennsylvania and by controlling many of the railroads operating between the
refineries and the pipelines. Even if someone had an independent pipeline, at
some point he would depend on Standard Oil to transport the oil the rest of the
way.
What if, however, Benson could design something new—one long, continuous
pipeline that would run from the oil fields of western Pennsylvania to the Eastern
Seaboard? In that way he could deliver oil directly to the few independent East
Coast refineries that remained and guarantee low prices for them, bypassing
Rockefeller’s network. This would halt Rockefeller’s momentum, and with more of
these long-range pipelines, rivals to Standard Oil could begin to compete on fairer
terms.
It would not be easy. The pipeline would require some novel engineering to
make the oil flow upward over the hills and mountains that would inevitably be in
the way, but Benson had been working on this. And because Rockefeller had made
so many enemies and so many feared his growing monopoly, Benson was able to
raise very large sums of money from investors, more than enough to cover the
high cost of building such a pipeline.
Benson named his enterprise the Tidewater Pipeline Company, and in 1878
construction began. But almost immediately he had to deal with an insidious
campaign to halt the work on the pipeline. Benson depended on railroad tank cars
to transport the heavy materials to the construction site, but it seemed that over
the years Rockefeller had bought up the lion’s share of such cars and had virtually
cornered the market. Wherever he turned to find tank cars, Benson ran into
Standard Oil subsidiaries that controlled them. Benson had to find other means of
moving the material, and this added to his costs and wasted valuable time. All of
this only made him more determined to finish the job and outwit Rockefeller.
This, however, was only the beginning. Benson needed to make his route to the
sea as easy as possible, to save money, and that would mean running it through
Maryland. But now word reached him that, through lots of generous bribes,
Rockefeller had gotten the Maryland legislature to give an exclusive pipeline
charter to Standard Oil. This meant Tidewater would have to pass through the
hillier and even mountainous areas farther north in Pennsylvania, making the
route more circuitous and the job more expensive.
Then, however, came the most threatening blow of all: Rockefeller suddenly
went on a real estate buying spree, purchasing large tracts of farmland in
Pennsylvania, right in the way of Tidewater’s advance to the sea. No price seemed
too high for Standard Oil to pay. Benson did what he could to fight back and buy
his own land, but rumors began to spread among the farmers in the area of the
danger if they sold parts of their land to Tidewater—being so long, the pipeline
would be subject to leaks that could ruin their crops. Clearly, Standard Oil was the
source of the rumors, and they had an effect.
To Benson, Rockefeller was like a relentless, invisible demon attacking him
from all directions, ratcheting up the costs and the pressure. But Benson could be
just as relentless. If Rockefeller bought out an entire valley, Benson made the
pipeline change course, even if it meant going over more hills. The route became a
ridiculous zigzag, but the pipeline kept inching its way east and finally reached the
coast in May of 1879.
Once the pipeline went into operation, however, no one could predict if its
elaborate pumping system could move the oil up steep climbs. Slowly the first flow
of crude oil made its way through the pipeline, ascending even the highest
mountain, and after seven days the first drops reached the end point. The
Tidewater Pipeline was considered one of the great engineering feats of the day,
and Benson became an overnight hero. Finally someone had outwitted and
outfought Standard Oil.
To Benson’s amazement, however, Rockefeller now only ratcheted up the
pressure. Tidewater had bled money and had little left in reserve, but here was
Rockefeller drastically reducing rates on Standard Oil’s own pipelines and
railroads, transporting oil virtually for free. Tidewater could not find a drop of oil
to ship, and this was bringing the company to its knees. By March of 1880 Benson
had had enough, and he struck a deal with Standard Oil on the most favorable
terms he could get, joining the two companies. But this was only a preliminary
move. In the months to come, Rockefeller bought up more and more shares in
Tidewater, bringing it completely under his control. Like so many others before
him, in trying to fight against Rockefeller, Benson had only made him stronger
and more invincible. How could anyone hope to fight against such an indomitable
force?

—
In the 1880s the demand for kerosene to light houses and offices exploded, and
Rockefeller controlled the market. And in cities and towns across America, local
grocers and retailers began to notice a revolutionary new system introduced by
Standard Oil. The company had set up storage tanks in all corners of the country
and financed tank wagons to transport the kerosene to almost every town. Not
only would Standard Oil salesmen personally sell the company’s kerosene to
stores, but they would also go from house to house, selling heaters and stoves
directly to homeowners, at the lowest prices.
This threatened the business of many local retailers, and when they protested,
Standard Oil representatives would tell them that they would stop the practice if
the retailers sold exclusively Standard Oil products. For those who refused,
Standard Oil would start its own grocery store in the area and, with cheap prices,
drive the rebellious store owners out of business. In some areas, furious retailers
would turn to a rival company, such as Republic Oil, which specialized in selling to
retailers who hated Rockefeller. Little did they know that Standard Oil had
secretly set up and owned Republic Oil.
With all of these practices Rockefeller had created a growing number of
enemies, but none of them was as dogged and fanatical as George Rice, a man who
had managed to maintain a small, independent refinery in Ohio. He tried to get
lawmakers to investigate the company’s practices. He published a newsletter
called Black Death, which compiled all the muckraking articles on Rockefeller.
And to somehow find a way to make a profit and snub his nose at Rockefeller, he
decided he would personally travel and sell his own oil in several towns, bypassing
the new system that had cornered the market.
It was hard to imagine that Standard Oil could possibly care about him; the
amount of oil he was trying to sell was miniscule and his success was quite limited.
But when he managed to sell a mere seventy barrels of kerosene to a retailer in
Louisville, suddenly he learned that the railroad that had agreed, while he was on
the road, to ship his oil to him now refused to carry his product. He knew who was
behind this, but he managed to find other, more expensive means to get
shipments of oil.
He moved to another town near Louisville, only to find Standard Oil salesmen
there who had anticipated his presence and carefully kept underselling him. He
found himself pushed to ever-smaller towns farther south, but once again there
were the Standard Oil men blocking his way, and soon he could not sell a drop of
oil. It was as if they had spies everywhere and were tracking his progress. But
more than anything, he felt the ubiquitous presence of Rockefeller himself, who
clearly knew of his little campaign and was out to crush this tiniest of competitors
at all costs. Finally realizing what he was truly up against, Rice gave up the fight
and returned home.

—
In the early 1900s, after Rockefeller had resigned as head of Standard Oil, he
began to fascinate the American public. He was by far the wealthiest man in the
world, the first billionaire on the planet, but the stories of the way he had
conducted his battles and the monopoly he had forged made them wonder about
his character. He was a notorious recluse, and few knew anything concrete about
him. Then some among his many enemies initiated a series of court cases to break
up the Standard Oil monopoly. Rockefeller was forced to testify, and to the
public’s amazement, he was not at all like the devil they had imagined. As one
newspaper writer reported: “He seems the embodiment of sweetness and light.
His serenity could not be disturbed. . . . At times his manner was mildly
reproachful, at others tenderly persuasive, but never did he betray an ill temper or
vexation.”
As he emerged as the world’s most generous philanthropist, and as the public
came to appreciate the cheap oil he provided, they changed their opinion of him.
After all, as the major shareholder in Standard Oil he had immense influence, and
he had agreed to the breakup of the Standard Oil monopoly. Little did they know
that behind the scenes he operated as he always had done: finding loopholes in the
law, keeping the monopoly together through secret agreements, and maintaining
his control. He would not allow anyone to block his path, and certainly not the
government.

• • •
Interpretation: The story of the rise to power of John D. Rockefeller has to be
considered one of the most remarkable in history. In a relatively short period of
time (some twenty years), he rose from the bottom of society (his family had
suffered periods of poverty) to become the founder and owner of the largest
corporation in America, and shortly after that to emerge as the wealthiest man in
the world. In the process, as so often happens in such cases, his story became
shrouded in all kinds of myths. He was either a demon or a god of capitalism. But
lost in all of these emotional responses is the answer to a simple question: how did
one man—with little help—accumulate so much power in so little time?
If we examine him closely, we must conclude that it wasn’t through supreme
intelligence or some particular talent or creative vision. He had some of those
qualities, but nothing strong enough to account for his outrageous success. In
truth, what we can attribute it to more than anything is the sheer relentless force
of will that he possessed to utterly dominate every situation and rival he
encountered, and to exploit every opportunity that crossed his path. We shall call
this aggressive energy. Such energy can have productive purposes (see the last
section in the chapter for more on this), and certainly Rockefeller had some
achievements that benefited the society of his time. But as so often happens with
highly aggressive people, this energy pushed him to monopolize virtually all power
in a complex industry. It made him wipe out all rivals and any possible
competition, bend laws to his benefit, standardize all practices according to his
desires, and in the end, depress innovation in the field.
Let us divorce Rockefeller’s story from the usual emotional responses and
simply look at him dispassionately, as a kind of specimen to help us understand
the nature of highly aggressive individuals and what makes large numbers of
people submit to their will. In this way we can also learn some valuable lessons
about human nature and how we can begin to counter those who continually work
to monopolize power, often to the detriment of the rest of us.
 Rockefeller grew up in peculiar circumstances. His father, William, was a
notorious con artist. And from the very beginning, the father set a rather
unpleasant pattern for the family: He would leave his wife, Eliza, and four children
(John being the eldest) for months on end in their flimsy cabin in western New
York and travel the region plying his various con games. During this time, the
family would have barely enough money to survive. Eliza had to find a way to
make every penny count. Then the father would reappear with wads of cash and
gifts for the family. He was amusing (a great storyteller) but at times rather cruel
and even violent. Then he would leave again, and the pattern would reset. It was
impossible to predict when he would return, and the members of the family were
continually on edge when he was there and when he was not.
As a teenager, John had to go to work to help bring some stability to the
family’s finances. And as he advanced in his career, he could not escape the
anxieties that had plagued him in his childhood. He had a desperate need to make
everything orderly and predictable in his environment. He immersed himself
deeply in his accounting books—nothing was more predictable than the pluses and
minuses on a ledger sheet. At the same time, he had great ambitions for making a
fortune; his father had instilled in him an almost visceral love of money.
And so, when he first learned of what could be accomplished with an oil
refinery, he saw his great opportunity. But his attraction to the oil business may
seem at first glance rather strange. It was a Wild West environment, totally
anarchic; fortunes could be made or lost in a matter of months. In many ways, the
oil business was like his father—exciting, promising sudden riches, but
treacherously unpredictable. Unconsciously he was drawn to it for those very
reasons—he could relive his worst fears from childhood and surmount them by
establishing rigorous control over the oil industry. It would be like conquering the
father himself. The chaos would only spur him to greater heights, as he would
have to work doubly hard to tame its wildness.
And so, in these first years of business, we can see the motivating factor that
would drive all his subsequent actions—the overwhelming need for control. The
more complicated and difficult this task, the more relentless the energy he would
summon to achieve such a goal. And out of this need came a second one, almost as
important—to justify his aggressive actions to the world and to himself.
Rockefeller was a deeply religious man. He could not live with the thought that
what drove his actions was a desire to control people and acquire the vast sums of
money necessary for such a purpose. That would have been to see himself in too
ugly and soulless a light.
To repress such a thought, he constructed what we shall call the aggressor’s
narrative. He had to convince himself that his quest for power served some higher
purpose. There was a belief at the time among Protestants that to make a lot of
money was a sign of grace from God. With wealth, the religious individual could
give back to the community and help support the local parish. But Rockefeller
took this further. He believed that establishing order in the oil business was a
divine mission, like ordering the cosmos. He was on a crusade to bring cheap
prices and predictability to American households. Turning Standard Oil into a
monopoly blended seamlessly with his deep religious convictions.
Sincerely believing in this crusade, it did not bother his conscience to ruthlessly
manipulate and ruin his rivals, to bribe legislators, to run roughshod over laws, to
form fake rival enterprises to Standard Oil, to spark and use the violence of a
strike (with Pennsylvania Railroad) that would help him in the long run. Belief in
this narrative made him all the more energetic and aggressive, and for those who
faced him, it could be confusing—perhaps there was some good in what he was
doing; perhaps he was not a demon after all.
Finally, to realize his dream of control, Rockefeller transformed himself into a
superior reader of men and their psychology. And the most important quality for
him to gauge in the various rivals he faced was their relative willpower and
resiliency. He could sense this in people’s body language and in the patterns of
their actions. Most people, he determined, are rather weak. They are mostly led by
their emotions, which change by the day. They want things to be rather easy in life
and tend to take the path of least resistance. They don’t have a stomach for
protracted battles. They want money for the pleasures and comforts it can bring,
for their yachts and mansions. They want to look powerful, to satisfy their ego.
Make them afraid or confused or frustrated, or offer them an easy way out, and
they would surrender to his stronger will. If they got angry, all the better. Anger
burns itself out quickly, and Rockefeller always played for the long term.
Look at how he played each of the antagonists in his path. With Clark, he
carefully fed his arrogance and deliberately made him irritable, so that he would
quickly agree to the auction just to get rid of Rockefeller, without thinking too
deeply about the consequences.
Colonel Payne was a vain and greedy man. Give him plenty of money and a nice
title, and he would be satisfied and surrender to Rockefeller his refinery. For the
other refinery owners, instill fears about the uncertain future, using the SIC as a
convenient bogeyman. Make them feel isolated and weak, and sow some panic.
Yes, his refineries were more profitable, as shown by his books, but the other
owners failed to reason that Rockefeller himself was just as vulnerable as they
were to the ups and downs of the business. If only they had united in opposition to
his campaign, they could have countered him, but they were made too emotional
to think straight, and they surrendered their refineries with ease.
When it came to Scott, Rockefeller saw him as a hothead, enraged by Standard
Oil’s threat to his preeminent position in business. Rockefeller welcomed the war
with Scott and prepared for it by amassing vast amounts of cash. He would simply
outlast him. And the angrier he made Scott with his unorthodox tactics, the more
imprudent and rash Scott became, going so far as to try to crush the railroad
strike, which only made his position weaker. With Benson, Rockefeller recognized
the type—the man enamored with his own brilliance and wanting attention as the
first one to defeat Standard Oil. Putting up obstacles in his path would only make
him try harder, while weakening his finances. It would be simple to buy him off in
the end, when he had grown tired of Rockefeller’s relentless pressure.
As an extra measure, Rockefeller would always strategize to make his
opponents feel rushed and impatient. Clark had only one day to plan for the
auction. The refinery owners faced imminent doom in a few months unless they
sold to him. Scott and Benson had to hurry up in their battles or face running out
of money. This made them more emotional and less able to strategize.
Understand: Rockefeller represents a type of individual that you will likely
come across in your field. We shall call this type the sophisticated aggressor, as
opposed to the primitive aggressor. Primitive aggressors have very short fuses. If
someone triggers in them feelings of inferiority or weakness, they explode. They
lack any self-control, and so they tend to not get very far in life, inevitably bullying
and hurting too many people. Sophisticated aggressors are much trickier. They
rise to top positions and can stay there because they know how to cloak their
maneuvers, to present a distracting façade, and to play upon people’s emotions.
They know that most people do not like confrontation or long struggles, and so
they can intimidate or wear people down. They depend on our docility as much as
on their own aggression.
The sophisticated aggressors that you encounter do not have to be as
spectacularly successful as a Rockefeller. They can be your boss, a rival, or even a
scheming colleague on the way up. You can recognize them by one simple sign:
they get to where they’re going primarily through their aggressive energy, not
through their particular talents. They value amassing power more than the quality
of their work. They do whatever is necessary to secure their position and crush any
kind of competition or challenge. They do not like to share power.
In dealing with this type, you will tend to become angry or fearful, enlarging
their presence and playing into their hands. You obsess over their evil character
and fail to pay close attention to what they are actually up to. What you often end
up surrendering to is the appearance or illusion of strength that they project, their
aggressive reputation. The way to handle them is to lower the emotional
temperature. Start by looking at the individual, not the myth or legend.
Understand their primary motivation—to gain control over the environment and
the people around them. As with Rockefeller, this need for control covers up vast
layers of anxieties and insecurities. You must see the frightened child within,
terrified by anything unpredictable. In this way you can cut them down to size,
diminishing their ability to intimidate you.
They want to control your thoughts and reactions. Deny them this power by
focusing on their actions and your strategies, not your feelings. Analyze and
anticipate their real goals. They want to instill in you the idea that you have no
options, that surrender is inevitable and the best way out. But you always have
options. Even if they are your boss and you must surrender in the present, you can
maintain your inner independence and plot for the day in which they make a
mistake and are weakened, using your knowledge of their vulnerable points to
help take them down.
See through their narrative and their shrewd attempts at distraction. They will
often present themselves as holier-than-thou or as the victim of other people’s
malice. The louder they proclaim their convictions, the more certain you can be
they’re hiding something. Be aware that they can sometimes seem charming and
charismatic. Do not be mesmerized by such appearances. Look at their patterns of
behavior. If they have taken from people in the past, they will continue to do so in
the present. Never bring on such types as partners, no matter how friendly and
charming they might seem. They like to piggyback on your hard work, then wrest
control. Your realistic appraisal of their actual strength and their aggressive
intentions is your best defense.
When it comes to taking action against aggressors, you must be as
sophisticated and crafty as they are. Do not try to fight with them directly. They
are too relentless, and they usually have enough power to overwhelm you in direct
confrontation. You must outwit them, finding unexpected angles of attack.
Threaten to expose the hypocrisy in their narrative or the past dirty deeds they
have tried to keep hidden from the public. Make it seem that a battle with you will
be costlier than they had imagined, that you are also willing to play a little dirty,
but only in defense. If you are particularly clever, appear relatively weak and
exposed, baiting them into a rash attack that you have prepared for. Often the
wisest strategy is to band together with others who have suffered at their hands,
creating strength and leverage in numbers.
 Keep in mind that aggressors often get their way because you fear that in
fighting them, you have too much to lose in the present. But you must calculate
instead what you have to lose in the long term—decreasing options for power and
expansion in your own field, once they assume a dominating position; your own
dignity and sense of self-worth by not standing up to them. Surrender and docility
can become a habit with devastating consequences for your well-being. Use the
existence of aggressors as a spur to your own fighting spirit and to build your own
confidence. Standing up to and outwitting aggressors can be one of the most
satisfying and ennobling experiences we humans can have.
Men are not gentle, friendly creatures wishing for love, who simply defend themselves if
attacked. . . . A powerful desire for aggression has to be reckoned as part of their . . .
endowment.
—Sigmund Freud

Keys to Human Nature

We like to think of ourselves as relatively peaceful and agreeable members of
society. We are social animals to the core, and we need to convince ourselves that
we are loyal to and cooperative with the communities we belong to. But on
occasion, all of us have acted in ways that go against this self-opinion. Perhaps it
came in a moment when we felt that our job security was threatened, or that
someone was blocking our career advancement. Or perhaps we believed we were
not getting the attention and recognition that we deserved for our work. Or maybe
it came in a moment of financial insecurity. Or perhaps it occurred in an intimate
relationship in which we felt particularly frustrated in our attempt to get the other
to change his or her behavior, or we sensed that he or she was going to abandon
us.
Out of frustration, anger, insecurity, fear, or impatience we suddenly found
ourselves becoming unusually assertive. We did something a bit extreme to hold
on to our job; we tried to push a colleague out of our way; we reached for some
dubious scheme to secure easy and fast money; we went too far in trying to get
attention; we turned belligerent and controlling with our partner; we became
vindictive and attacked someone on social media. In such moments, we crossed a
line and became aggressive. Most often, when we act this way, we rationalize our
behavior to ourselves and to others: we had no choice; we felt threatened; we were
being treated unfairly; people were being unresponsive and harming us; we did
not start it. In this way we are able to maintain our self-opinion as the peaceful
creatures we imagine ourselves to be.
Although we will rarely notice this, we can also observe a subtler example of
our aggressive tendencies coming to the fore. When we face intimidating types
who are more aggressive than we are, we often find ourselves acting more
submissive than usual, and maybe a bit sycophantic if they have power. But when
we face people clearly weaker and meeker than us, often the lion in us
unconsciously emerges. Perhaps we decide to help them, but mixed in with this is
a feeling of contempt and superiority. We become rather aggressive in trying to
help them, ordering their life, being forceful with our advice. Or if we have little
sympathy for them, we might feel compelled to use them in some way for our own
purposes, and maybe push them around. All of this occurs unconsciously; we
generally do not experience this as aggressiveness, but nonetheless, as we compare
our inner strength with others’, we cannot help but lower and raise our aggression
level.
 We can notice this split—between what we think of ourselves and how we
actually act at times—in the behavior of our friends, colleagues, and those in the
news. In our workplace, inevitably certain people push their way forward and grab
more power. Perhaps they take credit for our work, or steal our ideas, or push us
off a project, or ally themselves rather vigorously with those in power. We can see
on social media the delight people take in feeling outraged, in attacking and
bringing down others. We can see the energy with which the press exposes the
slightest flaw in those in power, and the feeding frenzy that ensues. We can
observe the rampant violence in our films and games, all masquerading as
entertainment. And all the while nobody admits to being aggressive. In fact, more
than ever people seem so modest and progressive. The split is profound.
What this means is the following: All of us understand that humans have been
capable of much violence and aggression in the past and in the present. We know
that out there in the world there are sinister criminals, greedy and unscrupulous
businesspeople, belligerent negotiators, and sexual aggressors. But we create a
sharp dividing line between those examples and us. We have a powerful block
against imagining any kind of continuum or spectrum when it comes to our own
aggressive moments and those of the more extreme variety in others. We in fact
define the word to describe the stronger manifestations of aggression, excluding
ourselves. It is always the other who is belligerent, who starts things, who is
aggressive.
This is a profound misconception of human nature. Aggression is a tendency
that is latent in every single human individual. It is a tendency wired into our
species. We became the preeminent animal on this planet precisely because of our
aggressive energy, supplemented by our intelligence and cunning. We cannot
separate this aggressiveness from the way we attack problems, alter the
environment to make our lives easier, fight injustice, or create anything on a large
scale. The Latin root of the word aggression means “to step forward,” and when
we assert ourselves in this world and try to create or change anything, we are
tapping into this energy.
Aggression can serve positive purposes. At the same time, under certain
circumstances, this energy can push us into antisocial behavior, into grabbing too
much or pushing people around. These positive and negative aspects are two sides
of the same coin. And although some individuals are clearly more aggressive than
others, all of us are capable of slipping into that negative side. There is a
continuum of human aggression, and we are all on the spectrum.
Being unaware of our true nature causes us many problems. We can turn
aggressive in the negative sense without realizing what is happening, and then pay
the consequences for going too far. Or, feeling uncomfortable with our own
assertive impulses and knowing the trouble they can stir, we might try to repress
our aggressiveness and appear to be paragons of humility and goodness, only to
become more passive-aggressive in our behavior. This energy cannot be denied or
repressed; it will emerge in some way. But with awareness, we can begin to control
and channel it for productive and positive purposes. To do so, we must understand
the source of all human aggression, how it turns negative, and why some people
become more aggressive than others.

The Source of Human Aggression

Unlike any other animal, we humans are aware of our own mortality, and that we
could die at any moment. Consciously and unconsciously this thought haunts us
throughout our lives. We are aware that our position in life is never secure—we
can lose our job, our social status, and our money, often for reasons beyond our
control. The people around us are equally unpredictable—we can never read their
thoughts, anticipate their actions, or totally rely on their support. We are
dependent on others, who often don’t come through. We have certain innate
desires for love, excitement, and stimulation, and it is often beyond our control to
satisfy these desires in the way we would like. In addition, we all have certain
insecurities that stem from wounds in our childhood. If events or people trigger
these insecurities and reopen old wounds, we feel particularly vulnerable and
weak.
What this means is that we humans are continually plagued by feelings of
helplessness that come from many sources. If this feeling is strong enough or lasts
for too long, it can become unbearable. We are willful creatures who crave power.
This desire for power is not evil or antisocial; it is a natural response to the
awareness of our essential weakness and vulnerability. In essence, what drives
much of our behavior is to have control over circumstances, to feel the connection
between what we do and what we get—to feel that we can influence people and
events to some extent. This mitigates our sense of helplessness and makes the
unpredictability of life tolerable.
We satisfy this need by developing solid work skills that help us secure our
career status and give us a feeling of control over the future. We also try to develop
social skills that allow us to work with other people, earn their affection, and have
a degree of influence over them. When it comes to our needs for excitement and
stimulation, we generally choose to satisfy them through various activities—
sports, entertainment, seduction—that our culture provides or accepts.
All of these activities help us to have the control that we crave, but they require
that we recognize certain limits. To gain such power in our work and relationships,
we must be patient. We cannot force things. It takes time to secure our career
position, to develop genuine creative powers, to learn how to influence people and
charm them. It also requires abiding by certain social codes and even laws. We
cannot do just anything to get ahead in our careers; we cannot force people to do
our bidding. We can call these codes and laws guardrails that we carefully stay
within in order to gain power while remaining liked and respected.
In certain moments, however, we find it hard to accept these limits. We cannot
advance in our careers or make a lot of money as quickly as we would like. We
cannot get people to work with us to the degree that we want them to, so we feel
frustrated. Or perhaps an old wound from childhood is suddenly reopened. If we
anticipate that a partner could be ending the relationship, and we have a great fear
of being abandoned stemming from parental coldness, we could easily overreact
and try to control him or her, using all of our manipulative powers and turning
quite aggressive. (Feelings of love often turn to hostility and aggression in people,
because it is in love that we feel most dependent, vulnerable, and helpless.)
In these cases, our hunger for more money, power, love, or attention
overwhelms any patience we might have had. We might then be tempted to go
outside the guardrails, to seek power and control in a way that violates tacit codes
and even laws. But for most of us, when we cross the line, we feel uncomfortable
and perhaps remorseful. We scurry back to within the guardrails, to our normal
ways of trying for power and control. Such aggressive acts can occur at moments
in our lives, but they do not become a pattern.
 This is not the case, however, with more chronically aggressive types. The sense
of helplessness or frustration that we may feel upon occasion plagues them more
deeply and more often. They feel chronically insecure and fragile and must cover
this with an inordinate amount of power and control. Their need for power is too
immediate and strong for them to accept the limits, and overrides any sense of
compunction or social responsibility.
It is possible that there is a genetic component to this. The psychoanalyst
Melanie Klein, who specialized in the study of infants, noticed that some babies
were decidedly more anxious and greedier than others. From their very first days,
they would suckle on the mother’s breast as if they were attacking it and wanting
to suck it dry. They needed more coddling and attention than others. Their crying
and tantrums were almost impossible to stop. They felt a higher degree of
helplessness that verged on continual hysteria.
Such babies were in the minority, but she noticed them often enough. She
speculated that those who are chronically aggressive could be adult versions of the
greedy baby. They are simply born with a greater need to control everything
around them. They brood more over feelings of hurt or envy—“Why should other
people have more than me?” When they feel like they are losing control to any
degree, their tendency is to exaggerate the threat, to overreact and grab for much
more than is necessary.
It is also true that early family life can play a decisive role. According to the
psychoanalyst and writer Erich Fromm, if parents are too domineering, if they
repress their children’s need for power and independence, such children are often
the types who later like to dominate and tyrannize others. If they were beaten as
children, they often resort to beating and physical abuse as adults. In this way,
they turn the enforced passivity in their childhood into something active as adults,
giving them the feeling of control they sorely lacked in their earliest years, through
aggressive behavior.
Whatever the cause of their tendencies, these types do not scurry back within
the guardrails but rather continually resort to aggressive behavior. They have an
unusually strong will and little patience to satisfy their desires through the socially
acceptable channels. They find the normal ways of gaining stimulation too dull.
They need something stronger and more immediate. If they are the primitive type,
they may turn to criminal behavior or simply become the overt bully; if they are
more sophisticated, they will learn to control this behavior to some extent and use
it when necessary.
What this means is that human aggression stems from an underlying
insecurity, as opposed to simply an impulse to hurt or take from others. Before
any impulse to take aggressive action, aggressors are unconsciously processing
feelings of helplessness and anxiety. They often perceive threats that are not really
there, or exaggerate them. They take action to preempt the perceived attack of
another, or to grab for things in order to dominate a situation they feel may elude
their control. (Such feelings also provoke the positive type of aggression as well.
Feeling the need to fight an injustice or create something important is preceded by
feelings of anxiety and insecurity. It remains an attempt at control for positive
purposes.) When we look at any chronic aggressor around us, we must search for
the underlying insecurity, the deep wound, the reverberating feelings of
helplessness from their earliest years.
We can notice the following interesting phenomenon: people who are
domineering often are extremely intolerant of any kind of dissent. They need to be
surrounded by sycophants and constantly be reminded of their greatness and
superiority. If such types have political power, they work to tamp down any
negative publicity and control what people say about them. We must see this
hypersensitivity to criticism as a sign of great inner weakness. A person who is
truly strong from within can endure criticism and open discussion without feeling
personally threatened. Generally, aggressors and authoritarian types are expert at
concealing this profound inner weakness by constantly projecting toughness and
conviction. But we must train ourselves to look past their façade and see the inner
fragility. This can greatly help us control any feelings of fear or intimidation,
which aggressors love to stimulate.
There are other qualities of the chronically aggressive that we must understand.
First, aggressors have less tolerance for feelings of helplessness and anxiety than
the rest of us. What might cause us to feel frustrated or insecure will often trigger
in them a much more powerful reaction, and rage. This is perhaps why chronic
aggression is much more common among men than women. Men find it harder to
manage feelings of dependency and helplessness, something psychologists have
noted in male infants. Men are generally more insecure about their status in the
work world and elsewhere. They have a greater need to continually assert
themselves and gauge their effect on others. Their self-esteem is tied to feelings of
power, control, and respect for their opinions. And so it often takes less to trigger
the aggressive response in men. In any event, we must always be aware that the
chronic aggressor is more thin-skinned than we are, and if we know we are dealing
with this type, we must be particularly careful to not inadvertently trigger their
rage response by challenging their self-esteem or criticizing them.
Another common aspect of aggressive behavior is that it can easily become an
addiction. In acting out their desires in an overt and immediate way, in getting the
best of people through their maneuvers, aggressors receive a jolt of adrenaline that
can become addictive. They feel stimulated and excited, and the more socially
acceptable ways of relieving boredom can seem tepid in comparison. (Certainly
the thrill of getting easy money, whether as Wall Street brokers peddling dubious
investments or as criminals stealing what they can, has an immensely addictive
quality.) At first glance, this might seem self-destructive, as each aggressive
outburst creates more enemies and unintended consequences. But aggressors are
often adept at upping the ante with even more intimidating behavior, so that few
will challenge them.
This often leads to the phenomenon of the aggressor’s trap: the more power
they get, and the larger their empire, the more points of vulnerability they create;
they have more rivals and enemies to worry about. This sparks in them the need to
be more and more aggressive and gain more and more power. (Certainly
Rockefeller fell victim to this dynamic.) They also come to feel that to stop acting
in this way would make them seem weak. No matter what aggressors might say to
us or how they try to disguise their intentions, we must realize that their past
pattern of behavior will inevitably continue in the present, because they are both
addicted and trapped. We must never be naive in dealing with them. They will be
relentless. If they take a step back, it is only momentary. They are rarely capable of
changing this essential pattern in their behavior.
We must also be aware that aggressors see the people around them as objects
to use. They might have some natural empathy, but because their need for power
and control is so strong, they cannot be patient enough to rely solely upon charm
and social skills. To get what they want, they have to use people, and this becomes
a habit that degrades any empathy they once had. They need adherents and
disciples, so they train themselves to listen, to occasionally praise others, and to
do favors for people. The charm they may display upon occasion, however, is only
for effect and has little human warmth to it. When they are listening to us, they are
gauging the strength of our will and seeing how we can serve their purposes down
the road. If they praise us or do us a favor, it is a way to further entrap and
compromise us. We can see this in the nonverbal cues, in the eyes that look
through us, in how thinly they are engaged in our stories. We must always try to
make ourselves immune to any attempt at charm on their part, knowing what
purpose it serves.
It is interesting to note that despite all of the socially negative qualities that
aggressors inevitably reveal, they are frequently able to attract enough followers to
help them in their quest for power. The people who are attracted to such
aggressors often have their own deep-seated issues, their own frustrated
aggressive desires. They find the confidence and sometimes brazenness of the
aggressor quite exciting and appealing. They fall in love with the narrative. They
become infected with the leader’s aggression and get to act it out on others,
perhaps those below them. But such an environment is tiring, and those serving
the aggressor are constantly taking hits to their self-esteem. With most aggressors,
the turnover is high and the morale low. As the ancient Greek dramatist Sophocles
once wrote, “Whoever makes his way into a tyrant’s court becomes his slave,
although he went there a free man.”

—
Your task as a student of human nature is threefold: First, you must stop denying
the reality of your own aggressive tendencies. You are on the aggressive spectrum,
like all of us. Of course, there are some people who are lower down on this
spectrum. Perhaps they lack confidence in their ability to get what they want; or
they may simply have less energy. But a lot of us are in the mid-to-upper range on
the spectrum, with relatively strong levels of will. This assertive energy must be
expended in some way and will tend to go in one of three directions.
First, we can channel this energy into our work, into patiently achieving things
(controlled aggression). Second, we can channel it into aggressive or passive-
aggressive behavior. Finally, we can turn it inward in the form of self-loathing,
directing our anger and aggression at our own failings and activating our internal
saboteur (more on this later). You need to analyze how you handle your assertive
energy. A way to judge yourself is to see how you handle moments of frustration
and uncertainty, situations in which you have less control. Do you tend to lash out,
grow angry and tense, and do things you later regret? Or do you internalize the
anger and grow depressed? Look at those inevitable moments in which you have
gone past the guardrails and analyze them. You are not as peaceful and gentle as
you imagine. Notice what pushed you into this behavior, and how during such
times you found ways to rationalize your behavior. Now, with some distance, you
can perhaps see through those rationalizations.
Your goal is not to repress this assertive energy but to become aware of it as it
drives you forward and to channel it productively. You need to admit to yourself
that you have a deep desire to have an effect on people, to have power, and to
realize this you must develop higher social and technical skills, must become more
patient and resilient. You need to discipline and tame your natural assertive
energy. This is what we shall call controlled aggression, and it will lead to
accomplishing great things. (For more on this, see the last section of this chapter.)
Your second task is to make yourself a master observer of aggression in the
people around you. When you look at your work world, for instance, imagine that
you can visualize the continual war between people’s different levels of will, and all
of the intersecting arrows of such conflicts. Those who are more assertive seem to
rise to the top, but they inevitably display signs of submission to those higher up.
It is not much different from the hierarchies we can observe among chimpanzees.
If you stop focusing on people’s words and the façade they present, and
concentrate on their actions and their nonverbal cues, you can almost sense the
level of aggressiveness they emanate.
In looking at this phenomenon, it is important that you be tolerant of people:
we have all crossed the line at some point and turned more aggressive than usual,
often because of circumstances. When it comes to those who are powerful and
successful, it is impossible in this world to reach such heights without higher
levels of aggression and some manipulation. For accomplishing great things, we
can forgive them their occasional harsh and assertive behavior. What you need to
determine is whether you are dealing with chronic aggressors, people who cannot
tolerate criticism or being challenged on any level, whose desire for control is
excessive, and who will swallow you up in their relentless quest to have more.
Look for some telltale signs. First, if they have an unusually high number of
enemies whom they have accumulated over the years, there must be a good
reason, and not the one they tell you. Pay close attention to how they justify their
actions in the world. Aggressors will tend to present themselves as crusaders, as
some form of genius who cannot help the way they behave. They are creating great
art, they say, or helping the little man. People who get in their way are infidels and
evil. They will claim, as Rockefeller did, that no one has been criticized or
investigated as much as they have; they are the victims, not the aggressors. The
louder and more extreme their narrative, the more you can be certain you are
dealing with chronic aggressors. Focus on their actions, their past patterns of
behavior, much more than anything they say.
You can look for subtler signs as well. Chronic aggressors often have obsessive
personalities. Having meticulous habits and creating a completely predictable
environment is their way of holding control. Obsessing over an object or a person
indicates a desire to swallow it whole. Also, pay attention to the nonverbal cues.
We saw with Rockefeller that he could not stand to be passed by anyone in the
street. The aggressor type will show such physical obsessions—always front and
center. In any event, the earlier you can spot the signs the better.
Once you realize you are dealing with this type, you must use every ounce of
your energy to disengage mentally, to gain control of your emotional response.
Often what happens when you face aggressors is that you initially feel mesmerized
and even paralyzed to some extent, as if in the presence of a snake. Then, as you
process what they have done, you become emotional—angry, outraged, frightened.
Once you are in that state, they find it easy to keep you reacting and not thinking.
Your anger doesn’t lead to anything productive but rather melts into bitterness
and frustration over time. Your only answer is to find a way to detach from their
spell, bit by bit. See through their maneuvers, contemplate the underlying
weakness that propels them, cut them down to size. Always focus on their goals,
what they are really after, and not the distractions they set up.
 If battle with them is inevitable, never engage in direct confrontation or
challenge them in an overt way. If they are the sophisticated type, they will use all
their cunning to ruin you, and they can be relentless. You must always fight them
indirectly. Look for the vulnerabilities they are inevitably covering up. This could
be their dubious reputation, some particularly dirty actions in the past they have
managed to keep secret. Poke holes in their narrative. Through exposure of what
they want to keep hidden, you have a powerful weapon to scare them out of
attacking you. Remember that their greatest fear is to lose control. Think of what
act of yours could frighten them by setting off a chain reaction of events that might
spin out of control. Make the easy victory they are counting on with you suddenly
seem more expensive.
Aggressors generally have the advantage that they are willing to go outside the
guardrails more often and more widely in fighting you. This gives them more
options, more dirty maneuvers they can surprise you with. In negotiations, they
will hit you with some last-minute change to what they had agreed upon, violating
all rules but knowing you will give in because you have come this far and don’t
want to blow it up. They will spread rumors and disinformation to muddy the
waters and make you seem as dubious as they are. You must try to anticipate these
manipulations and rob aggressors of the element of surprise.
And on occasion you yourself must be willing to venture outside the guardrails
as well, knowing this is a temporary and defensive measure. You can practice
deception and distract them, appearing weaker than you are, baiting them into an
attack that will make them look bad and for which you have prepared a crafty
counterattack. You can even spread rumors that will tend to imbalance their
minds, since they are not used to others playing the same tricks back on them. In
any event, with the stakes being high, you must calculate that defeating aggressors
is more important than maintaining your purity.
Finally, your third task as a student of human nature is to rid yourself of the
denial of the very real aggressive tendencies in human nature itself and what such
aggression might mean for our future as a species. This denial tends to take the
form of one of two myths you are likely to believe in. The first myth is that long
ago we humans were peace-loving creatures, in harmony with nature and with our
fellow humans. It is the myth of the noble savage, the innocent hunter-gatherer.
The implication is that civilization, along with the development of private property
and capitalism, turned the peaceful human into an aggressive and selfish creature.
Our form of society is to blame for this, so the myth goes. By developing a more
egalitarian political and social system, we could revert to our natural goodness and
peace-loving nature.
Recent finds in anthropology and archaeology, however, have proven beyond a
shadow of a doubt that our ancestors (going back tens of thousands of years, well
before civilization) engaged in warfare that was as murderous and brutal as
anything in the present. They were hardly peaceful. There are also numerous
examples of indigenous cultures destroying much of the flora and fauna in their
environment in an endless quest for food sources and shelter, sending many
species into extinction and despoiling entire regions of trees. (For more on this see
War Before Civilization, by Lawrence H. Keeley, and The Third Chimpanzee, by
Jared Diamond.) The great power of humans to cooperate in these cultures was
just as often used to help engage in the bloodiest of skirmishes.
The other myth, more prevalent today, is that we may have been violent and
aggressive in the past, but that we are currently evolving beyond this, becoming
more tolerant, enlightened, and guided by our better angels. But the signs of
human aggression are just as prevalent in our era as in the past. We can hold up as
evidence the endless cycles of war, the acts of genocide, and the increasing
hostility between states and ethnicities within states that continue well into this
century. The immense powers of technology have only enhanced our destructive
powers when it comes to war. And our depredation of the environment has only
gotten substantially worse, despite our awareness of the problem.
We can also take note of the growing levels of inequality in power and wealth
around the globe in recent times, approaching the disparities that existed
centuries ago. Such inequalities continue to reproduce themselves in human
society because inevitably there are individuals who are simply more aggressive
than others when it comes to accumulating power and wealth. No rules or laws
seem to stop this. The powerful write the rules to benefit themselves. And the
monopolizing tendencies of the nineteenth century, as exemplified by Standard
Oil, signs of corporate aggression, have just reshaped themselves to fit the newest
industries.
In the past, people attended executions as a form of entertainment. We may not
go that far, but more people than ever enjoy watching others being humiliated on
reality shows or in the news, and indulging in games and movies that delight in
graphic depictions of murder and bloodshed. (We can also see an increasingly
aggressive edge to our humor.)
With technology, it has become easier to express and satisfy our aggressive
desires. Without having to physically face people, on the internet our arguments
and criticisms can become that much more hostile, heated, and personal. The
internet has also created a new and powerful weapon—cyberwar. As they always
have, criminals simply co-opt technology to become more creative and elusive.
Human aggression simply adapts to the newest media and technological
innovations, finding ways to express and vent itself through them. Whatever the
new invention is in one hundred years for communication, it will likely suffer the
same fate. As Gustave Flaubert put it, “Speak of progress as much as you want.
Even when you take out the canines of a tiger, and he can only eat gruel, his heart
remains that of a carnivore.”
Human aggression in individuals and in groups tends to emerge or heat up
when we feel helpless and vulnerable, when the impatience for control and effect
rises. And as increasing numbers of people and groups are feeling this way, we can
expect more of this and not less in the future. Wars will get dirtier. As insecurities
rise, there will be more confrontations between political groups, between cultures,
between generations, between men and women. And there will be even better and
more sophisticated ways for humans to justify their aggression to themselves and
to the world.
The denial is stronger than ever—it is always the other person, the other side,
the other culture that is more aggressive and destructive. We must finally come to
terms with the fact that it is not the other but ourselves, all of us, no matter the
time or the culture. We must own this fact of our nature before we can even begin
to consider moving beyond it. It is only in our awareness that we can start to think
of progress.

Passive Aggression—Its Strategies and How to Counter Them

Most of us are afraid of outright confrontation; we want to appear reasonably
polite and sociable. But often it is impossible to get what we want without
asserting ourselves in some way. People can be stubborn and resistant to our
influence, no matter how congenial we are. And sometimes we need a release from
all of the inner tension that comes from having to be so deferential and correct.
And so all of us inevitably engage in behavior in which we assert ourselves
indirectly, striving for control or influence as subtly as possible. Perhaps we take
extra time to respond to people’s communications, to signal a slight bit of disdain
for them; or we seem to praise people but insert subtle digs that get under their
skin and instill doubts. Sometimes we make a comment that could be taken as
quite neutral, but our tone of voice and the expression on our face indicate we are
upset, stirring up some guilt.
We can call this form of aggression passive, in that we give the appearance that
we are merely being ourselves, not actively manipulating or trying to influence
people. Nevertheless, a message is sent that creates the effect we desire. We are
never quite as passive as we seem in this. In the back of our minds, we are aware
that we are taking an extra long time to get back to someone or putting a dig in a
comment, but at the same time we can also pretend to ourselves and to others that
we are innocent. (We humans are capable of holding such conflicting thoughts at
the same time.) In general, we must consider this everyday version of passive
aggression to be merely an irritating part of social life, something we are all guilty
of. We should be as tolerant as possible of this low-grade passive aggression that
thrives in polite society.
Some people, however, are chronic passive aggressors. Like the more active
aggressors, they generally have a high degree of energy and need for control but at
the same time a fear of outright confrontation. They often had domineering or
neglectful parents; passive aggression became their way of getting attention or
asserting their will while avoiding punishment. Such behavior becomes a pattern
for them as adults, as they often repeat the same types of strategies that worked in
childhood. (If we observe the passive aggressor closely enough, we can often see
the manipulative child peeking through the adult mask.)
These chronic types operate in a personal or work relationship, in which their
drip-drip passive-aggressive strategies can take effect on an individual over time.
They are masters at being ambiguous and elusive—we can never quite be sure that
they are attacking us; perhaps we are imagining things and are paranoid. If they
were directly aggressive, we would get angry and resist them, but by being indirect
they sow confusion, and exploit such confusion for power and control. If they are
truly good at this and get their hooks into our emotions, they can make our lives
miserable.
Keep in mind that actively aggressive types can generally be quite passive-
aggressive at times, as Rockefeller certainly was. Passive aggression is simply an
additional weapon for them in their attempts at control. In any event, the key to
defending ourselves against passive aggressors is to recognize what they are up to
as early as possible.
The following are the most common strategies employed by such aggressors,
and ways to counter them.
The Subtle-Superiority Strategy: A friend, colleague, or employee is
chronically late, but he or she always has a ready excuse that is logical, along with
an apology that seems sincere. Or similarly, such individuals forget about
meetings, important dates, and deadlines, always with impeccable excuses at
hand. If this behavior repeats often enough, your irritation will increase, but if you
try to confront them, they very well might try to turn the tables by making you
seem uptight and unsympathetic. It is not their fault, they say—they have too
much on their mind, people are pressuring them, they are temperamental artists
who can’t keep on top of so many irritating details, they are overwhelmed. They
may even accuse you of adding to their stress.
You must understand that at the root of this is the need to make it clear to
themselves and to you that they are in some way superior. If they were to say in so
many words that they felt superior to you, they would incur ridicule and shame.
They want you to feel it in subtle ways, while they are able to deny what they are
up to. Putting you in the inferior position is a form of control, in which they get to
define the relationship. You must pay attention to the pattern more than the
apologies, but also notice the nonverbal signs as they excuse themselves. The tone
of the voice is whiny, as if they really feel it is your problem. The apologies are laid
on extra thick to disguise the lack of sincerity; in the end, such excuses
communicate more about their problems in life than about the facts of their
forgetfulness. They are not really sorry.
If this is chronic behavior, you must not get angry or display overt irritation—
passive aggressors thrive on getting a rise out of you. Instead, stay calm and subtly
mirror their behavior, calling attention to what they are doing, and inducing some
shame if possible. You might make dates or appointments and leave them in the
lurch, or show up impossibly late with the sincerest of apologies, laced with a
touch of irony. Let them brood on what this might mean.
Earlier on in his career, when the renowned psychotherapist Milton Erickson
was a medical professor at a university, he had to deal with a very smart student
named Anne, who always showed up late to classes, then apologized profusely and
very sincerely. She happened to be a straight-A student. She always promised to
be on time for the next class but never was. This made it difficult for her fellow
students; she frequently held up lectures or laboratory work. And on the first day
of one of Erickson’s lecture classes she was up to her old tricks, but Erickson was
prepared. When she entered late, he had the entire class stand up and bow down
to her in mock reverence; he did the same. Even after class, as she walked down
the hall, the students continued their bowing. The message was clear—“We see
through you”—and feeling embarrassed and ashamed, she stopped showing up
late.
If you are dealing with a boss or someone in a position of power who makes you
wait, their assertion of superiority is not so subtle. The best you can do is keep as
calm as possible, showing your own form of superiority by remaining patient and
cool.
The Sympathy Strategy: Somehow the person you are dealing with is always
the victim—of irrational hostility, of unfair circumstances, of society in general.
You notice with these types that they seem to relish the drama in their stories. No
one else suffers as they do. If you are careful, you can detect a vaguely bored
expression when they listen to other people’s problems; they are not so engaged.
Because they play up their supposed helplessness, you will naturally feel
sympathetic, and once they elicit this, they will ask for favors, extra care, and
attention. That is the control they are after. They are hypersensitive to any signs of
doubt on your face, and they don’t want to hear advice or how they might be
slightly to blame. They may explode and classify you as one of the victimizers.
What might make this hard to see through is that often they do suffer through
unusual adversity and personal pain, but they are masters at attracting the pain.
They choose partners who will disappoint them; they have a bad attitude at work
and attract criticism; they are negligent with details, and so things around them
fall apart. It is not malicious fate that is to blame but something from within them
that wants and feeds off the drama. People who are genuine victims cannot help
but feel some shame and embarrassment at their fate, part of an age-old human
superstition that a person’s bad luck is a sign of something wrong with the
individual. These true victims do not enjoy telling their stories. They do so
reluctantly. Passive aggressors, on the other hand, are dying to share what has
happened to them and bask in your attention.
As part of this, passive aggressors may display various symptoms and ailments
—anxiety attacks, depression, headaches—that make their suffering seem quite
real. Since childhood, we have all been capable of willing such symptoms to get
attention and sympathy. We can make ourselves sick with worry; we can think our
way into depression. What you are looking for is the pattern: this seems to recur in
passive aggressors when they need something (such as a favor), when they feel you
pulling away, when they feel particularly insecure. In any case, they tend to soak
up your time and mental space, infecting you with their negative energy and
needs, and it is very hard to disengage.
These types will often prey upon those who are prone to feel guilty—the
sensitive, caregiving types. To deal with the manipulation involved here you need
some distance, and this is not easy. The only way to do this is to feel some anger
and resentment at the time and energy you are wasting in trying to help them, and
how little they give back to you. The relationship inevitably tilts in their favor
when it comes to attention. That is their power. Creating some inner distance will
allow you to see through them better and eventually quit the unhealthy
relationship. Do not feel bad about this. You will be surprised at how quickly they
find another target.
The Dependency Strategy: You are suddenly befriended by someone who is
unusually attentive and concerned for your welfare. They want to help you with
your work or some other tasks. They want to listen to your stories of hardship and
adversity. How refreshing and unusual to have such attention. You find yourself
becoming ever so dependent on what they give you. But every now and then you
detect some coldness on their part, and you rack your brain to figure out what you
might have said or done to trigger this. In fact, you can’t really be sure if they’re
upset with you, but you find yourself trying to please them nonetheless, and
slowly, without really noticing it, the dynamic is reversed, and the displays of
sympathy and concern seem to shift from them to you.
Sometimes a similar dynamic is played out between parents and their children.
A mother, for instance, can shower her daughter with affection and love, keeping
the girl bound to her. If the daughter tries to exercise independence at some point,
the mother responds as if this were an aggressive and unloving act on the
daughter’s part. To avoid feeling guilty, the daughter stops asserting herself and
works harder to earn more of the affection she has become dependent on. The
relationship has reversed itself. Later, the mother exercises control over other
aspects of her daughter’s life, including money, career, and intimate partners. This
can also occur within couples.
A variation of this strategy comes from people who love to make promises (of
assistance, money, a job), but don’t quite deliver on them. Somehow they forget
what they had promised, or only give you part of it, always with a reasonable
excuse. If you complain, they may accuse you of being greedy or insensitive. You
have to chase after them to make up for your rudeness or to beg to get some of
what they had promised.
 In any event, this strategy is all about gaining power over another. The person
who is made to feel dependent is returned to the position of the needy and
vulnerable child, wanting more. It is hard to imagine that someone who is or was
so attentive could be using this as a ploy, which makes it doubly hard to see
through. You must be wary of those who are too solicitous too early on in a
relationship. It is unnatural, as we are normally a bit suspicious of people in the
beginning of any relationship. They may be trying to make you dependent in some
way, and so you must keep some distance before you can truly gauge their
motives. If they start to turn cold and you are confused as to what you did, you can
be nearly certain they are using this strategy. If they react with anger or dismay
when you try to establish some distance or independence, you can clearly see the
power game as it emerges. Getting out of any such relationships should be a
priority.
In general, be wary about people’s promises and never completely rely on
them. With those who fail to deliver, it is more likely a pattern, and it is best to
have nothing more to do with them.
The Insinuating-Doubt Strategy: In the course of a conversation, someone
you know, perhaps a friend, lets slip a comment that makes you wonder about
yourself and if they are in some way insulting you. Perhaps they commend you on
your latest work, and with a faint smile they say they imagine you will get lots of
attention for it, or lots of money, the implication being that that was your
somewhat dubious motive. Or they seem to damn you with faint praise: “You did
quite well for someone of your background.”
Robespierre, one of the leaders of the Terror of the French Revolution, was the
absolute master of this strategy. He came to see Georges Danton, a friend and
fellow leader, as having become an enemy of the revolution, but did not want to
say this outright. He wanted to insinuate it to others and strike some fear in
Danton. In one instance, at an assembly, Robespierre leaped to his feet to support
his friend, who had been accused of using his power in the government to make
money. In defending Danton, Robespierre carefully repeated all of the various
charges leveled against him in great detail, then concluded, “I may be wrong about
Danton, but, as a family man, he deserves nothing but praise.”
As a variation on this, people may say some rather harsh things about you, and
if you seem upset, they will say they were kidding: “Can’t you take a joke?” They
may interpret things you have said in a slightly negative light, and if you call them
on this, they will innocently reply, “But I’m only repeating what you said.” They
may use these insinuating comments behind your back as well, to sow doubts in
other people’s minds about you. They will also be the first ones to report to you
any bad news, or bad reviews, or the criticisms of others, always expressed with
sympathy, but secretly delighting in your pain.
The point of this strategy is to make you feel bad in a way that gets under your
skin and causes you to think of the insinuation for days. They want to strike blows
at your self-esteem. Most often they are operating out of envy. The best counter is
to show that their insinuations have no effect on you. You remain calm. You
“agree” with their faint praise, and perhaps you return it in kind. They want to get
a rise out of you, and you will not give them this pleasure. Hinting that you might
see through them will perhaps infect them with their own doubts, a lesson worth
delivering.
The Blame-Shifter Strategy: With certain people, you feel irritated and
upset by something they have done. Perhaps you have felt used by them, or they’ve
been insensitive or ignored your pleas to stop behavior that is unpleasant. Even
before you express your annoyance, they seem to have picked up your mood, and
you can detect some sulking on their part. And when you do confront them, they
grow silent, wearing a hurt or disappointed look. It is not the silence of someone
with remorse. They may respond with a “Fine. Whatever. If that’s how you feel.”
Any apologies on their part are said in a way (through tone of voice or facial
expressions) that subtly conveys some disbelief that they have done anything
wrong.
If they are really clever, in response they might conjure up something you’ve
said or done in the past, which you’ve forgotten but which still rankles them, as if
you are not so innocent. It doesn’t sound like something you’ve said or done, but
you can’t be sure. Perhaps they will say something in their defense that pushes
your buttons, and as you get angry, they can now accuse you of being hostile,
aggressive, and unfair.
Whatever their type of response, you are left with the feeling that perhaps you
were wrong all along. Maybe you overreacted or were paranoid. You might even
slightly doubt your sanity—you know you felt upset, but maybe you can’t trust
your own feelings. Now you are the one to feel guilty, as if you were to blame for
the tension. Better to reassess yourself and not repeat this unpleasant experience,
you tell yourself. As an adjunct to this strategy, passive aggressors are often quite
nice and polite to other people, only playing their games on you, since you are the
one they want to control. If you try to confide in people your confusion and anger,
you get no sympathy, and the blame shifting has double the effect.
This strategy is a way of covering up all kinds of unpleasant behavior, of
deflecting any kind of criticism, and of making people skittish about ever calling
them on what they are doing. In this way they can gain power over your emotions
and manipulate them as they see fit, doing whatever they want with impunity.
They are exploiting the fact that many of us, since early childhood, are prone to
feeling guilty at the slightest impetus. This strategy is used most obviously in
personal relationships, but you will find it in more diffused form in the work
world. People will use their hypersensitivity to any criticism, and the ensuing
drama they stir up, to dissuade people from ever trying to confront them.
To counter this strategy, you need to be able to see through the blame shifting
and remain unaffected by it. Your goal is not to make them angry, so don’t get
caught in the trap of exchanging recriminations. They are better at this drama
game than you are, and they thrive by their power to rankle you. Be calm and even
fair, accepting some of the blame for the problem, if that seems right. Realize that
it is very difficult to get such types to reflect on their behavior and change it; they
are too hypersensitive for this.
What you want is to have the requisite distance to see through them and to
disengage. To help in this, you must learn to trust your past feelings. In the
moments they are irritating you, write down what they are doing and memorialize
their behavior. Perhaps in doing so, you will realize that you are in fact
overreacting. But if not, you can return to these notes to convince yourself that you
are not crazy and to stop the blame-shifting mechanism in its tracks. If you don’t
allow the shifting to occur, they might be discouraged from using this strategy. If
not, it is best to lessen your involvement with such a passive aggressor.
The Passive-Tyrant Strategy: The person you are working for seems to be
bubbling with energy, ideas, and charisma. They are a bit disorganized, but that is
normal—they have so much to do, so much responsibility and so many plans, they
can’t keep on top of it all. They need your help, and you strain every fiber of your
being to provide it. You listen extra hard to their instructions and try to execute
them. Occasionally they praise you, and this keeps you going, but sometimes they
rail at you for letting them down, and this sticks in your mind more than the
praise.
You can never feel comfortable or take your position for granted. You have to
try harder to avoid these nasty temperamental rants. They’re such perfectionists,
with such high standards, and you’re not measuring up. You rack your brain to
anticipate their needs and live in terror of displeasing them. If they were actively
ordering you around, you would simply do what they asked. But by being
somewhat passive and moody, they force you to work doubly hard to please them.
This strategy is generally used by those in power on their underlings, but it
could be applied by people in relationships, one partner tyrannizing the other by
simply being impossible to please. The strategy is based on the following logic: If
people know what it is that you want and how to get it for you, they have some
power over you. If they follow your instructions and do your bidding, you cannot
criticize them. If they are consistent, you can even grow dependent on their work,
and they can squeeze concessions out of you by threatening to leave. But if they
have no idea what actually works, if they can’t exactly discern what kind of
behavior draws praise and what draws punishment, they have no power, no
independence, and can be made to do anything. As with a dog, an occasional pat
on their shoulder will deepen their submission. This was how Michael Eisner
exercised dictatorial control over everyone around him, including Jeffrey
Katzenberg (see chapter 11 for more on this).
If people quit on these tyrants, they are fine with that. This demonstrates that
the individual retains some independence, and they will find a replacement who
will be more submissive, at least for the time being. They may also increase their
difficult behavior to test certain individuals and get them to quit or submit. Such
tyrants may try to act like helpless children. They are the temperamental artist or
genius type, so naturally brilliant and absentminded. Their pleas for assistance
from you and their urgent need for you to do more seem to express their
vulnerability. They use such feigned weakness to justify the ugly nature of their
tyranny.
It is very hard to strategize against such types, because most often they are your
superiors and have real power over you. They tend to be hypersensitive and prone
to anger, which makes any form of resistance or inner detachment hard to
maintain. Overt rebellion will only make the situation worse. You must first realize
that this strategy of theirs is more conscious than it appears. They are not weak
and helpless but cunning tyrants. Instead of lingering on anything positive they’ve
said or done, think only of their manipulations and harshness. Your ability to
detach from them emotionally will neutralize the obsessive presence they try to
instill. But in the end nothing really will work, because if, in their hypersensitivity,
they detect your distance, their behavior will only get worse. The only real counter
is to quit and recuperate. No position is worth such abuse, for the damage to your
self-esteem could take years to recover from.

Controlled Aggression
We are born with a powerful energy that is distinctly human. We can call it
willpower, assertiveness, or even aggression, but it is mixed with our intelligence
and cleverness. It was revealed to us in its purest state in childhood. This energy
made us bold and adventurous, not only physically but mentally, wanting to
explore ideas and soak up knowledge. It made us actively search for friends with
whom we could explore together. It also made us rather relentless when it came to
solving problems or getting what we wanted. (Children can often be bold in what
they ask for.) It made us open to the world and to new experiences. And if we felt
frustrated and helpless for long enough periods of time, this same energy could
make us unusually combative.
As we get older and we encounter mounting frustrations, resistance from
others, and feelings of impatience for power, some among us may become
chronically aggressive. But another phenomenon is even more common: we
become uncomfortable with and even frightened of that assertive energy within,
and our own potential for aggressive behavior. Being assertive and adventurous
could lead to some failed action, making us feel exposed and vulnerable. If we
express this energy too much, people may not like us. We could stir up conflict.
Perhaps our parents induced in us as well some shame for our aggressive
outbursts. In any event, we may come to view the aggressive part of the self as
dangerous. But since this energy cannot disappear, it turns inward, and we create
what the great English psychoanalyst Ronald Fairbairn called the internal
saboteur.
The saboteur operates like a persecutor from within, continually judging and
attacking us. If we are about to attempt something, it reminds us of the potential
for failure. It tries to tamp down any exuberance, because that could open us to
criticism from others. It makes us uncomfortable with strong sensations of
pleasure or the expression of deep emotion. It impels us to tamp down our
ambitions, the better to fit into the group and not stand out. It wants us to retreat
inward, where we can protect ourselves, even if that leads to depression. And it
makes us forge a fake self to present to the world, one that is humble and self-
effacing. In the end, the internal saboteur works to lower our energy and constrain
what we do, making our world more manageable and predictable but also quite
dead. It is the same goal as the aggressor—gaining control over uncertainty—but
through the opposite means.
The internal saboteur can also have a dampening effect on our mental powers.
It discourages us from being bold and adventurous in our thinking. We limit our
ideas and settle for the conventional opinions of the group, because that is safer.
Creative people display great aggressiveness in their thinking, as they try out many
options and search for possible solutions. By trying to rid ourselves of any kind of
aggressive impulse, we actually thwart our own creative energies.
Understand: The problem has never been that we humans are assertive and
aggressive. That would be to make a problem of our own nature. The positive and
negative aspects of this energy are but two sides of the same coin. To try to tamp
down the negative, to give ourselves over to the internal saboteur, only dulls the
positive. The real problem is that we do not know how to harness this energy in an
adult, productive, and prosocial manner. This energy needs to be embraced as
totally human and potentially positive. What we must do is tame and train it for
our own purposes. Instead of being chronically aggressive, passive-aggressive, or
repressed, we can make this energy focused and rational. Like all forms of energy,
when it is concentrated and sustained, it has so much more force behind it. By
following such a path, we can recover some of that pure spirit we had as children,
feeling bolder, more integrated, and more authentic.
The following are four potentially positive elements of this energy that we can
discipline and use, improving what evolution has bestowed on us.
 Ambition: To say you’re ambitious in the world today is often to admit to
something slightly dirty, perhaps revealing too much self-absorption. But think
back to your childhood and youth—you inevitably entertained big dreams and
ambitions for yourself. You were going to make a mark in this world in some way.
You played out in your mind various scenes of future glory. This was a natural
impulse on your part, and you felt no shame. Then, when you got older, you
probably tried to stifle this. Either you kept your ambitions secret and acted
modestly or you actually stopped dreaming altogether, trying to avoid seeming
self-absorbed and being judged for this.
Much of this sneering at ambition and ambitious people in our culture actually
stems from a great deal of envy at the accomplishments of others. Tamping down
your youthful ambitions is a sign that you don’t like or respect yourself; you no
longer believe you deserve to have the power and recognition you once dreamed
about. That doesn’t make you more adult, simply more likely to fail—by lowering
your ambitions, you limit your possibilities and diminish your energy. In any
event, in trying to appear unambitious, you are just as self-absorbed as anyone
else; being so humble and saintly is your ambition, and you want to make a
display of it.
Some people remain ambitious as they get older, but their ambitions are too
vague. They want success, money, and attention. Because of such vagueness, it is
hard for them to ever feel they have satisfied their desires. What constitutes
enough money or success or power? Not sure of what exactly they want, they
cannot put a limit to their desires, and although it is not the case in every instance,
this can lead them to aggressive behavior, as they continually want more and don’t
know when to stop.
Instead, what you must do is embrace that childish part of you, revisit your
earliest ambitions, adapt them to your current reality, and make them as specific
as possible. You want to write a particular book, expressing some deeply held
ideas or emotions; you want to start the kind of business that has always excited
you; you want to create a cultural or political movement to address a particular
cause. This specific ambition might be grand enough, but you can visualize quite
clearly the end point and how to get there. The more clearly you see what you
want, the likelier you are to realize it. Your ambitions may involve challenges, but
they should not be so far above your capacity that you only set yourself up for
failure.
Once your goal is realized, however long that takes, you now turn to a new
ambition, a new project, feeling tremendous satisfaction that you reached the last
one. You do not stop in this upward process, building momentum. The key is the
level of desire and aggressive energy you put into each ambitious project. You
don’t infect yourself with doubts and guilt; you are in harmony with your nature,
and you will be amply rewarded for that.
Persistence: If you observe infants, you will notice how willful and relentless they
are when they want something. Such persistence is natural to us, but it is a quality
that we tend to lose as we get older and our self-confidence fades. This is often
what happens later in life when we face a problem or some resistance: We
summon up the energy to attack the problem, but in the back of our mind, we have
some doubts—are we up to the task? This ever-so-slight diminishment in self-
belief translates into a reduction in the energy with which we attack the problem.
This leads to a less effective result, which raises the volume of the background
doubts even more, lessening the effect of our next action or blow. At some point,
we admit defeat and give up. But we inevitably give up too soon. We surrender
inwardly long before we surrender outwardly.
What you must understand is the following: almost nothing in the world can
resist persistent human energy. Things will yield if we strike enough blows with
enough force. Look at how many great people in history have succeeded in this
way. It was painstaking persistence over several years that allowed Thomas Edison
to invent the proper form of the lightbulb, and Marie Curie to discover radium.
They simply continued where others had given up. Over the course of ten years, it
was through continual thought experiments, day and night, exploring every
possible solution, that Albert Einstein finally came up with the theory of relativity.
In the spiritual realm, the great eighteenth-century Zen master Hakuin was able to
finally reach full enlightenment, and revive a dying branch of Zen, because he
applied himself to the task with relentless persistence over the course of some
twenty years. This is aggressive energy, undivided from within, aimed with laser
focus at a problem or resistance.
It is because the infant or the scientist or the aspiring practitioner of Zen wants
something so badly that nothing will deter them. They understand the power of
persistence, and so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy—knowing its value, they
are able to summon up the energy and self-belief to solve the problem. They are
adopting Hannibal’s motto: “I will either find a way, or make a way.” You must do
the same. The trick is to want something badly enough that nothing will stop you
or dull your energy. Fill yourself with the requisite desire to reach a goal. Train
yourself to not give up as easily as you did in the past. Keep attacking from new
angles, in new ways. Drop the background doubts and continue striking with full
force, knowing that you can break through anything if you don’t let up. Once you
sense the power in this form of attack, you will keep returning to it.
Fearlessness: We are bold creatures by nature. As children, we were not afraid to
ask for more or assert our will. We were remarkably resilient and fearless in so
many ways. Timidity is a quality we generally acquire. It is a function of our
mounting fears as we get older and a loss of confidence in our powers to get what
we want. We become overly concerned with how people perceive us and worry
what they will think if we stand up for ourselves. We internalize their doubts. We
become afraid of any kind of conflict or confrontation, which will churn up
emotions and lead to consequences we cannot predict or control. We develop the
habit of backing down. We don’t say what we feel even when it would be
appropriate, and we fail to set boundaries to people’s harmful behavior. We find it
hard to ask for a raise or a promotion or the respect due to us. Losing our bold
spirit, a positive form of aggression, is losing a deep part of our self, and it is
inevitably painful.
You must try to recover the fearlessness you once possessed, through
incremental steps. The key is to first convince yourself that you deserve good and
better things in life. Once you feel that, you can start by training yourself to speak
up or even talk back to people in everyday situations, if they are proving to be
insensitive. You are learning to defend yourself. You might call people on their
passive-aggressive behavior, or not be so timid in expressing an opinion that they
may not share or in telling them what you really think of their bad ideas. You will
often come to realize that you have less to fear in doing this than you had
imagined. You might even gain some respect. You try this out in small ways every
day.
Once you lose your fear in these less dramatic encounters, you can start to
ramp it up. You can make greater demands on people that they treat you well, or
honor the quality work that you do. You do this without a complaining or
defensive tone. You make it clear to bullies that you are not as meek as you seem,
or as easily manipulated as others. You can be as relentless as they are in
defending your interests. In negotiations, you can train yourself not to settle for
less but to make bolder demands and see how far you can push the other side.
You can apply this growing boldness to your work. You will not be so afraid to
create something that is unique, or to face criticism and failure. You will take
reasonable risks and test yourself out. All of this must be built up slowly, like a
muscle that has atrophied, so that you don’t risk a large-scale battle or aggressive
reaction before you have toughened yourself up. But once you develop this muscle,
you will gain the confidence that you can meet any adversity in life with a fearless
attitude.
Anger: It is natural and healthy for you to feel anger at certain types of people—
those who unfairly block your advancement, the many fools who have power but
are lazy and incompetent, the sanctimonious critics who espouse their clichés with
so much conviction and attack you without understanding your views. The list
could go on forever. Feeling such anger can be a powerful motivating device to
take some kind of action. It can fill you with valuable energy. You should embrace
it and use it throughout your life for such a purpose. What might make you hold
back or tamp down your anger is that it can seem to be such a toxic and ugly
emotion, as it often is in our culture.
What makes anger toxic is the degree to which it is disconnected from reality.
People channel their natural frustrations into anger at some vague enemy or
scapegoat, conjured up and spread by demagogues. They imagine grand
conspiracies behind simple inescapable realities, such as taxes or globalism or the
changes that are part of all historical periods. They believe that certain forces in
the world are to blame for their lack of success or power, instead of their own
impatience and lack of effort. There is no thought behind their anger, and so it
leads nowhere or it becomes destructive.
You must do the opposite. Your anger is directed at very specific individuals
and forces. You analyze the emotion—are you certain that your frustration does
not stem from your own inadequacies? Do you really understand the cause of the
anger and what it should be directed at? In addition to determining if it is justified
and where the anger should be directed, you also analyze the best way to channel
this emotion, the best strategy for defeating your opponents. Your anger is
controlled, realistic, and targeted at the actual source of the problem, never losing
sight of what initially inspired the emotion.
Most people engage in some cathartic release of their anger, some giant protest,
and then it goes away and they slip back into complacency or become bitter. You
want to cool your anger, bring it more to a simmer than a boil. Your controlled
anger will help give you the resolve and patience you will need for what might be a
longer struggle than you had imagined. Let the unfairness or injustice lie in the
back of your mind and keep you energized. The real satisfaction comes not in one
spasm of emotion but in actually defeating the bully and exposing the narrow-
minded for who they are.
Do not be afraid to use your anger in your work, particularly if it is allied to
some cause or if you are expressing yourself through something creative. It is
often the sense of contained rage that makes an orator so effective; it was the
source of much of the charisma of Malcolm X. Look at the most lasting and
compelling works of art, and you can often read or feel the restrained anger
behind them. We are all so careful and correct that when we feel the carefully
channeled anger in a film or a book or wherever it is, it is like a fresh wind. It
attracts all of our own frustrations and resentments and lets them out. We
recognize that it is something real and authentic. In your expressive work, never
shy away from anger but capture and channel it, letting it breathe into the work a
sense of life and movement. In giving expression to such anger, you will always
find an audience.
Power is required for communication. To stand before an indifferent or hostile group
and have one’s say, or to speak honestly to a friend truths that go deep and hurt, these
require self-affirmation, self-assertion, and even at times aggression.
—Rollo May
 17

Seize the Historical Moment

The Law of Generational Myopia

Y ou are born into a generation that defines who you are more than you can
imagine. Your generation wants to separate itself from the previous one and
set a new tone for the world. In the process, it forms certain tastes, values, and
ways of thinking that you as an individual internalize. As you get older, these
generational values and ideas tend to close you off from other points of view,
constraining your mind. Your task is to understand as deeply as possible this
powerful influence on who you are and how you see the world. Knowing in depth
the spirit of your generation and the times you live in, you will be better able to
exploit the zeitgeist. You will be the one to anticipate and set the trends that your
generation hungers for. You will free your mind from the mental constraints
placed on you by your generation, and you will become more of the individual you
imagine yourself to be, with all the power that freedom will bring you.

The Rising Tide

On May 10, 1774, sixty-four-year-old King Louis XV of France died, and though the
country went into the requisite mourning for its king, many French people felt a
sense of relief. He had ruled France for over fifty years. He left a country that was
prosperous, the preeminent power in Europe, but things were changing—the
expanding middle class craved power, the peasantry was restless, and people in
general yearned for a new direction. And so it was with great hope and affection
that the French people turned to their new ruler, King Louis XVI, the grandson of
the deceased king, who was a mere twenty years old at the time. He and his young
wife, Marie Antoinette, represented a new generation that would certainly revitalize
the country and the monarchy itself.
The young king, however, did not share the optimism of his subjects. In fact, at
moments he was on the verge of panic. Ever since he was a boy, he had dreaded the
possibility that he might become king. Compared with his affable grandfather, Louis
was quite shy around people; he was an awkward young man, always uncertain and
fearful of making mistakes. He felt the august role of French king to be beyond his
capacities. Now, having ascended the throne, he could no longer disguise his
insecurities from the court and from the French people. But as he prepared for his
coronation, to take place in the spring of 1775, Louis began to feel differently. He
had decided to study the coronation ritual itself so that he could be prepared and
not make mistakes; and what he learned actually filled him with the confidence that
he desperately needed.
According to legend, a dove sent from the Holy Spirit had deposited some sacred
oil that was kept at a church in the town of Reims and was used to anoint all kings
of France from the ninth century on. Once anointed with this oil, the king was
suddenly elevated above the ranks of mere mortals and imbued with a divine
nature, becoming God’s lieutenant on earth. The ritual represented the marriage of
the new king with the church and the French people. In his body and spirit, the king
would now embody the entire populace, their two fates intertwined. And, sanctified
by God, the king could depend on the Lord’s guidance and protection.
By the 1770s, many French people and progressive clergymen had come to see
this ritual as a relic of a superstitious past. But Louis felt the opposite. To him, the
ancientness of the rite was comforting. Believing in its significance would be the
means to overcome his fears and doubts. He would be buoyed by a profound sense
of mission, his divine nature made real by the anointment.
Louis decided to reenact this sacred ritual in its more original form. And he
would go even further. At the palace of Versailles he noticed that many of the
paintings and statues of Louis XIV associated him with Roman gods, a way to
symbolically strengthen the image of the French monarchy as something ancient
and unshakable. The new king decided he would surround himself with similar
imagery for the public part of the coronation, overwhelming his subjects with the
spectacle and the symbols he had chosen.

—
Louis XVI’s coronation took place on June 11, 1775, and in the crowd outside the
cathedral that warm day was a most unlikely tourist—a fifteen-year-old youth
named Georges-Jacques Danton. He was a student at a boarding school in the town
of Troyes. His family had come from the peasantry, but his father had managed to
become a lawyer, raising the family up into the expanding French middle class. His
father had died when Danton was three, and his mother had raised him with the
hope that Danton would continue in his father’s footsteps, securing a solid career.
Danton was quite strange-looking, if not downright ugly. He was unusually large
for his age, with an enormous head and a rather monstrous face. Growing up on the
family farm, he had twice been attacked by bulls, their horns splitting his upper lip
and cracking his nose. Some people found him frightening, but many were charmed
by his youthful exuberance and could ignore the face. The boy was simply fearless,
always in search of adventure, and it was his bold spirit that attracted people to
him, particularly among his classmates.
At the school he was attending, the liberal priests who ran it had decided to
award a prize to the student who wrote an essay that best described the upcoming
coronation, its necessity and meaning at a time when France was trying to
modernize itself. Danton was not the intellectual type. He preferred swimming in
the nearby river and any other kind of physical activity. The one subject that excited
him was history, particularly ancient Rome. His favorite historical figure was the
great Roman lawyer and orator Cicero. He identified with Cicero, who also came
from the middle class. He memorized Cicero’s speeches and developed a love for
oratory. With his powerful speaking voice, he was a natural at the art. But he was
not very good at writing.
He desperately wanted to win the essay prize—it would instantly elevate him
among the ranks of fellow students. He had reasoned, however, that the only way he
could compensate for his less-than-stellar literary skills was to witness the
coronation firsthand and give a vivid description of it. He also felt a strange affinity
with the young king: they were not far apart in age, and both were large and
considered decidedly unhandsome.
 Playing hooky to get to Reims, only eighty miles away, was just the kind of
adventure that had always attracted him. He had told his friends, “I want to see how
a king is made.” And so he had snuck off to Reims the day before the coronation and
had arrived just in time. He moved through the throng of French people
congregating outside the cathedral. Guards brandishing tall pikes held them back.
Only the nobility was allowed inside. Danton pushed as far forward as he could, and
then he spotted the king, wearing the most spectacular ceremonial robe encrusted
with diamonds and gold, making his way up the steps. There was the pretty queen
following him in a splendid gown, her hair piled impossibly high, followed by other
members of her entourage. From a distance, they were all like figures from another
era, so different from anybody he had ever seen before.
He waited patiently outside for the end of the ritual, at which point the king
reemerged, now sporting a crown. For a brief moment he got a closer look at Louis’s
face as he passed by, and he was surprised to find that the king seemed quite
ordinary, despite the robes and jewels. The king then got into the most elaborate
carriage imaginable, named the Sacre. It was like something out of a fairy tale. It
was built for the coronation and designed to represent the chariot of Apollo,
glistening like the sun (the sun being the symbol of the French king), and it was
enormous. On all sides it featured gold statuettes of Roman gods. On the door panel
facing Danton, he could see an elaborate painting of Louis XVI as a Roman emperor
atop a cloud, beckoning the French people below him. Strangest of all, the carriage
itself sported a large bronze crown.
The Sacre was meant to serve as the very symbol of the monarchy, dazzling and
mythical. It was quite a sight, but for some reason it seemed oddly out of place—too
large, too bright, and when the king got in, it seemed to swallow him up. Was it
magnificent or was it grotesque? Danton could not decide.
Danton returned to school later that same day, his head spinning with all of
these strange images. Inspired by what he had witnessed, he wrote his best essay
yet and won the prize.
In the years after graduating from the school in Troyes, Danton would make his
mother proud. In 1780 he moved to Paris to clerk in the law courts. Within a few
years, he passed the bar exam and became a practicing lawyer. In court, with his
booming voice and oratorical skills, he naturally commanded attention and quickly
rose through the ranks. And as he mingled with his fellow lawyers and read the
newspapers, he detected something strange going on in France: a growing
discontent with the king, the profligate queen, and the arrogant upper classes,
whom the great thinkers of the day were ridiculing in their plays and books.
The main problem was the country’s finances—France seemed perpetually on the
brink of running out of money. At the root of this was France’s vastly antiquated
financial structure. The French people were subject to all kinds of onerous taxes
that dated back to feudal times, but the clergy and the nobility were largely exempt
from any such burdens. Taxes on the French lower and middle classes could never
bring in enough revenue, especially considering the lavish expenditures of the
French court, which had only gotten worse with Queen Marie Antoinette’s elaborate
parties and love of finery.
As the money supply ran short and the price of bread kept rising, and with
millions of people facing starvation, riots began to break out throughout the
countryside and even in Paris. And amid all of this turmoil, the young king was
proving to be too indecisive to handle the pressure.
In 1787, as the financial situation worsened, the opportunity of a lifetime came to
Danton—a position as a lawyer on the King’s Council, with a rather nice bump in
salary. Wanting to marry a young woman named Gabrielle, whose father opposed
the marriage because Danton did not earn enough, he accepted the position on the
council, despite his fears that he was joining a sinking ship. Two days later he
married Gabrielle.
Danton did his job well but found himself increasingly absorbed by the turmoil
in Paris. He joined a club called the Cordeliers. Its members were an odd mix of
bohemian artists and political agitators. It was located near his apartment, so he
began to spend a great part of his day there, and soon he was participating in the
raucous debates about the future of France that took place at the club. He felt a
strange new spirit in the air, a boldness that made people suddenly say things they
could never have said a few years before about the monarchy. He found it exciting
and irresistible. He began to give his own fiery speeches, focusing on the brutality of
the upper classes, and he basked in the attention he received.
In 1788 he was offered a higher position on the King’s Council, and he turned it
down. He told the king’s minister who presented the offer that the monarchy was
doomed: “This is no longer about modest reforms,” he said. “We are more than ever
on the brink of revolution. . . . Can’t you see the avalanche coming?”
In the spring of 1789, Louis was forced to call a national assembly to deal with
the looming bankruptcy. The assembly was known as the Estates General. It was an
institution meant to deal with a national crisis, but always as a measure of last
resort, the previous one having been held in 1614, after the death of King Henry IV.
It brought together representatives of the three estates of France—the nobility, the
clergy, and the tax-paying commoners. Although the vast majority of French people
were to be represented by members of the Third Estate, the power of the assembly
was heavily tilted in favor of the nobility and clergy. Nevertheless, the French
people held great hopes for the Estates General, and Louis had been extremely
reluctant to call for it.
Only a month before the convening of the Estates General, riots in Paris had
broken out over the price of bread, and royal troops had shot into the crowds,
killing dozens. Danton had witnessed the bloodshed and he felt a turning point in
the mood of the people, particularly the lower classes, and in himself. He shared
their desperation and anger; they could no longer be placated with the usual
rhetoric. He began to address the angry crowds on street corners, attracting
followers and making a name for himself. To a friend who was surprised at this new
direction in his life, he responded that it was like seeing a strong tide in the river,
jumping in, and letting it carry him where it might.

—
As he prepared for the convening of the Estates General, King Louis could barely
contain his resentment and anger. In the years since he had become king, various
finance ministers had warned him of an impending crisis if France did not reform
its tax system. He had understood this and had tried to initiate reforms, but the
nobility and clergy, fearing where this might lead, had become so hostile to such
ideas that the king had been forced to back down. And now, with the state’s coffers
nearly empty, the nobility and the Third Estate were holding him hostage, making
him convene the Estates General and putting him in the position of begging for
funds from his people.
The Estates General was not a traditional part of French government; it was an
anomaly, a challenge to the divine right of the king, a recipe for anarchy. Who knew
what was best for France—his subjects, with their million different opinions? The
nobility, with their own narrow interests and hunger to grab more power? No, only
the king could navigate the nation through this crisis. He had to regain the upper
hand over these rowdy children.
The king decided upon a plan: he would impress upon them all the majesty of
the monarchy and its absolute necessity as the supreme power in France. To do so,
he would hold the Estates General at Versailles, something his advisers warned him
not to do, considering Versailles’s closeness to Paris and all its agitators. Louis
reasoned that most of the delegates of the Third Estate came from the middle
classes and were relatively moderate. Amid the grandeur and all the symbols of the
French monarchy, the members of the Third Estate could not help but think of what
Louis XIV, the builder of Versailles, had created and how much they owed the
monarchy for transforming France into a great power. He would hold an opening
ceremony that would rival his coronation and remind all of the estates of the divine
origin of his kingship.
Having impressed them with the weight of the past, he would then agree to some
reforms of the tax system, which the Third Estate would certainly be grateful for. At
the same time, however, he would make it clear that under no circumstances would
the monarchy or the first two estates relinquish any of their other powers or
privileges. In this way, the government would get its necessary funds through taxes,
and the traditions he was meant to uphold would remain unchanged.
The opening ceremonies went just as he had planned, but to his dismay the
deputies of the Third Estate seemed rather uninterested in the splendors of the
palace and all of the pomp. They were barely respectful during the religious
ceremonies. They did not applaud very warmly during his opening speech. The tax
reforms he proposed were not enough, in their eyes. And as the weeks went by, the
members of the Third Estate became increasingly demanding, its members now
insisting that the three estates have equal power.
When the king refused to accept their demands, they did the unthinkable—they
declared themselves the true representatives of the French people, equal to the
king, and they called their body the National Assembly. They proposed the
formation of a constitutional monarchy, and they claimed to have the overwhelming
support of the country. If they did not get their way, they would make sure the
government would be unable to raise the necessary taxes. At one point, as the king
grew furious at this form of blackmail, he ordered the Third Estate to disband from
their meeting place, and they refused, disobeying a royal decree. Never had any
French king witnessed such insubordination from the lower classes.
As he faced a growing uprising throughout the country, Louis sensed the urgency
of nipping the problem in the bud. He decided to forget any attempts at conciliation
and instead resort to force. He called in the army to establish order in Paris and
elsewhere. But on July 13 messengers from Paris relayed some disturbing news: the
Parisians, anticipating Louis’s use of the military, were quickly arming themselves,
looting military stockades. The French troops that had moved in to quell the
rebellion were unreliable, many of them refusing to fire on their compatriots. The
following day, a vast contingent of Parisians marched on the Bastille, the royal
prison in Paris that was a symbol of the most oppressive practices of the monarchy,
and they took control of it.
Paris was in the hands of the people now, and there was nothing Louis could do.
He watched with horror as the National Assembly, still meeting in Versailles,
quickly voted to eliminate the various privileges enjoyed by the nobility and clergy.
In the name of the people, they voted to take over the Catholic Church and auction
off to the public the vast lands that it owned. They went even further, proclaiming
that henceforth all French citizens were equal. The monarchy would be allowed to
survive, but the people and the king were to share power.
In the following weeks, as the courtiers, shocked and terrified by these events,
quickly fled Versailles to safe regions or to other countries, the king could now feel
the full brunt of what had happened in the past few months. He wandered the halls
of the palace, virtually alone. The paintings and august symbols of Louis XIV stared
back at him in mockery of all that he had allowed under his rule.
Somehow he had to retake control of France, and the only way to do so was to
lean even more on the military, finding those regiments that had remained loyal to
him. In mid-September he recalled the Flanders Regiment—containing some of the
best soldiers in the country and renowned for its royalist sympathies—to Versailles.
On the evening of October 1, the king’s personal guard decided to host a banquet in
honor of the Flanders Regiment. All of the courtiers who had remained in the
palace, along with the king and the queen, attended the banquet.
The soldiers became drunk. They shouted cheers to the king and oaths to the
monarchy. They sang ballads ridiculing the French people in the raunchiest terms.
They grabbed handfuls of the tricolor badges and ribbons that symbolized the
revolution and trampled them with their boots. The king and the queen, so
despondent of late, took this all in with undisguised delight—it was a taste of years
gone by, when the very sight of the royal couple inspired such displays of affection.
But news of what had transpired at this banquet quickly spread to Paris, and it
caused outrage and panic. Parisians of all classes suspected that the king was
planning some sort of countercoup. They imagined the nobility returning under
Louis’s command and exacting revenge on the French people.
Within days, the king learned that thousands of Parisians were now marching on
Versailles. They were armed and dragging cannons. He thought of escaping with his
family but hesitated. Soon it was too late, as the mob arrived. On the morning of
October 6, a group of citizens penetrated into the palace, killing everyone in their
path. They demanded that Louis and his family be escorted back to Paris, so that
the French citizens could keep an eye on him and ensure his loyalty to the new
order.
Louis had no choice: he and his traumatized family piled into a single carriage.
As they made their way to Paris, surrounded by the crowd, Louis could see the
heads of the king’s personal guard paraded on long pikes. What shocked him even
more was the sight of so many men and women surrounding the carriage, dressed
in rags, thinned by hunger, pressing their faces to the window and swearing at him
and the queen in the vilest language. He could not recognize his own subjects. These
were not the French people he had known. They must be outside agitators, brought
in by enemies to destroy the monarchy. Somehow the world had gone mad.
In Paris the king, his family, and the few courtiers who had remained with them
were housed in the Tuileries, a royal residence that had been uninhabited for over a
hundred years.
Within a week of his arrival in Paris, the king received a visit from a strange man
whose face and manner frightened him. It was Georges-Jacques Danton, now one of
the leaders of the French Revolution. On behalf of the French people, he had come
to welcome the king to Paris. He explained that he had been a member of the King’s
Council, and he reassured the king that the people were grateful for his submission
to their will and that there was still an important part for him to play as a monarch
who swore allegiance to a new constitution.
 Louis could barely listen. He was transfixed by the man’s enormous head, by the
strange outfit he wore (black satin breeches over white silk stockings, and buckled
shoes, a mix of fashion styles Louis had never seen before), and by his whole
manner, his fast way of talking, the lack of awe and respect in the king’s presence.
He bowed graciously before the king, but he refused to kiss his hand, quite a breach
of protocol. So this was a revolutionary, a man of the people? Louis had never met
such a fellow, and he found the experience decidedly unpleasant.

—
During the summer months of 1789, Danton had largely supported the decisions of
the National Assembly, but he had remained wary of the aristocracy and wanted to
make sure they had permanently lost their privileges. The nobility was the source of
the country’s misery, and the French must never forget this. He had become one of
the principal fomenters against the upper classes, and as such he had earned the
mistrust of the more moderate and bourgeois leaders of the revolution, who wanted
to go slowly. To them, Danton was like a ranting, monstrous ogre, and they had
excluded him from their social circles and any official position in the new
government under formation.
Feeling ostracized and perhaps recalling his own peasant roots, Danton had
come to increasingly identify with the sans-culottes (“without breeches”), members
of the lowest classes in France and the most revolutionary in spirit. As the news of
the scandalous behavior of the Flanders Regiment on October 1 had reached Paris,
Danton had been one of the key agitators for the march on Versailles, and with its
success he had become the leader of the Cordeliers. And it was in that capacity that
he had paid a visit to the Tuileries, as much to discern the king’s degree of support
for the new constitution as to welcome him.
Danton could not help but recall the coronation he had attended over fourteen
years earlier, with all of its pomp, for despite everything that had happened in the
last few months, the king seemed bent on re-creating the protocol and ceremony of
Versailles. He wore his royal outfit, with its sash and various medals attached to his
coat. He insisted on the old formalities, and he kept his attendants in their elaborate
uniforms. It was all so empty, so disconnected from what was going on. Danton was
polite. He still felt a strange sympathy for the king, but now, as he scrutinized him,
all he could see was a relic of the past. He doubted the king’s allegiance to the new
order. He left the meeting more certain than ever that the French monarchy had
become obsolete.
In the months that followed, the king professed his loyalty to the new
constitution, but Danton suspected that Louis was playing a double game, still
plotting to bring the monarchy and nobility back to power. A coalition of armies
from other countries in Europe was now waging open war against the revolution,
determined to rescue the king and restore the old order. And Danton felt certain
that the king was in communication with them.
Then in June of 1791 came the most startling news of all: the king and his family
had somehow escaped from Paris in a carriage. A few days later they were caught. It
would all have been rather comical if it hadn’t been so alarming. The family
members had been dressed like everyday members of the bourgeoisie out on
holiday, but they had ridden in a splendid carriage that did not match their outfits
and that called attention to itself. They had been recognized, captured, and returned
to the capital.
 Now Danton sensed that his moment had arrived. The liberals and moderates in
the revolution were trying to maintain that the king was innocent, that he had been
duped into escaping or even abducted. They feared what would happen to France if
the monarchy was abolished and how the foreign armies, now within the country’s
borders, would react if anything happened to the king. But to Danton this was
absurd. They were merely postponing the inevitable. The monarchy had lost its
meaning and purpose; the king had revealed himself to be a traitor, and they must
not be afraid to say so. It was time, he proclaimed, for France to declare itself a
republic and get rid of the monarchy once and for all.
His call for a republic began to resonate, particularly among the sans-culottes.
As a sign of his growing influence, Danton was elected to his first official position—
deputy prosecutor for the commune in charge of Paris—and he began to fill the
commune with his sympathizers, preparing for something large.
The following summer a large contingent of sans-culottes from Marseilles was in
Paris to celebrate the third anniversary of the revolution. The men from Marseilles,
enthused by Danton’s calls for a republic, placed themselves under his charge, and
throughout June and July they marched through Paris singing hymns to the
revolution and spreading Danton’s demand for the formation of a republic. Each
day more and more people joined the men from Marseilles. Quietly planning his
coup, Danton gained control of the commune. Its members now voted to lift the
blockade on the various bridges of Paris leading to the Tuileries from the Left Bank,
effectively ending any protection for the royal family, as crowds could now march
straight to the palace.
On the morning of August 10, alarm bells rang out throughout the city, and
accompanied by a steady drumbeat, an enormous contingent of Parisians marched
across several bridges to invade the Tuileries. Most of the guards protecting the
palace scattered, and soon the royal family was forced to flee for their lives, taking
refuge in the nearby hall where the National Assembly met. The crowd quickly
massacred the remaining soldiers guarding the palace and took it over.
Danton’s gambit had worked—the people had spoken and the National Assembly
voted to end the monarchy, stripping the king and his family of any powers and
protections that had remained. In one blow, Danton had put an end to the longest-
lasting and most powerful monarchy in Europe. The king and his family were
shuttled to the Temple, a medieval priory that would serve as their private prison as
the new government decided their fate. Danton was now named minister of justice,
and he was the de facto leader of the new Republic of France.

—
At the Temple, Louis found himself separated from his family, awaiting trial for
treason in December. He was now to be known as Louis Capet (the family name of
the founder of the French tenth-century kingship that would end with Louis), a
commoner with no privileges. Mostly alone, he had time to reflect on the traumas of
the past three and a half years. If only the French people had kept their faith in him,
he would have found a way to solve all of the problems. He was still certain that
godless demagogues and outside agitators had spoiled the people’s natural love for
him.
The revolutionaries had recently discovered a stash of papers that Louis had
hidden in a safe in a wall in the Tuileries, and among them were letters that
revealed how deeply he had conspired with foreign powers to overturn the
revolution. He was certain now to be sentenced to death, and he prepared himself
for this.
For his trial in front of the assembly, Louis Capet wore a simple coat, the kind
any middle-class citizen would sport. He now had a beard. He looked sad and
exhausted, and hardly like a king. But whatever sympathy his judges had had for
him quickly vanished as prosecutors read out the many charges against him,
including how he had conspired to overturn the revolution. A month later the
private citizen Capet was sentenced to die at the guillotine, Danton himself casting
one of the deciding votes.
Louis was determined to show a brave face. On the morning of January 21, a cold
and windy day, he was transported to the Place de la Révolution, where an
enormous crowd had gathered to witness the execution. They watched in stunned
amazement as the former king had his hands tied and his hair cut like any ordinary
criminal. He climbed the stairs to the guillotine, and before kneeling at the block, he
cried out, “People, I die innocent! I pardon those who sentenced me. I pray God my
blood does not fall again over France.”
As the blade fell, he emitted a horrifying cry. The executioner held up the king’s
head for all to see. After a few cries of “Vive la nation,” a deathly silence fell over the
crowd. Minutes later they rushed to the scaffold to dip their hands in Louis’s blood
and buy locks of his hair.

—
As the leader of the French Revolution, Danton now faced two rather daunting
forces: the invading armies that kept pressing closer to Paris and the restiveness of
the French citizens, many of whom clamored for revenge on the aristocracy and all
counterrevolutionaries. To meet the enemy armies, Danton unleashed an enormous
citizen army of millions that he had created, and in the first few months of battle
these new French forces turned the tide of the war.
To channel the people’s taste for revenge, he set up a revolutionary tribunal to
bring quick justice to those suspected of trying to restore the monarchy. The
tribunal initiated what would become known as the Terror, as it sent thousands of
suspects to the guillotine, often on the flimsiest of charges.
Shortly after the execution of the king, Danton traveled to Belgium to help
oversee the war effort on that front. While there, he received the news that his
beloved wife, Gabrielle, had died in premature childbirth. He felt horribly guilty for
not being by her side in that moment, and the thought that he had no chance to say
good-bye to her and that he would never see her face again was unbearable.
Without thinking of the consequences, he abandoned his mission in Belgium and
hurried back to France.
By the time he arrived, his wife had been dead for a week and buried in the
public cemetery. Overwhelmed with grief and the desire to see her one more time,
he hurried to the cemetery, bringing along with him a friend and some shovels. On a
moonless, rainy night, they managed to find the grave. He dug and he dug, and with
his friend’s help, he lifted the casket out of the ground and, with much effort, finally
pried the lid off. He gasped at the sight of her bloodless face. He pulled her out,
hugging her tightly to his body, begging her to forgive him. He kissed her again and
again on her cold lips. After several hours, he finally returned her to the ground.
 In the months to come, something seemed to have changed in Danton. Had it
been the loss of his wife, or was it the guilt he now felt for having unleashed the
Terror within France? He had ridden the wave of the revolution to the pinnacle of
power, but now he wanted it to go in another direction. He became less engaged in
affairs of state and was no longer in favor of the Terror. Maximilien Robespierre, his
main rival for power, noticed the change and began to spread the rumor that
Danton had lost his revolutionary fervor and could no longer be trusted.
Robespierre’s campaign had effect: when it came time to elect members to the
highest governing body, the Committee of Public Safety, Danton did not receive
enough votes and Robespierre packed it with his sympathizers.
Danton now openly worked to put an end to the Terror, through speeches and
pamphlets, but this only played into the hands of his rival. On March 30, 1794,
Danton was arrested for treason and brought before the revolutionary tribunal. It
seemed ironic that the tribunal he had formed now held his fate in its hands. The
charges against him were based on pure innuendo, but Robespierre made certain he
was found guilty and sentenced to death. Upon hearing the sentence, he yelled at
his judges, “My name is engraved on every institution of the revolution—the army,
the committees, the tribunal. I have killed myself!”
That same afternoon he and other condemned men were put in carts and led to
the Place de la Révolution. Along the way, Danton passed the residence where
Robespierre lived. “You’re next,” Danton shouted in his booming voice, pointing his
finger at Robespierre’s apartment. “You will follow me!”
Danton was the last one to be executed that day. An enormous crowd had
followed the cart, and now they were quiet as he was led up the stairs. He could not
help but think of Louis, whom he had reluctantly sent to the guillotine, and the
many former friends who had died during the Terror. It had taken a few months,
but he had grown sick of all the bloodshed, and he could sense the crowd before him
was feeling the same way. As he laid his neck on the block, he shouted to the
executioner, “Make sure you show my head to the people. It is worth a look!”
After the execution of Danton, Robespierre unleashed what became known as
the Great Terror. During four tumultuous months, the tribunal sent close to twenty
thousand French men and women to the guillotine. But Danton had anticipated the
shift in mood: the French public had had enough of the executions, and they turned
against Robespierre with remarkable speed. In late July, in a heated meeting at the
assembly, its members voted to arrest Robespierre. He tried to defend himself, but
the words came out haltingly. One member shouted, “It is the blood of Danton that
chokes you!” The following morning, without a trial, Robespierre was guillotined,
and days later the assembly abolished the revolutionary tribunal.

—
At around the time of Robespierre’s execution, the new leaders of the revolution
were looking for ways to drum up funds for the various emergencies France was
facing, and someone mentioned the recent rediscovery of Louis’s magnificent
coronation carriage, the Sacre. Perhaps they could sell it. A few of them went to
inspect it, and they were aghast at what they perceived as its sheer hideousness.
One deputy described it as “a monstrous assemblage built of the people’s gold and
an excess of flattery.” All agreed that no one would buy such a grotesquerie. They
had all of the gold from the coach removed and melted, sending it to the treasury.
They dispatched the salvaged bronze to the republic’s foundries to help forge some
much-needed cannons. When it came to the painted panels on the doors, with all of
their mythological symbols, they found them too weird for anyone’s tastes and
promptly had them burned.

• • •
Interpretation: Let us look momentarily at the prerevolutionary world in France
through the eyes of King Louis XVI. Much of what he saw seemed to be the same
reality that previous kings had faced. The king was still considered the absolute
ruler of France, divinely appointed to lead the nation. The various classes and
estates in France remained quite stable; the distinctions among the nobility, the
clergy, and the rest of the French people were still largely respected. The
commoners enjoyed the relative prosperity that Louis himself had inherited from
his grandfather.
Yes, there were financial problems, but the great Louis XIV himself had faced
such crises, and they had passed. Versailles was still the glittering jewel of Europe,
the center of everything civilized. Louis’s beloved queen, Marie Antoinette, hosted
the most spectacular parties, which were the envy of all European aristocrats. Louis
himself did not care for such amusements, but he had his hunting parties and his
other rather pedestrian hobbies that obsessed him.
Life at the palace was rather sweet and relatively tranquil. Most important to
Louis, the glory and the majesty of France, as embodied in its ceremonies and visual
symbols, still carried the same weight as before. Who could help but be impressed
by the splendors of Versailles itself, or by the rituals of the Catholic Church? He was
the ruler of a great nation, and there was no reason to believe that the monarchy
would not continue for as many centuries as it had already lasted.
Below the surface of what he saw, however, there were some troubling signs of
discontent. Beginning during the reign of Louis XV, writers such as Voltaire and
Diderot began to ridicule the church and the monarchy for all of their backward,
superstitious beliefs. They reflected a new scientific spirit spreading throughout
Europe, and it was hard to reconcile this with many of the practices of the church
and the nobility. Their ideas became known as the Enlightenment, and they began
to gain influence among the expanding middle class, which had felt excluded from
power and was not so immersed in all of the symbolism of the monarchy.
Below the seemingly tranquil façade of the nobility, there were quite a few
cracks. Many aristocrats had come to loathe the absolute power of the king, whom
they saw as weak and not worthy of their respect. They hungered for more power
for themselves.
Secret societies were sprouting up everywhere, promoting a whole new way of
socializing, far from the stuffy environment of the court. Supreme among them
were the Freemasons and their lodges, with their own secret rituals. Danton himself
was a member. The Freemasons’ lodges were hotbeds of discontent with the
monarchy, their members highly sympathetic to the ideas of the Enlightenment.
They craved a new order in France. In Paris, the theater had suddenly become the
most popular place to frequent and to be seen at, much more popular than the
church. And plays were now being performed that mocked the monarchy in the
most brazen manner.
And all of those majestic symbols and ceremonies of the monarchy that had
remained relatively unchanged were beginning to seem rather empty, masks with
nothing behind them. Courtiers no longer really understood what they were doing,
or why, when they engaged in their elaborate rituals in company with the king. The
paintings, statues, and fountains ornamented with mythological figures were as
beautiful as ever, but they were simply seen as surface pieces of art, not as
indications of a deep connection to France’s glorious past.
All of these signs were subtle and disparate. It was hard to connect them all to
any kind of trend, let alone a revolution. They could pass as novelties, new pastimes
for a bored nation, without any underlying meaning. But then came the worsening
crisis in the late 1780s, and suddenly these separate examples of disenchantment
began to combine into an undeniable force. The price of bread had risen, as well as
the cost of living, for all French subjects. As the discontent spread, the nobility and
the bourgeoisie smelled weakness in the king and demanded more power.
Now the king could not ignore what was happening, and at the Estates General
the loss of respect and the disenchantment were all too visible to him in the
behavior of the Third Estate. Louis, however, could only view these events through
the lens of the divine monarchy that he had inherited and clung to so desperately.
These French subjects who were disrespecting and disobeying his absolute rule
must be godless individuals, and only a noisy minority. To disobey his word was
tantamount to sacrilege.
If such people could not be persuaded by the symbols of the glorious past, he
would have to use force to make the past and the traditions prevail. But once
something has lost its spell and no longer enchants, no amount of force can bring it
back to life. And as he rode in that carriage in October of 1789 that carried him away
forever from Versailles and the past, all he could see were people who were not his
subjects but aliens of some sort. He had to include Danton in such a group. At his
execution, he addressed the crowd as if he were still the king, forgiving them their
sins. The crowd instead saw just a human, stripped of all his previous glory, no
better than they were.
When Georges-Jacques Danton looked out at the same world as the king, he saw
something quite different. Unlike the king, he was not timid or insecure but the
opposite. He had no inner need to rely upon the past to prop him up. He had been
educated by liberal priests who had instilled in him Enlightenment ideas. And at the
age of fifteen, at the coronation he caught a fleeting glimpse of the future, intuiting
for a moment how empty the monarchy and its symbols had become, and that the
king was just an ordinary man.
In the 1780s he began to pick up the disparate signs of change—from within the
King’s Council and the growing disrespect among the lawyer class, to the clubs and
street life, where a new spirit could be detected. He could feel the pain of the lower
classes and empathize with their sense of exclusion. And this new spirit was not
simply political but also cultural. The youth of Danton’s generation had grown tired
of all of the empty formality in French culture. They yearned for something freer
and more spontaneous. They wanted to express their emotions openly and
naturally. They wanted to get rid of all the elaborate outfits and hairstyles and wear
looser clothing with less ostentation. They wanted more open socializing, the open
mingling of all the classes, as occurred in the clubs in Paris.
We could call this cultural movement the first real explosion of Romanticism,
valuing emotions and sensations above the intellect and formalities. Danton both
exemplified this Romantic spirit and understood it. He was a man who always wore
his heart on his sleeve and whose speeches had the feel of spontaneous outpourings
of ideas and emotions. His disinterment of his wife was like something out of
Romantic literature, an expression of emotion unimaginable some ten years before.
This side of Danton was what made him so relatable and compelling to the public.
In a way that made him quite unique, Danton was able before anyone else to
connect the meaning behind all of these signs and foresee a mass revolution on its
way. An avid swimmer, he compared all of this to the tide in a river. Nothing in
human life is ever static. There is always discontent below the surface, and hunger
for change. Sometimes this is rather subtle, and the river seems somewhat placid
but still moving. At other times it is like a rush, a rising tide that no one, not even a
king with absolute power, can hold back.
Where was this tide carrying the French? That was the key question. To Danton
it soon became clear it was heading toward the formation of a republic. The
monarchy was now just a façade. Its show of majesty no longer stirred the masses.
They now saw that the actions of the king were all about holding on to power; they
saw the aristocracy as a bunch of thieves, doing little work and sucking up the
wealth of France. With such levels of disenchantment, there could be no turning
back, no middle ground, no constitutional monarchy.
As part of his unusual perspicacity and sensitivity to the spirit of the times,
before any of the other revolutionary leaders, Danton understood that the Terror he
had unleashed was a mistake and that it was time to stop it. In this one instance, his
sense of timing was off, as he moved on this intuition at least several months in
advance of the public, giving his enemies and rivals an opening to get rid of him.
Understand: You might see King Louis XVI as an extreme example of someone
out of tune with the times, not particularly relevant to your own life, but in fact he is
much closer to you than you think. Like him, you are probably looking at the
present through the lens of the past. When you look at the world around you, it
seems pretty much as it appeared a day or a week or a month or even a year ago.
People act more or less the same. The institutions that hold power remain in place
and are not going anywhere. People’s ways of thinking have not really changed; the
conventions that govern behavior in your field are still followed religiously. Yes,
there might be some new styles and trends in culture, but they are not critical
factors or signs of deep change. Lulled by these appearances, it seems to you that
life simply goes on as it always has.
Below the surface, however, the tide is moving; nothing in human culture stands
still. Those who are younger than you no longer have the same level of respect for
certain values or institutions that you have. Power dynamics—among classes,
regions, industries—are in a state of flux. People are beginning to socialize and
interact in new ways. New symbols and myths are being formed, and old ones are
fading. All of these things can seem rather disconnected until there is some crisis or
clash and people must confront what was once seemingly invisible or separate, in
the form of some sort of revolution or cry for change.
When this occurs, some people will feel, like the king, profoundly uncomfortable
and will hold on even more fervently to the past. They will band together to try to
stop the tide from advancing, a futile task. Leaders will feel threatened and cling
more tightly to their conventional ideas. Others will be carried along without really
understanding where it is all headed or why things are changing.
What you want and need is the power that Danton possessed to make sense of it
all and act accordingly. And this power is a function of vision, of looking at events
from a different angle, through a fresh framework. You ignore the clichéd
interpretations that others will inevitably spout when facing changes. You drop the
mental habits and past ways of looking at things that can cloud your vision. You
stop the tendency to moralize, to judge what is happening. You simply want to see
things as they are. You look for the undercurrents of discontent and disharmony
with the status quo, which are always there below the surface. You see
commonalities and connections among all these signs. Slowly the flow, the tide
itself, comes into focus, indicating a course, a direction that is hidden to so many
others.
Do not think of this as some intellectual exercise. Intellectuals are often the last
to really discern the spirit of the times, because they are so grounded in theories
and conventional frameworks. First and foremost, you must be able to feel the
change in the collective mood, to sense how people are diverging from the past.
Once you feel the spirit, you can begin to analyze what is behind it. Why are people
dissatisfied, and what are they really craving? Why are they gravitating toward
these new styles? Look at those idols from the past that no longer cast a spell, that
seem ridiculous, that are the subject of mockery, particularly among the young.
They are like Louis’s carriage. When you detect enough such disenchantment, you
can be sure something strong is cresting.
Once you have an adequate feel for what is really going on, you must be bold in
how you respond, giving voice to what other people are feeling but not
understanding. Be careful to not get too far out ahead and be misunderstood. Ever
alert, always letting go of your prior interpretations, you can seize the opportunities
in the moment that others cannot even begin to detect. Think of yourself as an
enemy of the status quo, whose proponents must view you in turn as dangerous. See
this task as absolutely necessary for the revitalization of the human spirit and the
culture at large, and master it.
Our era is a birth-time, and a period of transition. The spirit of man has broken with the
old order of things . . . and with the old ways of thinking, and is of the mind to let them all
sink into the depths of the past and to set about its own transformation. . . . The frivolity
and boredom which unsettle the established order, the vague foreboding of something
unknown, these are the heralds of approaching change.
—G. W. F. Hegel

Keys to Human Nature

In human culture, we can see a phenomenon—changes in fashions and styles—that
at first glance might appear trivial, but that in fact is quite profound, revealing a
deep and fascinating part of human nature. Look at clothing styles, for instance. In
the stores or in fashion shows we can perhaps detect some trends and changes from
a few months before, but they are usually subtle. Go back to styles ten years ago
and, compared with the present, the differences are quite apparent. Go back twenty
years and it is even clearer. With such a distance in time, we can even notice a
particular style of twenty years ago that now probably looks a bit amusing and
passé.
These changes in fashion styles that are so detectable in increments of decades
can be characterized as creating something looser and more romantic than the
previous style, or more overtly sexual and body conscious, or more classic and
elegant, or gaudier and with more frills. We could name several other categories of
changes in style, but in the end they are limited in number, and they seem to come
in waves or patterns that are detectable over the course of several decades or
centuries. For example, the interest in sparser and more classic clothing will recur
at various intervals of time, not at precisely the same intervals, but with a degree of
regularity.
This phenomenon raises some interesting questions: Do these shifts relate to
something more than just the desire for what is new and different? Do they reflect
deeper changes in people’s psychology and moods? And how do these changes
occur, so that over enough time we can detect them? Do they come from a top-down
dynamic in which certain individuals and tastemakers initiate a change, which is
then slowly picked up by the masses and spread virally? Or are these tastemakers
themselves responding to signs of change from within the society as a whole, from
that social force described in chapter 14, giving it a bottom-up dynamic?
We can ask these questions about styles in music or any other cultural form. But
we can also ask them about changing styles in thinking and theorizing, in how
arguments in books are constructed. Fifty years ago, many arguments were rooted
in psychoanalysis and sociology, writers often seeing the environment as the
primary influence on human behavior. The style was loose, literary, and given to
much speculation.
Now arguments tend to revolve around genetics and the human brain, with
everything having to be backed up by studies and statistics. The mere appearance of
numbers on a page can lend a certain air of credibility to the argument. Speculation
is frowned upon. Sentences are shorter, designed to communicate information. But
this change in theorizing style is not anything new. We can notice a similar back-
and-forth—from the literary and speculative to the sober and data driven—
beginning in the eighteenth century and up to the present.
What is fascinating in these shifts in style is the limited range of changes, their
recurrence, and the increasing speed we now see in the shifts, as if we are
witnessing a quickening in human restlessness and nervous energy. And if we
examine this phenomenon closely enough, we can see quite clearly that these
seemingly superficial changes do in fact reflect deeper alterations in people’s mood
and values, emerging from the bottom up. Something as simple as a desire for
looser styles of clothing, as happened in the 1780s, reflects an overall psychological
shift. Nothing is innocent in this realm. An interest in brighter colors, or a harder
sound in music, have something else to say about what is stirring in the collective
minds of the people of that time.
And in examining this phenomenon even more deeply, we can also make the
following discovery: what drives these changes is the continual succession of new
generations of young people, who are trying to create something more relevant to
their experience of the world, something that reflects more their values and spirit
and that goes in a different direction from that of the previous generation. (We can
generally describe a generation as comprising around twenty-two years, with those
born at the earliest and latest parts of that period often identifying more with the
previous or succeeding generation.)
And this pattern of change from one generation to the next is itself part of a
larger pattern in history, going back thousands of years, in which particular
reactions and shifts in values recur rather regularly, all of which suggests something
about human nature that transcends us as individuals, that has programmed us to
repeat these patterns for some reason.
Many of us intuit the truth about generations—how they tend to have a kind of
personality and how the younger generation initiates so many changes. Some of us
are in denial about the phenomenon because we like to imagine that we as
individuals shape what we think and believe, or that other forces such as class,
gender, and race play a greater role. Certainly the study of generations can be
imprecise; it is a subtle and elusive subject. And other factors play a role as well. But
looking in depth at the phenomenon reveals that in fact it is more of an influence
than we generally imagine, and is in many ways the great generator of so much that
happens in history.
And understanding this generational phenomenon can yield several other
benefits: We can see what forces shaped our parents’ mind-set, and then ours in
turn, as we have tried to go in a different direction. We can make better sense of the
underlying changes going on in all areas of society and begin to surmise where the
world is headed, to anticipate future trends, and to understand the role we can play
in shaping events. This can not only bring us great social power but can also have a
therapeutic, calming effect on us as we view events in the world with some distance
and equanimity, elevated above the chaotic changes of the moment.
We shall call this knowledge generational awareness. To attain it, first we must
understand the actual profound effect that our generation has on how we view the
world, and second we must understand the larger generational patterns that shape
history and recognize where our time period fits into the overall scheme.

The Generational Phenomenon

In our first years of life we are sponges, absorbing deeply the energy, style, and
ideas of our parents and teachers. We learn language, certain essential values, ways
of thinking, and how to function among people. We are slowly inculcated with the
culture of the time. Our minds are supremely open at this moment, and because of
this our experiences are more intense and bound with strong emotions. As we
become a few years older, we become aware of our peers, those more or less of the
same age, going through the same process of assimilating this strange new world we
were cast into at birth.
Although we are encountering the same reality as everyone else alive at the time,
we are doing so from a peculiar angle—that of being a child, physically smaller,
more helpless, and dependent on adults. From this point of view, the world of the
adults can seem rather alien, as we do not understand so well what motivates them,
or their adult cares or concerns. What our parents might take as serious we can
often see as comical or odd. We may watch the same forms of entertainment as they
do, but we see them from the angle of a child, with little life experience. We don’t
have the power yet to affect this world, but we start to interpret it in our own way,
and we share this with our peers.
Then, when we reach our teen years or perhaps earlier, we become aware that we
are part of a generation of young people (focusing more on those around our age)
with whom we can identify. We bond over our particular way of seeing things and
the similar sense of humor we have developed; we also tend to form common ideals
about success and coolness, among other values. In these years, we inevitably go
through a period of rebellion, struggling to find our own identity, separate from our
parents. This makes us deeply attuned to appearances—to styles and fashions. We
want to show that we belong to our generational tribe, with its own look and
manner.
Often a decisive event or trend will occur during these youthful years—this could
be a major war, a political scandal, a financial crisis or economic boom. It could also
be the invention of some new form of technology that has a profound impact on
social relations. Because we are so young and impressionable, such events have a
decisive influence on the generational personality that is forming, making us
cautious (if it is a war or crash in the economy) or hungry for adventure (if it is
something that sparks prosperity or stability). Naturally, we view such decisive
events very differently from our parents and are affected more deeply.
As we become more aware of what is going on in the world, we often come to see
the ideas and values of our parents as not fitting very well our own experience of
reality. What they have told or taught us does not seem so relevant, and we hunger
for ideas that are more related to our youthful experience.
In this first phase of life, we shape a generational perspective. It is a kind of
collective mind-set, as we absorb the prevailing culture at the same time as our
peers, from the point of view of childhood and youth. And because we are too young
to understand or analyze this perspective, we are generally ignorant of its formation
and how it influences what we see and how we interpret events.
Then, when we reach our twenties and into our thirties, we enter a new phase of
life and experience a shift. Now we are in a position to assume some power, to
actually alter this world according to our own values and ideals. As we progress in
our work, we begin to influence the culture and its politics. We inevitably clash with
the older generation that has held power for some time, as they insist on their own
way of acting and evaluating events. Many of them often view us as immature,
unsophisticated, soft, undisciplined, pampered, unenlightened, and certainly not
ready to assume power.
In some periods, the youth culture that is generated is so strong that it comes to
dominate the culture at large—in the 1920s and the 1960s, for instance. In other
periods, the older generation in positions of leadership is much more dominant,
and the influence of the emerging adults in their twenties is less noticeable. In any
event, to a greater or lesser degree, a struggle and clash occurs between these two
generations and their perspectives.
Then, as we enter our forties and midlife and assume many of the leadership
positions in society, we begin to take notice of a younger generation that is fighting
for its own power and position. Its members are now judging us and finding our
own style and ideas rather irrelevant. We begin to judge them in return, describing
them as immature, unsophisticated, soft, et cetera. We might begin to entertain the
notion that the world is heading downhill fast, the values we found so important no
longer mattering to this youthful set.
When we judge in this way, we are not aware that we are reacting according to a
pattern that has existed for at least three thousand years. (There is an inscription on
a Babylonian clay tablet that dates from around 1000 BC that reads, “Today’s youth
is rotten, evil, godless and lazy. It will never be what youth used to be, and it will
never be able to preserve our culture.” We find similar complaints in all cultures
and in all time periods.) We think we are judging the younger generation in an
objective manner, but we are merely succumbing to an illusion of perspective. It is
also true that we are probably experiencing some hidden envy of their youth and
mourning the loss of our own.
When it comes to the changes generated by the tensions between two
generations, we can say that the greater part of them will come from the young.
They are more restless, in search of their own identity, and more attuned to the
group and how they fit in. By the time such a younger generation emerges into their
thirties and forties, they will have shaped the world with their changes and given it
a look and feel that is distinct from their parents.
When looking at any generation, we naturally see variations within it. We find
individuals who are more aggressive than others—they tend to be leaders, the ones
who sense the styles and trends of the time and express them first. They have less
fear about breaking with the past and defying the older generation. Danton
exemplifies this type. We also find a much larger group of followers who are not so
aggressive, who find it more exciting to keep up with trends, helping to shape and
promote them. And finally, we also find the rebels, those types who defy their own
generation and define themselves by going against the grain. This could include the
beatniks of the 1950s or those young people in the 1960s who gravitated toward
conservative politics.
We can say of these rebel types that they are just as marked by their generation
as anyone, but in reverse. And in fact, much of the same spirit of the generation can
be detected underneath this reverse version—for instance, those younger people in
the 1780s who rallied around the aristocracy and in defense of the monarchy often
felt a very romanticized love of the old order; the young conservatives of the 1960s
were just as preachy, fanatic, and idealistic in their reverse values as the majority.
The generational mind-set inevitably dominates everyone from within, no matter
how they personally try to react against it. We cannot step outside the historical
moment that we are born into.
In considering this mind-set, we must try to think in terms of a collective
personality, or what we shall call spirit. Our generation has inherited from our
parents and the past certain key values and ways of looking at the world that remain
unquestioned. But at any moment, people of a new generation are searching for
something more alive and relevant, something that expresses what is different, what
is altering in the present. This sense of what is moving and evolving in the present,
as opposed to what is inherited from the past, is the collective spirit itself, its
restless and searching nature. It is not something we can easily put into words. It is
more a mood, an emotional tone, a way that people relate to one another.
That is why we can often best associate the generational spirit with its dominant
musical style, or an artistic trend for a certain type of imagery, or a mood captured
in the literature or films of that generation. For instance, nothing better captures
the wild spirit and frenetic pace of the 1920s than the jazz of the period and the
brassy sound of the saxophone, which was the new rage.
This spirit will tend to alter as our generation passes through the various phases
of life. How we collectively relate to the world will not be the same in our fifties as it
was in our twenties. Circumstances, historical events, and the aging process will
modify this spirit. But, as with any individual, there is something in the
generational personality that remains intact and transcends the passing years.
The famous lost generation of the 1920s, with its flappers and wild jazz, had
certain noticeable obsessions and traits during this decade—wild parties, alcohol,
sex, money, and success, as well as a hard-boiled, cynical attitude toward life. As it
aged, its members tended to drop the pursuit of some of these pleasures and
manias, but in their later years, they remained rather tough, cynical, materialistic,
and brazen in expressing their opinions. The baby boomers who came of age in the
1960s displayed an intense idealism and a propensity to judge and moralize. They
tend to retain such qualities, but their ideals and what they moralize about have
shifted.
If our generation has a particular spirit to it, we could say the same for the time
period that we are living through, which generally comprises four generations alive
at the same time. The blending of these generations, the tension among them, and
the clashing that often occurs create what we shall call the overall spirit of the times
or what is commonly known as the zeitgeist. For instance, when it comes to the
1960s, we cannot separate the mood of the powerful youth culture of that period
from the antagonism and dismay it stirred among those who were older. The
dynamic and spirit of those times came from the dramatic interaction of two
clashing perspectives.
To see this in your own experience, look back at periods in the past in which you
were alive and conscious, at least some twenty years ago, if you are old enough.
With some distance, you can reflect upon how different those times felt, what was in
the air, how people interacted, the degree of tension. The spirit of that period is not
only in the styles and clothes that are different from those of the present, but also in
something social and collective, an overall mood or feeling in the air. Even the
differences in fashions and architecture, the colors that became popular, the look of
the cars speaks of a spirit behind them that is animating these changes and choices.
That spirit can be characterized as wild and open, with people hungry for all
kinds of social interaction; or it can be rather tight and cautious, with people prone
to conforming and being hypercorrect; it can be cynical or hopeful, stale or creative.
What you want to do is to be able to gauge the spirit of the present moment, with a
similar sense of distance, and to see where your generation fits into the overall
scheme of history, giving you a sense of where things might be headed.

Generational Patterns
Since the beginning of recorded time, certain writers and thinkers have intuited a
pattern to human history. It was perhaps the great fourteenth-century Islamic
scholar Ibn Khaldun who first formulated this idea into the theory that history
seems to move in four acts, corresponding to four generations.
The first generation is that of the revolutionaries who make a radical break with
the past, establishing new values but also creating some chaos in the struggle to do
so. Often in this generation there are some great leaders or prophets who influence
the direction of the revolution and leave their stamp on it. Then along comes a
second generation that craves some order. They are still feeling the heat of the
revolution itself, having lived through it at a very early age, but they want to
stabilize the world, establish some conventions and dogma.
Those of the third generation—having little direct connection to the founders of
the revolution—feel less passionate about it. They are pragmatists. They want to
solve problems and make life as comfortable as possible. They are not so interested
in ideas but rather in building things. In the process, they tend to drain out the
spirit of the original revolution. Material concerns predominate, and people can
become quite individualistic.
Along comes the fourth generation, which feels that society has lost its vitality,
but they are not sure what should replace it. They begin to question the values they
have inherited, some becoming quite cynical. Nobody knows what to believe in
anymore. A crisis of sorts emerges. Then comes the revolutionary generation,
which, unified around some new belief, finally tears down the old order, and the
cycle continues. This revolution can be extreme and violent, or it can be less
intense, with simply the emergence of new and different values.
Although this pattern certainly has variations and is not a science, we tend to see
a lot of the overall sequencing in history. Most notable of all is the emergence of the
fourth generation and the crisis in values that comes with it. This period is often the
most painful to live through—we humans feel a deep need to believe in something,
and when we begin to doubt and question the old order and sense a vacuum in our
values, we can go a little mad. We tend to latch onto the latest belief systems
peddled by the charlatans and demagogues who thrive in such periods. We look for
scapegoats for all the problems that now arise and the spreading dissatisfaction.
Without a unifying belief to anchor and calm us, we become tribal, relying on some
small affinity group to give us a feeling of belonging.
Often, in a crisis period, we will notice the forming of a subgroup among those
who feel particularly anxious and resentful at the breakdown of order. They are
often people who felt somewhat privileged in the past, and the chaos and coming
change threatens what they have taken for granted. They want to hold on to the
past, return to some golden age they can vaguely remember, and prevent any
coming revolution. They are doomed, because the cycle cannot be stopped, and the
past cannot be magically brought back to life. But as this crisis period fades and
begins to merge into the revolutionary period, we often detect rising levels of
excitement, as those who are young and particularly hungry for something new can
sense the changes coming that they have set up in their own way.
It seems that we are living through such a crisis period, with a generation that is
experiencing it in its key phase in life. Although we cannot see how close we might
be to the end of this period, such times never last too long, because the human spirit
will not tolerate them. Some unifying belief system is in gestation, and some new
values are being generated that we cannot yet see.
At the core of this pattern is a continual back-and-forth rhythm that comes from
emerging generations reacting against the imbalances and mistakes of the previous
generation. If we go back four generations in our own time we can clearly see this.
We start with the silent generation. As children experiencing the Great Depression
and as adults coming of age during World War II and the postwar period, they
became rather cautious and conservative, valuing stability, material comforts, and
fitting tightly into the group. The next generation, the baby boomers, found the
conformity of their parents rather stifling. Emerging in the 1960s, and not haunted
by the harsh financial realities of their parents, this generation valued personal
expression, having adventures, and being idealistic.
This was followed by Generation X, which was marked by the chaos of the 1960s
and the ensuing social and political scandals. Coming of age in the 1980s and 1990s,
it was pragmatic and confrontational, valuing individualism and self-reliance. This
generation reacted against the hypocrisies and impracticalities in their parents’
idealism. This was followed by the millennial generation. Traumatized by terrorism
and a financial crisis, they reacted against the individualism of the last generation,
craving security and teamwork, with a noted dislike of conflict and confrontation.
We can deduce two important lessons from this: First, our values will often
depend upon where we fall in this pattern and how our generation reacts against the
particular imbalances of the previous generation. We would simply not be the same
person we are now, with the same attitude and ideals, if we had emerged during the
1920s or the 1950s instead of later periods. We are not aware of this critical
influence because it is too close to us to observe. Certainly we bring our own
individual spirit into play in this drama, and to the degree that we can cultivate our
uniqueness, we will gain power and the ability to direct the zeitgeist. But it is critical
that we recognize first the dominant role that our generation plays in our formation,
and where this generation falls in the pattern.
Second, we notice that generations seem capable only of reacting and moving in
an opposing direction to the previous generation. Perhaps this is because a
generational perspective is formed in youth, when we are more insecure and prone
to thinking in black-and-white terms. A middle way, a balanced form of choosing
what might be good or bad in the values and trends of the previous generation,
seems contrary to our collective nature.
On the other hand, this back-and-forth pattern has a salutary effect. If one
generation simply carried forward the tendencies of the previous one, we would
probably have destroyed ourselves long ago. Imagine generations that succeeded
the wildness of the 1920s or the 1960s by continuing with this spirit, and going
further with it; or a generation that succeeded the 1950s by remaining equally
conservative and conformist. We would suffocate ourselves with too much self-
expression or stagnation. The pattern may lead to imbalances, but it also ensures
that we revitalize ourselves.
 Sometimes the changes that are generated in a revolutionary period are rather
trivial and do not last past the cycle. But sometimes, from a strong crisis, a
revolution forges something new that lasts for centuries and represents progress
toward values that are more rational and empathetic. In seeing this historical
pattern, we must recognize what seems to be an overall human spirit that
transcends any particular time and that keeps us evolving. If for any reason the
cycle stopped, we would be doomed.

—
Your task as a student of human nature is threefold: First and foremost, you must
alter your attitude toward your own generation. We like to imagine that we are
autonomous and that our values and ideas come from within, not without, but this
is in fact not the case. Your goal is to understand as deeply as possible how
profoundly the spirit of your generation, and the times that you live in, have
influenced how you perceive the world.
We are usually hypersensitive when it comes to our own generation. The
perspective was formed in our childhood, when we were most vulnerable, and our
emotional bond to our peers was established early on. We often hear an older or
younger generation criticizing us, and we naturally become defensive. When it
comes to the flaws or imbalances in our generation, our tendency is to see them as
virtues. For instance, if we grew up in a generation that was more fearful and
cautious, we might shy away from major responsibilities, such as owning a house or
a car. We will interpret this as a desire for freedom or a desire to help the
environment, unwilling to confront the fears that are really underneath it all.
We cannot understand our generation in the same way that we understand a
scientific fact, such as the characteristics of an organism. It is something alive
within us, and our understanding of it is tainted by our own emotions and biases.
What you must do is to try to attack the problem free from judgments and
moralizing, and to become as objective as humanly possible. The personality of your
generation is neither positive nor negative; it is simply an outgrowth of the organic
process described above.
Consider yourself a kind of archaeologist digging into your own past and that of
your generation, looking for artifacts, for observations that you can piece together
to form a picture of the underlying spirit. When you examine your memories, try to
do so with some distance, even when you recall the emotions you felt at the time.
Catch yourself in the inevitable process of making judgments of good and bad about
your generation or the next one, and let go of them. You can develop such a skill
through practice. Forging such an attitude will play a key role in your development.
With some distance and awareness, you can become much more than a follower of
or a rebel against your generation; you can mold your own relationship to the
zeitgeist and become a formidable trendsetter.
Your second task is to create a kind of personality profile of your generation, so
that you can understand its spirit in the present and exploit it. Keep in mind that
there are always nuances and exceptions. What you are looking for is common traits
that signal an overall spirit.
You can begin this by looking at the decisive events that occurred in the years
before you entered the work world and that played a large role in shaping this
personality. If this period comprises more or less twenty-two years, there is often
more than just one decisive event for that period. For instance, for those who came
of age during the 1930s, there was the Depression and then the advent of World
War II. For the baby boomers, there was the Vietnam War, and later Watergate and
the political scandals of the early 1970s.
Generation X were children during the sexual revolution and adolescents in the
era of latchkey kids. For millennials there was 9/11 and then the financial meltdown
of 2008. Depending on where you fall, both will influence you, but one more than
the other, as it occurs closer to those formative years between ten and eighteen,
when you were gaining awareness of the wider world and developing core values.
Some times, such as the 1950s, can be periods of relative stability bordering on
stagnation. This will have a powerful effect as well, considering the restlessness of
the human mind, particularly among the young, who will come to yearn for
adventure and to stir things up. You must also factor into this equation any major
technological advances or inventions that alter how people interact.
Try to map out the ramifications of these decisive events. Pay particular
attention to the effect they may have had on the pattern of socialization that will
characterize your generation. If the event was a major crisis of some sort, that will
tend to make those of your generation band together for comfort and security,
valuing the team and feelings of love, and allergic to confrontation. A period of
stability and nonevents will make you gravitate toward others for adventure, for
group experimentation, sometimes bordering on the reckless. In general, you will
tend to notice a socializing style of your peers, most evident in your twenties. Search
for the roots of this.
These larger events will have an effect on how you view success and money and
whether you value status and wealth or less material values such as creativity and
personal expression. How those of your generation view failure in a venture or
career will be quite telling—is it a badge of shame or considered part of the
entrepreneurial process, even a positive experience? You can gauge this as well by
those years when you entered the work world—did you feel the pressure to start
making money right away, or was it a time to explore the world and have
adventures, then settle on something in your thirties?
In filling out this profile, look at the parenting styles of those who raised you—
permissive, overcontrolling, neglectful, or empathetic. The famously permissive
style of those who raised children in the 1890s helped create the wild, carefree
attitude of the lost generation of the 1920s. Those parents who were deeply affected
by the 1960s often ended up being quite self-absorbed and somewhat neglectful
toward their children, who could not help but feel a bit alienated and even angry
because of this. Parents who are overprotective will shape a generation that fears
going outside its comfort zones. These parenting styles come in waves. The children
who were overprotected do not generally become helicopter parents. Your own
parents might have been an exception to the prevailing style, but you will notice a
personality stamp on your peers that will become very evident in the teen years and
early twenties.
Pay close attention to the heroes and icons of a generation, those who act out the
qualities that others secretly wish they had as well. They are often the types who
gain celebrity in youth culture—the rebels, the successful entrepreneurs, the gurus,
the activists. These indicate emerging new values. Similarly, look at the trends and
fads that suddenly sweep through your generation, for instance the sudden
popularity of digital currencies. Do not take these trends at face value, but look for
the underlying spirit, the unconscious attraction toward certain values or ideals that
they reveal. Nothing is too trivial for this analysis.
 Like an individual, any generation will tend to have an unconscious, shadow side
to its personality. A good sign of this can be found in the particular style of humor
that each generation tends to forge. In humor people release their frustrations and
express their inhibitions. Such humor could tend toward the irrational, or
something edgier and even aggressive. A generation might seem rather prudish and
correct, but its humor is raunchy and irreverent. This is the shadow side leaking
out.
As part of this, you will want to look at the relationship of the genders in your
generation. In the 1920s and 1930s, men and women were trying to bridge their
differences, to socialize in mixed groups as much as possible. The male icons were
often quite feminine, such as Rudolph Valentino; and the female icons had a
pronounced masculine or androgynous edge, such as Marlene Dietrich and
Josephine Baker. Contrast this with the 1950s and the sudden and rather strong
split between the genders, revealing an unconscious discomfort with and split from
the cross-gender tendencies we all feel (see chapter 12).
In looking at this shadow side of your generation, keep in mind that its tendency
toward one extreme—materialism, spirituality, adventure, safety—conceals a
hidden attraction to the opposite. A generation like the one that came of age in the
1960s seemed disinterested in material things. Its main values were spiritual and
inward, being spontaneous and what was thought of as authentic, all of this in
reaction to their materialistic parents. But underneath this spirit, we could detect a
secret attraction to the material side of life, in the desire to always have the best of
something—the latest sound systems, the highest-quality drugs, the hippest clothes.
This attraction was revealed in all its truth during the yuppie years of the late 1970s
and early 1980s.
With all of this accumulated knowledge you can begin to form an overall profile
of your generation, one that is as complex and organic as the phenomenon itself.
Your third task, then, is to expand this knowledge to something broader, first
trying to piece together what could be considered the zeitgeist. In this sense, you are
looking particularly at the relationship between the two dominant generations,
early adults (ages twenty-two to forty-four) and those in midlife (forty-five to sixty-
six). No matter how close the parents and children of these generations might seem,
there is always an underlying tension, along with some resentment and envy. There
are natural differences between their values and how they look at the world. You
want to examine this tension and determine which generation tends to dominate
and how this power dynamic might be shifting in the present. You will also want to
see which part of the larger historical pattern your generation might fit into.
This overall awareness will yield several important benefits. For instance, your
generational perspective tends to create a particular kind of myopia. Each
generation tends toward some imbalance as it reacts against the previous one. It
views and judges everything according to certain values that it holds over others
and this closes the mind to other possibilities. We can be both idealistic and
pragmatic, value teamwork and our own individual spirit, et cetera. There is much
to be gained by looking at the world from the perspective of your parents or your
children, and even adopting some of their values. Feeling that your generation is
superior is simply an illusion. Your awareness will free you from these mental
blocks and illusions, making your mind more fluid and creative. You will be able to
shape your own values and ideas and not be such a product of the times.
With your awareness of the overall zeitgeist, you will also understand the
historical context. You will have a sense of where the world is headed. You can
anticipate what is around the corner. With such knowledge, you can bring your own
individual spirit into play and help shape this future that is gestating in the present.
And feeling deeply connected to the unbroken chain of history, and your role in
this grand historical drama, will infuse you with a calmness that will make
everything in life more bearable. You do not overreact at the outrage of the day. You
do not go gaga over the latest trend. You are aware of the pattern that will tend to
swing things in a different direction within a period of time. If you feel out of
harmony with the times, you know that the bad days will end and you can play your
part in making the next wave happen.
Keep in mind that this knowledge is more critical to posses now than ever, for
two reasons. First, despite any antiglobal sentiments sweeping the world,
technology and social media have unified us in inalterable ways. This means that
people of one generation will often have more in common with those of the same
generation in other cultures than with older generations in their own country. This
unprecedented state of affairs means that the zeitgeist is more directly globalized
than ever before, making knowledge of it that much more essential and powerful.
And second, because of these sharp changes initiated by technological
innovations, the pace has quickened, creating a self-fulfilling dynamic. Young
people feel almost addicted to this pace and crave more shifts, even if of a trivial
nature. With the quickening pace there are more crises, which only speeds up the
process. This pace will tend to make you get dizzy and lose your perspective. You
might imagine some trivial shift as groundbreaking and will thus ignore the real
groundbreaking change under way. You will not be able to keep up, let alone
anticipate what might come next. Only your generational awareness, your calm
historical perspective, will allow you to master such times.

Strategies for Exploiting the Spirit of the Times

To make the most of the zeitgeist, you must begin with a simple premise: you are a
product of the times as much as anyone; the generation you were born into has
shaped your thoughts and values, whether you are aware of this or not. And so, if
you feel from deep within some frustration with the way things are in the world or
with the older generation, or if you sense there is something that is missing in the
culture, you can be almost certain that other people of your generation are feeling
the same way. And if you are the one to act on this feeling, your work will resonate
with your generation and help shape the zeitgeist. With this in mind, you must put
into practice some or all of the following strategies.
Push against the past.You may feel a deep need to create something new and more
relevant to your generation, but the past will almost always exercise a strong pull on
you, in the form of the values of your parents that you internalized at a young age.
Inevitably you are a bit fearful and conflicted. And because of this, you might
hesitate to go full throttle with whatever you do or express, and your defiance of the
past ways of doing things will tend to be rather tepid.
Instead you must force yourself in the opposite direction. Use the past and its
values or ideas as something to push against with great force, using any anger you
might feel to help in this. Make your break with the past as sharp and clear as
possible. Express what is taboo; shatter the conventions that the older generation
adheres to. All of this will excite and attract the attention of people of your
generation, many of whom will want to follow your lead.
It was by being so audacious and defiant of the older generation that the Earl of
Essex epitomized the new, confident spirit of post-armada England and became the
darling of his generation (see chapter 15 for more on this). Danton gained power by
how far he went in defying the monarchy and fomenting for the republic. In the
1920s, the African American dancer Josephine Baker came to exemplify the new
spirit of spontaneity among the lost generation by making her performances as
unfettered and shocking as possible. By breaking so deeply with the past images of
previous first ladies and their usual demure manner, Jacqueline Kennedy became
the icon for the new spirit of the early 1960s. In going further in this direction, you
create a shock of the new and spark desires among others that are waiting to come
out.
Adapt the past to the present spirit. Once you identify the essence of the zeitgeist, it is
often a wise strategy to find some analogous moment or period in history. The
frustrations and rebellions of your generation were certainly felt to some degree by
some previous generation and were expressed in dramatic fashion. The leaders of
such past generations resonate through history and take on a kind of mythic hue the
more time passes. By associating yourself with those figures or times, you can give
added weight to whatever movement or innovation you are promoting. You take
some of the emotionally loaded symbols and styles of that historical period and
adapt them, giving the impression that what you are attempting in the present is a
more perfect and progressive version of what happened in the past.
In doing this, think in grand, mythic terms. Danton associated himself with
Cicero, whose speeches and actions in favor of the Roman Republic and against
tyranny naturally resonated with many French people and gave Danton’s mission
the added weight of the ancient past. The filmmaker Akira Kurosawa brought back
to life the world of the samurai warrior, so celebrated in Japanese culture, but re-
created it in such a way as to make judicious comments on the issues and moods of
postwar Japan. When running for president, John F. Kennedy wanted to herald a
new American spirit that was moving past the staleness of the 1950s. He called the
programs he would initiate the New Frontier, associating his ideas with the pioneer
spirit so reverentially ingrained in the American psyche. Such imagery became a
powerful part of his appeal.
Resurrect the spirit of childhood. By bringing to life the spirit of your early years—its
humor, its decisive historical events, the styles and products of the period, the
feeling in the air as it affected you—you will reach a vast audience of all those who
experienced those years in a similar way. It was a time of life of great emotional
intensity, and by re-creating it in some form, but reflected through the eyes of an
adult, your work will resonate with your peers. You must use this strategy only if
you feel a particularly powerful connection to your childhood. Otherwise your
attempt to re-create the spirit will seem flat and contrived.
Keep in mind that you are not aiming for a literal re-creation of the past but
capturing its spirit. To have real power, it should connect to some issue or problem
in the present and not simply be some mindless bit of nostalgia. If you are inventing
something, try to update and incorporate the styles of that childhood period in a
subtle manner, exploiting the unconscious attraction we all feel to that early period
in life.
Create the new social configuration. It is human nature for people to crave more
social interaction with those with whom they feel an affinity. You will always gain
great power by forging some new way of interacting that appeals to your generation.
You organize a group around new ideas or values that are in the air or the latest
technology that allows you to bring people together of a like mind in a novel way.
You eliminate the middlemen who used to set up barriers that prevented freer
associations of people. In this new form of a group, it is always wise to introduce
some rituals that bond the members together and some symbols to identify with.
We see many examples of this in the past—the salons of seventeenth-century
France, where men and women could talk freely and openly; the lodges of the
Freemasons in eighteenth-century Europe, with their secret rituals and air of
subversion; the speakeasies and jazz clubs of the 1920s, where the mood was
“anything goes”; or more recently, online platforms and groups, or flash mobs. In
using this strategy, think of the repressive elements of the past that people are
yearning to shake free of. This could be a period of stultifying correctness or
prudery, or rampant conformity, or the overvaluing of individualism and all the
selfishness that breeds. The group you establish will let flourish a new spirit and
even offer the thrill of breaking past taboos on correctness.
Subvert the spirit. You might find yourself at odds with some part of the spirit of
your generation or the times you live in. Perhaps you identify with some tradition in
the past that has been superseded, or your values differ in some way because of
your own individual temperament. Whatever the reason, it is never wise to preach
or moralize or condemn the spirit of the times. You will only marginalize yourself. If
the spirit of the times is like a tide or a stream, better to find a way to gently redirect
it, instead of fighting its direction. You will have more power and effect by working
within the zeitgeist and subverting it.
For instance, you make something—a book, a film, any product—that has the
look and feel of the times, even to an exaggerated degree. However, through the
content of what you produce, you insert ideas and a spirit that is somewhat
different, that points to the value of the past you prefer or depicts another possible
way of relating to events or interpreting them, helping to loosen up the tight
generational framework through which people view their world.
After World War II, the great European fashion designers felt a great deal of
disdain for the American market that now dominated the world. They disliked the
emerging popular culture and its vulgarity. The fashion designer Coco Chanel had
always emphasized elegance in her designs and certainly shared some of this
antipathy. But she went in the opposite direction of other designers of the time: she
embraced the new power of American women and catered to their desire for
clothing that was less fussy and more athletic. Gaining their trust and using their
language, Chanel now had great power to subtly alter American tastes, bringing in
more of her true sensibility and imparting some elegance to the streamlined designs
American women loved. In this way she helped redirect the zeitgeist in fashion,
anticipating the changes of the early 1960s. That is the power that comes from
working with the spirit rather than against it.
Keep adapting. It was in your youth that your generation forged its particular
spirit, a period of emotional intensity that we often remember fondly. The problem
that you face is that as you get older, you tend to remain locked in the values, ideas,
and styles that marked this period. You become a kind of caricature of the past to
those who are younger. You stop evolving with your thinking. The times leave you
behind, which only makes you hold on more tightly to the past as your only anchor.
And as you age, and more and more young people occupy the public stage, you
narrow your audience.
It is not that you should abandon the spirit that marked you, a rather impossible
task anyway. Trying to ape the styles of the younger generation will only make you
seem ludicrous and inauthentic. What you want is to modernize your spirit, to
possibly adopt some of the values and ideas of the younger generation that appeal
to you, gaining a new and wider audience by blending your experience and
perspective with the changes going on, making yourself into an unusual and
appealing hybrid.
For the film director Alfred Hitchcock, the decade that shaped him and his work
was the 1920s, when he entered the industry and became a director. What mattered
most in these silent films was perfecting a visual language for telling a story.
Hitchcock mastered the art of using camera angles and movement to make the
audience feel as if it were in the middle of the story.
He never abandoned this obsession with visual language throughout the six
decades he worked as a director, but he continually adapted his style—to the color
spectacles so much in vogue in the 1950s and to the popular thrillers and horror
films of the sixties and seventies. Unlike other aging film directors, who either fell
completely out of fashion or simply tried to mimic the current style, Hitchcock
created a hybrid of the past and the present. This gave his later films tremendous
depth, as he had incorporated all of the adaptations from earlier in his career. His
films could have mass appeal, but they were made unique by these layers of
innovations embedded in the film. Such depth will always have an uncanny effect
on any audience, as your work seems beyond time itself.

The Human Beyond Time and Death

We humans are masters of transforming whatever we get our hands on. We have
completely transformed the environment of the planet Earth to suit our purposes.
We have transformed ourselves from a physically weak species into the preeminent
and most powerful social animal, effectively enlarging and rewiring our brains as we
did so. We are restless and endlessly inventive. But one area seems to defy our
transformational powers—time itself. We are born and enter the stream of life, and
each day it carries us closer to death. Time is linear, always advancing, and there is
nothing we can do to stop its course.
We move through the various phases of life, which mark us according to patterns
beyond our control. Our bodies and minds slow down and lose their youthful
elasticity. We watch helplessly as more and more young people fill the stage of life,
pushing us to the side. We are born into a period of history and into a generation
that are not of our choice and that seem to determine so much of who we are and
what happens to us. In relation to time, our active nature is neutralized, and
although we do not consciously register this, our helplessness here is the source of
much of our anxiety and bouts of depression.
If we look more closely, however, at our personal experience of time, we can
notice something peculiar—the passage of the hours or days can alter depending on
our mood and circumstances. A child and an adult experience time very differently
—for the former it moves rather slowly, and all too quickly for the latter. When we
are bored, time feels empty and grinds to a crawl; when we are excited and enjoying
ourselves, we wish it would slow down. When we are calm and meditative, the time
might pass slowly, but it seems full and satisfying.
What this means in general is that time is a human creation, a way for us to
measure its passage for our own purposes, and our experience of this artificial
creation is quite subjective and changeable. We have the power to consciously slow
it down or speed it up. Our relationship to time is more malleable than we think.
Although we cannot stop the aging process or defy the ultimate reality of death, we
can alter the experience of them, transforming what is painful and depressing into
something much different. We can make time feel more cyclical than linear; we can
even step outside the stream and experience forms of timelessness. We do not have
to remain locked in the hold of our generation and its perspective.
Although this might seem like wishful thinking, we can point to various
historical figures—Leonardo da Vinci and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, to name
two—who consciously transcended their era and described their transformed
experience of time. It is an ideal, one that our active nature allows for, and one well
worth aiming to realize to some degree.
Here’s how we could apply this active approach to four elemental aspects of time.
The phases of life: As we pass through the phases of life—youth, emerging adult,
middle age, and old age—we notice certain common changes in us. In our youth we
experience life more intensely. We are more emotional and vulnerable. Most of us
tend to be outwardly focused, concerned with what people might think of us and
with how we fit in. We are more gregarious but prone to foolish behavior and self-
righteousness.
As we get older, the intensity diminishes, our minds tend to tighten up around
certain conventional ideas and beliefs. We slowly become less concerned with what
people think of us, and thus more inwardly directed. What we sometimes gain in
these later phases is some distance from life, some self-control, and perhaps the
wisdom that comes from accumulating experiences.
We have the power, however, to drop or mitigate the negative qualities that often
go with certain phases of life, in a way defying the aging process itself. For instance,
when we are young, we can make a point of lessening the influence of the group on
us and not being so fixated on what others are thinking and doing. We can make
ourselves more inwardly directed, more in harmony with our uniqueness (see
chapter 13 for more on this). We can consciously develop more of that inner
distance that comes naturally with the years, think more deeply about our
experiences, learn the lessons from them, and develop a premature wisdom.
As we age, we can strive to retain the positive youthful qualities that often fade
with the years. For instance, we can regain some of the natural curiosity we had as
children by dropping some of the smugness and know-it-all attitude that often come
over us as we get older. We keep looking at the world through a fresh framework,
questioning our own values and preconceptions, making our minds more fluid and
creative in the process. As part of this, we can learn a new skill or study a new field
to return us to the joy we once had in learning something new. We can also
meditate on some of the more intense experiences in our youth, putting ourselves
back in those moments through our imagination, connecting more deeply to who
we were. We can feel that youthful intensity return to some degree in our present
experiences.
Part of the reason we become less gregarious with the years is that we become
judgmental and intolerant of people’s quirks, all of which does not enhance our
experience of life. We can alter that as well by coming to understand human nature
more deeply and accepting people as they are.
Aging has a psychological component and can be a self-fulfilling prophecy—we
tell ourselves we are slowing down and cannot do or attempt as much as we did in
past, and as we act on these thoughts, we intensify the aging process, which makes
us depressed and prone to slow down even more. We can see icons in the past like
Benjamin Franklin, who went in the opposite direction, continually challenging his
mind and body as he aged, and who by all accounts retained the most delightfully
childlike and jovial disposition well into his seventies and eighties.
 Present generations: Your goal here is to be less a product of the times and to gain
the ability to transform your relationship to your generation. A key way of doing
this is through active associations with people of different generations. If you are
younger, you try to interact more with those of older generations. Some of them,
who seem to have a spirit you can identify with, you can try to cultivate as mentors
and role models. Others you relate to as you would your peers—not feeling superior
or inferior but paying deep attention to their values, ideas, and perspectives,
helping to widen your own.
If you are older, you reverse this by actively interacting with those of a younger
generation, not as a parent or authority figure but as a peer. You allow yourself to
absorb their spirit, their different way of thinking, and their enthusiasm. You
approach them with the idea that they have something to teach you.
In interacting on a more authentic level with those of different generations, you
are creating a unique bond—that of people alive at the same time in history. This
will only enhance your grasp of the zeitgeist.
Past generations: When we think about history, we tend to render the past into a
kind of dead and spiritless caricature. Perhaps we feel smug and superior to past
eras, and so we focus on those aspects of history that indicate backward ideas and
values (not realizing that future generations will do the same to us), seeing what we
want to see. Or we project onto the past the ideas and values of the present, which
have little relation to how those of the past experienced the world. We drain away
their own generational perspective, something we see most obviously in filmed
versions of history, where people talk and act just like us, only in costumes. Or we
simply ignore history, imagining it has no relevance to our present experience.
We must rid ourselves of such absurd notions and habits. We are not as superior
to those in the past as we like to imagine (see previous chapters on irrationality,
shortsightedness, envy, grandiosity, conformity, and aggression). There are cultural
moments in history that were superior to our own when it comes to participatory
democracy, or creative thinking, or cultural liveliness. There are periods in the past
in which people had a deeper grasp of human psychology and a bracing realism that
would make us look quite deluded by comparison. Although human nature remains
a constant, those in the past faced different circumstances with different levels of
technology and had values and beliefs quite different from our own, and not
necessarily inferior. They had the values that reflected their different
circumstances, and we would have shared them as well.
Most important of all, however, we must understand that the past is by no means
dead. We do not emerge in life as blank slates, divorced from millions of years of
evolution. All that we think and experience, our most intimate thoughts and beliefs,
are shaped by the struggles of past generations. So many ways we relate to the
world now came from changes in thinking long ago.
Whenever we see people who completely sacrifice everything for some cause,
they are reliving a shift in values initiated by the early Christians of the first century,
who revolutionized our way of thinking by devoting all aspects of life to some ideal.
Whenever we fall in love and idealize the beloved, we are reliving the emotions that
the troubadours of the twelfth century introduced into the Western world, a
sentiment that had never existed before.
Whenever we extol emotions and spontaneity over the intellect and effort, we are
reexperiencing what the Romantic movements of the eighteenth century first
introduced into our psychology. We are not aware of all this, but we in the present
are motley products of all the accumulated changes in human thinking and
psychology. By making the past into something dead, we are merely denying who
we are. We become rootless and barbaric, disconnected from our nature.
You must radically alter your own relationship to history, bringing it back to life
within you. Begin by taking some era in the past, one that particularly excites you
for whatever reason. Try to re-create the spirit of those times, to get inside the
subjective experience of the actors you are reading about, using your active
imagination. See the world through their eyes. Make use of the excellent books
written in the last hundred years to help you gain a feel for daily life in particular
periods (for example, Everyday Life in Ancient Rome by Lionel Casson or The
Waning of the Middle Ages by Johan Huizinga). In the literature of the time you
can detect the prevailing spirit. The novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald will give you a
much livelier connection to the Jazz Age than any scholarly book on the subject.
Drop any tendencies to judge or moralize. People were experiencing their present
moment within a context that made sense to them. You want to understand that
from the inside out.
In this way you will feel differently about yourself. Your concept of time will
expand and you will realize that if the past lives on in you, what you are doing today,
the world you live in, will live on and affect the future, connecting you to the larger
human spirit that moves through us all. You in this moment are a part of that
unbroken chain. And this can be an intoxicating experience, a strange intimation of
immortality.
The future: We can understand our effect on the future most clearly in our
relationship to our children, or to those young people we influence in some way as
teachers or mentors. This influence will last years after we are gone. But our work,
what we create and contribute to society, can exert even greater power and can
become part of a conscious strategy to communicate with those of the future and
influence them. Thinking in this way can actually alter what we say or what we do.
Certainly Leonardo da Vinci followed such a strategy. He continually tried to
envision what the future might be like, to live in it through his imagination. We can
see the evidence of this in his drawings of possible inventions that might exist in the
future, some of which, like flying machines, he actually attempted to create. He also
thought deeply about the values people might hold in the future that did not yet
exist in the times that he lived through. For instance, he felt a deep affinity for
animals and saw them as possessing souls, a belief that was virtually unheard of at
the time. This impelled him to become a vegetarian and to go around freeing caged
birds in the marketplace. He saw all nature as one, including humans, and he
imagined a future in which that belief would be shared.
The great feminist, philosopher, and novelist Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797)
believed that we humans can actually create the future by how we imagine it in the
present. For her, in her short life, much of this came in her imagining a future in
which the rights of women and, most important, their reasoning powers were given
equal weight to men. Her thinking in these terms in fact did have a profound
influence on the future.
Perhaps one of the most uncanny examples of this is Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe (1749–1832), a scientist, novelist, and philosopher. He aspired to a kind of
universal knowledge, similar to Leonardo’s, in which he tried to master all forms of
human intelligence, steep himself in all periods of history, and through this be able
to not only see the future but commune with its inhabitants. He was able to
anticipate a theory of evolution decades before Darwin. He foresaw many of the
great political trends of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including the
eventual unification of Europe after World War II. He imagined many of the
advances of technology and the effects these would have on our spirit. He was
someone who actively attempted to live outside his time, and his prophetic powers
were legendary among his friends.
Finally, sometimes we may feel like we are born into the wrong period in history,
out of harmony with the times. And yet we are locked into this moment and must
live through it. If such is the case, this strategy of immortality can bring us some
relief. We are aware of the cycles of history and how the pendulum will swing and
the times will change, perhaps after we are gone. In this way, we can look to the
future and feel some connection to those who are living well beyond this terrible
moment. We can reach out to them, make them part of our audience. Some day they
will read about us or read our words, and the connection will go in both directions,
indicating this supreme human ability to surmount one’s time and the finality of
death itself.
A man’s shortcomings are taken from his epoch; his virtues and greatness belong to
himself.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 18

Meditate on Our
Common Mortality

The Law of Death Denial

M ost of us spend our lives avoiding the thought of

death. Instead, the inevitability of death should be
continually on our minds. Understanding the shortness
of life fills us with a sense of purpose and urgency to
realize our goals. Training ourselves to confront and
accept this reality makes it easier to manage the
inevitable setbacks, separations, and crises in life. It
gives us a sense of proportion, of what really matters in
this brief existence of ours. Most people continually look
for ways to separate themselves from others and feel
superior. Instead, we must see the mortality in
everyone, how it equalizes and connects us all. By
becoming deeply aware of our mortality, we intensify
our experience of every aspect of life.

The Bullet in the Side

As a child growing up in Savannah, Georgia, Mary
Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) felt a strange and
powerful connection to her father, Edward. Some of this
naturally stemmed from their striking physical
resemblance—the same large, piercing eyes, the same
facial expressions. But more important to Mary, their
whole way of thinking and feeling seemed completely in
sync. She could sense this when her father participated
in the games she invented—he slipped so naturally into
the spirit of it all, and his imagination moved in such a
similar direction to her own. They had ways of
communicating without ever saying a word.
Mary, an only child, did not feel the same way about
her mother, Regina, who came from a socially superior
class to her husband and had aspirations of being a
figure in local society. The mother wanted to mold her
rather bookish and reclusive daughter into the
quintessential southern lady, but Mary, stubborn and
willful, would not go along. Mary found her mother and
relatives a bit formal and superficial. At the age of ten,
she wrote a series of caricatures of them, which she
called “My Relitives.” In a mischievous spirit, she let her
mother and relatives read the vignettes, and they were,
naturally, shocked—not only by how they were portrayed
but also by the sharp wit of this ten-year-old.
The father, however, found the caricatures delightful.
He collected them into a little book that he showed to
visitors. He foresaw a great future for his daughter as a
writer. Mary knew from early on that she was different
from other children, even a bit eccentric, and she basked
in the pride he displayed in her unusual qualities.
She understood her father so well that it frightened
her when in the summer of 1937 she sensed a change in
his energy and spirit. At first it was subtle—rashes on his
face, a sudden weariness that came over him in the
afternoon. Then he began to take increasingly long naps
and suffer frequent bouts of flu, his entire body aching.
Occasionally Mary would eavesdrop on her parents as
they talked behind closed doors of his ailments, and what
she could glean was that something was seriously wrong.
The real estate business her father had started some
years earlier was not doing so well, and he had to let it
go. A few months later, he was able to land a government
job in Atlanta, which did not pay very well. To manage
their tight budget Mary and her mother moved into a
spacious home owned by relatives in the town of
Milledgeville, in the center of Georgia, not too far from
Atlanta.
By 1940 the father was too weak to continue at his
job. He moved back home, and over the next few months
Mary watched as her beloved father grew weaker and
thinner by the day, racked by excruciating pain in his
joints, until he finally died on February 1, 1941, at the age
of forty-five. It was months later that Mary learned that
his illness was known as lupus erythematosus—a disease
that makes the body create antibodies that attack and
weaken its own healthy tissues. (Today it is known as
systemic lupus erythematosus, and it is the most severe
version of the disease.)
In the aftermath of his death, Mary felt too stunned to
speak to anyone about the loss, but she confided in a
private notebook the effect his death had on her: “The
reality of death has come upon us and a consciousness of
the power of God has broken our complacency, like a
bullet in the side. A sense of the dramatic, of the tragic,
of the infinite, has descended upon us, filling us with
grief, but even above grief, wonder.”
She felt as if a part of her had died with her father, so
enmeshed had they been in each other’s lives. But
beyond the sudden and violent wound it inflicted on her,
she was made to wonder about what it all meant in the
larger cosmic scheme of things. Deeply devout in her
Catholic faith, she imagined that everything occurred for
a reason and was part of God’s mysterious plan.
Something so significant as her father’s early death could
not be meaningless.
In the months to come, a change came over Mary. She
became unusually serious and devoted to her
schoolwork, something she had been rather indifferent
to in the past. She began to write longer and more
ambitious stories. She attended a local college for women
and impressed her professors with her writing skill and
the depth of her thinking. She had determined that her
father had guessed correctly her destiny—to be a writer.
Increasingly confident in her creative powers, she
decided that her success depended on getting out of
Georgia. Living with her mother in Milledgeville made
her feel claustrophobic. She applied to the University of
Iowa and was accepted with a full scholarship for the
academic year beginning in 1945. Her mother begged her
to reconsider, thinking her only child was too fragile to
live on her own, but Mary had made up her mind.
Enrolled in the famous Writers’ Workshop at the
university, she decided to simplify her name to Flannery
O’Connor, signaling her new identity.
Working with fierce determination and discipline,
Flannery began to attract attention for her short stories
and the characters from the South she depicted and
seemed to know so well, bringing out the dark and
grotesque qualities just below the surface of southern
gentility. Agents and publishers came calling, and the
most prestigious magazines accepted her stories.
After Iowa, Flannery moved to the East Coast, settling
in a country house in Connecticut owned by her friends
Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, who rented out a room to
her. There, without distractions, she began to work
feverishly on her first novel. The future seemed so full of
promise, and it was all going according to the plan she
had laid out for herself after the death of her father.
At Christmas of 1949 she returned to Milledgeville for
a visit, and once there she fell quite ill, the doctors
diagnosing her with a floating kidney. It would require
surgery and some recovery time at home. All she wanted
was to get back to Connecticut, to be with her friends,
and to finish her novel, which was becoming increasingly
ambitious.
 Finally, by March, she was able to return, but over the
course of the next few months she experienced strange
bouts of pain in her arms. She visited doctors in New
York, who diagnosed her with rheumatoid arthritis. That
December she was to return to Georgia once again for
Christmas, and on the train ride home she fell
desperately ill. When she got off the train and was met by
her uncle, she could barely walk. She felt as if she had
suddenly turned elderly and feeble.
Racked with pain in her joints and suffering high
fevers, she was admitted immediately to a hospital. She
was told it was a severe case of rheumatoid arthritis, and
that it would take months to stabilize her; she would
have to remain in Milledgeville for an indefinite period.
She had little faith in doctors and was not so sure of their
diagnosis, but she was far too weak to argue. The fevers
made her feel as if she were dying.
To treat her, the doctors gave her massive doses of
cortisone, the new miracle drug, which greatly alleviated
the pain and the inflammation in her joints. It also gave
her bursts of intense energy that troubled her mind and
made it race with all kinds of strange thoughts. As a side
effect, it also made her hair fall out and bloated her face.
And as part of her therapy, she had to have frequent
blood transfusions. Her life had suddenly taken a dark
turn.
It seemed to her a rather strange coincidence that
when the fevers were at their highest, she had the
sensation that she was growing blind and paralyzed.
Only months before, when she was not yet ill, she had
decided to make the main character in her novel blind
himself. Had she foreseen her own fate, or had the
disease already been there, making her think such
thoughts?
Feeling death at her heels and writing at a fast pace
while in the hospital, she finished the novel, which she
now called Wise Blood, inspired by all of the transfusions
she had undergone. The novel concerned a young man,
Hazel Motes, determined to spread the gospel of atheism
to a new scientific age. He thinks he has “wise blood,”
with no need for any kind of spiritual guidance. The
novel chronicles his descent into murder and madness
and was published in 1952.
After months of hospitalization and having
sufficiently recovered at home, Flannery returned to
Connecticut for a visit with the Fitzgeralds, hoping that
in the near future she could perhaps resume her old life
at their country home. One day, as she and Sally were
taking a drive in the country, Flannery mentioned her
rheumatoid arthritis, and Sally decided to finally tell her
the truth that her overprotective mother, in league with
the doctors, had kept from her. “Flannery, you don’t have
arthritis, you have lupus.” Flannery began to tremble.
After a few moments of silence, she replied, “Well, that’s
not good news. But I can’t thank you enough for telling
me. . . . I thought I had lupus, and I thought I was going
crazy. I’d a lot rather be sick than crazy.”
Despite her calm reaction, the news stunned her. This
was like a second bullet in her side, the original
sensation returning with double the impact. Now she
knew for sure that she had inherited the disease from her
father. Suddenly she had to confront the reality that
perhaps she did not have long to live, considering how
quickly her father had gone downhill. It was now clear to
her that there would be no plans or hopes for living
anywhere else but Milledgeville. She cut short the trip to
Connecticut and returned home, feeling depressed and
confused.
Her mother was now the manager of her family’s
farm, called Andalusia, just outside Milledgeville.
Flannery would have to spend the rest of her life on this
farm with her mother, who would take care of her. The
doctors seemed to think she could live a normal length of
life thanks to this new miracle drug, but Flannery did not
share their confidence, experiencing firsthand the many
adverse side effects and wondering how long her body
could endure them.
She loved her mother, but they were very different.
The mother was the chatty type, obsessed with status
and appearances. In her first weeks back, Flannery felt a
sense of panic. She had always been willful, like her
father. She liked living on her own terms, and her
mother could be quite intense and meddlesome. But
beyond that, Flannery associated her creative powers
with living her own life outside Georgia, encountering
the wide world, among peers with whom she could talk
about serious matters. She felt her mind expanding with
those larger horizons.
Andalusia would feel like a prison, and she worried
that her mind would tighten up in these circumstances.
But as she contemplated death staring her in the face,
she thought deeply about the course of her life. What
clearly mattered to her more than friends or where she
lived or even her health itself was her writing, expressing
all of the ideas and impressions she had accumulated in
her short life. She had so many more stories to write, and
another novel or two. Perhaps, in some strange way, this
forced return home was a blessing in disguise, part of
some other plan for her.
In her room at Andalusia, far from the world, she
would have no possible distractions. She would make it
clear to her mother that those two or more hours of
writing in the morning were sacred to her and she would
not tolerate any interruptions. Now she could focus all
her energy on her work, get even deeper into her
characters, and bring them to life. Back in the heart of
Georgia, listening closely to visitors and farmhands, she
would be able to hear the voices of her characters, their
speech patterns, reverberating in her head. She would
feel even more deeply connected to the land, to the
South, which obsessed her.
 As she moved about in these first months back home,
she began to feel the presence of her father—in
photographs, in objects that he cherished, in notebooks
of his that she discovered. His presence haunted her. He
had wanted to become a writer; she knew that. Perhaps
he had wanted her to succeed where he had failed. Now
the fatal disease they shared tied them together even
more tightly; she would feel the same form of pain that
afflicted his body. But she would write and write,
insensitive to the pain, somehow realizing the potential
that her father had seen in her as a child.
Thinking in this way, she realized she had no time to
waste. How many more years would she live and have
the energy and clarity to write? Being so focused on her
work would also help rid her of any anxiety about the
illness. When she was writing, she could completely
forget herself and inhabit her characters. It was a
religious-like experience of losing the ego. As she wrote
to a friend with the news of her illness, “I can with one
eye squinted take it all as a blessing.”
There were other blessings to count as well: Knowing
early on about her disease, she would have time to get
used to the idea of dying young, and it would lessen the
blow; she would relish every minute, every experience,
and make the most of her limited encounters with
outsiders. She could not expect much from life, so
everything she got would mean something. No need to
complain or feel self-pity—everyone had to die at some
point. She would find it easier now to not take so
seriously the petty concerns that seemed to roil others so
much. She could even look at herself and laugh at her
own pretensions as a writer, and mock how ridiculous
she looked with her bald head, stumbling around with a
cane.
As she returned to writing her stories with a new
sense of commitment, Flannery felt another change from
within: an increasing awareness of and disgust with the
course of life and culture in America in the 1950s. She
sensed that people were becoming more and more
superficial, obsessed with material things and plagued by
boredom, like children. They had become unmoored,
soulless, disconnected from the past and from religion,
flailing around without any higher sense of purpose. And
at the core of these problems was their inability to face
their own mortality and the seriousness of it.
She expressed some of this in a story inspired by her
own illness, called “The Enduring Chill.” The main
character is a young man returning home to Georgia,
deathly ill. As he gets off the train, his mother, there to
meet him, “had given a little cry; she looked aghast. He
was pleased that she should see death in his face at once.
His mother, at the age of sixty, was going to be
introduced to reality and he supposed that if the
experience didn’t kill her, it would assist her in the
process of growing up.”
As she saw it, people were losing their humanity and
capable of all kinds of cruelties. They did not seem to
care very deeply about one another and felt rather
superior to any kind of outsider. If they could only see
what she had seen—how our time is so short, how
everyone must suffer and die—it would alter their way of
life; it would make them grow up; it would melt all their
coldness. What her readers needed was their own “bullet
in the side” to shake them out of their complacency. She
would accomplish this by portraying in as raw a manner
as possible the selfishness and brutality lurking below
the surface in her characters, who seemed so outwardly
pleasant and banal.
The one problem Flannery had to confront with her
new life was the crushing loneliness of it all. She required
the company of people to soothe her, and she depended
on the cast of characters she met to supply her endless
material for her work. As her fame grew with the
publication of Wise Blood and her collections of stories,
she could count on the occasional visit to the farm from
other writers and fans of her work, and she lived for such
moments, putting every ounce of her energy into
observing her visitors and plumbing their depths.
To fill the gaps between these social encounters, she
began a lengthy correspondence with a growing number
of friends and fans, writing back to almost anyone who
wrote to her. Many of them were quite troubled. There
was the young man in the Midwest who felt suicidal and
on the verge of madness. There was the brilliant young
woman from Georgia, Betty Hester, who felt ashamed for
being a lesbian and confided in Flannery, the two of
them now regularly corresponding. Flannery never
judged any of them, feeling herself to be rather odd and
outside the mainstream. To this growing cast of
characters and misfits she offered advice and
compassion, always entreating them to devote their
energies to something outside themselves.
The letters were the perfect medium for Flannery, for
it allowed her to keep some physical distance from
people; she feared too much intimacy, as it would mean
getting attached to those she would soon have to say
good-bye to. In this way she slowly built the perfect
social world for her purposes.
One spring day in 1953, she received a visit from a
tall, handsome twenty-six-year-old man from Denmark
named Erik Langkjaier. He was a traveling textbook
salesman for a major publisher, his territory including
most of the South. He had met a professor at a local
college who had offered to introduce him to the great
literary figure of Georgia, Flannery O’Connor. From the
moment he entered her house, Flannery felt they had
some kind of mystical connection. She found Erik very
funny and well read. It was indeed rare to meet someone
so worldly in this part of Georgia. His life as an itinerant
salesman fascinated her; she found it humorous that he
carried with him a “Bible,” what those in the business
called the loose-leaf binder of promotional materials.
Something about his rootless life struck a chord with
her. Like Flannery, Erik’s father had died when he was
young. She opened up to him about her own father and
the lupus she had inherited. She found Erik attractive
and was suddenly self-conscious about her appearance,
constantly making jokes about herself. She gave him a
copy of Wise Blood, inscribing it, “For Erik, who has wise
blood too.”
He began to arrange his travels so that he could pass
often through Milledgeville and continue their lively
discussions. Flannery looked forward to every visit and
felt pangs of emptiness when he left. In May of 1954, on
one of his visits he told her he was taking a six-month
leave from his job to return to Denmark, and he
suggested they take a good-bye car ride through the
county, their favorite activity. It was dusk, and in the
middle of nowhere he parked the car on the side of the
road and leaned over to kiss her, which she gladly
accepted. It was short, but for her quite memorable.
She wrote to him regularly and, clearly missing him,
kept discreetly referencing their car rides and how much
they meant to her. In January 1955, she began a story
that seemingly poured out of her in a few days.
(Normally she was a careful writer who put stories
through several drafts.) She called it “Good Country
People.” One of the characters is a cynical young woman
with a wooden leg. She is romanced by a traveling
salesman of Bibles. She suddenly lets down her guard
and allows him to seduce her, playing her own game with
him. As they are about to make love in a hayloft, he begs
her to remove her wooden leg, as a sign of her trust. This
seems far too intimate and a violation of all her defenses,
but she relents. He then runs away with the leg, never to
return.
 In the back of her mind she was aware that Erik was
somehow extending his stay in Europe. The story was
her way of coping with this, caricaturing the two of them
as the salesman and the cynical crippled daughter who
had let down her guard. Erik had taken her wooden leg.
By April she felt his absence rather keenly and wrote to
him, “I feel like if you were here we could talk about a
million things without stopping.” But the day after she
mailed this she received a letter from him announcing
his engagement to a Danish woman, and he told her of
their plans to return to the States, where he would take
up his old job.
She had intuited such an event would happen, but the
news was a shock nonetheless. She replied with utmost
politeness, congratulating him, and they wrote to each
other for several more years, but she could not get over
this loss so easily. She had tried to protect herself from
any deep feelings of parting and separation because they
were too unbearable for her. They were like small
reminders of the death that would take her away at any
moment, while others would go on living and loving. And
now those very feelings of separation came pouring in.
Now she knew what it was like to experience
unrequited love, but for her it was different—she knew
that this was the last such chance for her and that her life
was to be led essentially alone, and it made it all doubly
poignant. She had trained herself to look death square in
the eye, so why should she recoil from facing this latest
form of suffering? She understood what she had to do—
transmute this painful experience into more stories and
into her second novel, to use it as means to enrich her
knowledge of people and their vulnerabilities.
In the next few years the drugs began to take a toll, as
the cortisone softened her hip and jawbone and made
her arms often too weak to type. She soon needed
crutches to get around. Sunlight had become her
nemesis, as it could reactivate the lupus rashes, and so to
take walks she had to cover every inch of her body, even
in the stifling heat of the summer. The doctors tried to
remove her from the cortisone to give her body some
relief, and this lowered her energy and made the writing
that much harder.
Under all the duress of the past few years, she had
managed to publish two novels and several collections of
short stories; she was considered one of the great
American writers of her time, although still so young.
But suddenly she began to feel worn down and
inarticulate. She wrote to a friend in the spring of 1962,
“I’ve been writing for sixteen years and I have the sense
of having exhausted my original potentiality and being
now in need of the kind of grace that deepens
perception.”
One day shortly before Christmas of 1963, she
suddenly fainted and was taken to the hospital. The
doctors diagnosed her with anemia and began a series of
blood transfusions to revive her. She was too weak now
to even sit at her typewriter. Then a few months later
they discovered a benign tumor that they needed to
remove. Their only fear was that the trauma of the
surgery would somehow reactivate the lupus and the
powerful episodes of fevers that she had experienced ten
years before.
In letters to friends, she made light of it all. Strangely
enough, now that she was at her weakest, she found the
inspiration to write more stories and prepare a new
collection of them for fall publication. In the hospital she
studied her nurses closely and found material for some
new characters. When the doctors prohibited her from
working, she concocted stories in her head and
memorized them. She hid notebooks under her pillow.
She had to keep writing.
The surgery was a success, but by mid-March it was
clear that her lupus had come roaring back. She
compared it to a wolf (lupus is Latin for “wolf”) raging
inside her now, tearing things up. Her hospital stay was
extended, and yet despite it all, she managed here and
there to get in her daily two hours, hiding her work from
the nurses and doctors. She was in a hurry to scratch out
these last stories before it was all over.
Finally, on June 21, she was allowed to return home,
and in the back of her mind she sensed the end was
coming, the memory of her father’s last days so vivid
within her. Pain or no pain, she had to work, to finish the
stories and revisions she had started. If she could
manage only an hour a day, so be it. She had to squeeze
out every last bit of consciousness that remained to her
and make use of it. She had realized her destiny as a
writer and had led a life of incomparable richness. She
had nothing now to complain about or regret, except the
unfinished stories.
On July 31, while watching the summer rain by her
window, she suddenly lost consciousness and was rushed
to the hospital. She died in the early hours of August 3, at
the age of thirty-nine. In accordance with her last wishes,
Flannery was buried next to her father.

• • •
Interpretation: In the years after the onset of lupus,
Flannery O’Connor noticed a peculiar phenomenon: In
her interactions with friends, visitors, and
correspondents, she often found herself playing the role
of the adviser, giving people guidance on how to live,
where to put their energies, how to remain calm amid
difficulties and have a sense of purpose. All the while,
she was the one who was dying and dealing with severe
physical restrictions.
She sensed that increasing numbers of people in this
world had lost their way. They could not wholeheartedly
commit themselves to their work or to relationships.
They were always dabbling in this or that, searching for
new pleasures and distractions but feeling rather empty
inside. They tended to fall apart in the face of adversity
or loneliness, and they turned to her as someone solid
who would be able to tell them the truth about
themselves and give them some direction.
As she saw it, the difference between her and these
other people was simple: She had spent year after year
looking death squarely in the eye without flinching. She
did not indulge in vague hopes for the future, put her
trust in medicine, or drown her sorrows in alcohol or
addiction. She accepted the early death sentence
imposed on her, using it for her own ends.
For Flannery, her proximity to death was a call to stir
herself to action, to feel a sense of urgency, to deepen her
religious faith and spark her sense of wonder at all
mysteries and uncertainties of life. She used the
closeness of death to teach her what really matters and to
help her steer clear of the petty squabbles and concerns
that plagued others. She used it to anchor herself in the
present, to make her appreciate every moment and every
encounter.
Knowing that that her illness had a purpose to it,
there was no need to feel self-pity. And by confronting
and dealing with it straight on, she could toughen herself
up, manage the pain that racked her body, and keep
writing. By the time she had received yet another bullet,
the separation with Erik, she could regain her balance
after several months, without turning bitter or more
reclusive.
What this meant was that she was thoroughly at home
with the ultimate reality represented by death. In
contrast, so many other people, including those she
knew, suffered from a reality deficit, avoiding the
thought of their mortality and the other unpleasant
aspects of life.
Focusing so deeply on her mortality had one other
important advantage—it deepened her empathy and
sense of connection to people. She had a peculiar
relationship to death in general: It did not represent a
fate reserved for her alone but rather was intimately tied
to her father. Their sufferings and deaths were
intertwined. She saw her own nearness to death as a call
to take this further, to see that all of us are connected
through our common mortality and made equal by it. It
is the fate we all share and should draw us closer for that
reason. It should shake us out of any sense of feeling
superior or separated.
Flannery’s increased empathy and feeling of unity
with others, as evidenced by her strong desire to
communicate with all types of people, caused her to
eventually let go of one of her greatest limitations: the
racist sentiments toward African Americans she had
internalized from her mother and many others in the
South. She saw this clearly in herself and struggled
against it, particularly in her work. By the early 1960s
she came to embrace the civil rights movement led by
Martin Luther King Jr. And in her later stories she began
to express a vision of all the races in America converging
one day as equals, moving past this dark stain on our
country’s past.
For over thirteen years, Flannery O’Connor stared
down the barrel of the gun pointed at her, refusing to
look away. Certainly her religious faith helped her
maintain her spirit, but as Flannery herself knew, so
many people who are religious are just as full of illusions
and evasions when it comes to their own mortality, and
just as capable of complacency and pettiness as anyone
else. It was her particular choice to use her fatal disease
as the means for living the most intense and fulfilling life
possible.
Understand: We tend to read stories like Flannery
O’Connor’s with some distance. We can’t help but feel
some relief that we find ourselves in a much more
comfortable position. But we make a grave mistake in
doing so. Her fate is our fate—we are all in the process of
dying, all facing the same uncertainties. In fact, by
having her mortality so present and palpable, she had an
advantage over us—she was compelled to confront death
and make use of her awareness of it.
We, on the other hand, are able to dance around the
thought, to envision endless vistas of time ahead of us
and dabble our way through life. And then, when reality
hits us, when we perhaps receive our own bullet in the
side in the form of an unexpected crisis in our career, or
a painful breakup in a relationship, or the death of
someone close, or even our own life-threatening illness—
we are not usually prepared to handle it.
Our avoidance of the thought of death has established
our pattern for handling other unpleasant realities and
adversity. We easily become hysterical and lose our
balance, blaming others for our fate, feeling angry and
sorry for ourselves, or we opt for distractions and quick
ways to dull the pain. This becomes a habit we cannot
shake, and we tend to feel the generalized anxiety and
emptiness that come from all this avoidance.
Before this becomes a lifelong pattern, we must shake
ourselves out of this dreamlike state in a real and lasting
way. We must come to look at our own mortality without
flinching, and without fooling ourselves with some
fleeting, abstract meditation on death. We must focus
hard on the uncertainty that death represents—it could
come tomorrow, as could other adversity or separation.
We must stop postponing our awareness. We need to
stop feeling superior and special, seeing that death is a
fate shared by us all and something that should bind us
in a deeply empathetic way. We are all a part of the
brotherhood and sisterhood of death.
In doing so, we set a much different course for our
lives. Making death a familiar presence, we understand
how short life is and what really should matter to us. We
feel a sense of urgency and deeper commitment to our
work and relationships. When we face a crisis,
separation, or illness, we do not feel so terrified and
overwhelmed. We don’t feel the need to go into
avoidance mode. We can accept that life involves pain
and suffering, and we use such moments to strengthen
ourselves and to learn. And as with Flannery, the
awareness of our mortality cleanses us of silly illusions
and intensifies every aspect of our experience.
When I look back at the past and think of all the time I
squandered in error and idleness, lacking the knowledge
needed to live, when I think of how often I sinned against my
heart and my soul, then my heart bleeds. Life is a gift, life is
happiness, every minute could have been an eternity of
happiness! If youth only knew! Now my life will change; now
I will be reborn. Dear brother, I swear that I shall not lose
hope. I will keep my soul pure and my heart open. I will be
reborn for the better.
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Keys to Human Nature

If we could step back and somehow examine the train of
our daily thoughts, we would realize how they tend to
circle around the same anxieties, fantasies, and
resentments, like a continuous loop. Even when we take
a walk or have a conversation with someone, we
generally remain connected to this interior monologue,
only half listening and paying attention to what we see or
hear.
Upon occasion, however, certain events can trigger a
different quality of thinking and feeling. Let us say we go
on a trip to a foreign land we have never visited before,
outside our usual comfort zone. Suddenly our senses
snap to life and everything we see and hear seems a little
more vibrant. To avoid problems or dangerous situations
in this unfamiliar place, we have to pay attention.
Similarly, if we are about to leave on a trip and must
say good-bye to people we love, whom we may not see
for a while, we might suddenly view them in a different
light. Normally we take such people for granted, but now
we actually look at the particular expressions on their
faces and listen to what they have to say. The sense of a
looming separation makes us more emotional and
attentive.
A more intense version of this will occur if a loved one
—a parent or a partner or a sibling—dies. This person
played a large role in our lives; we have internalized
them, and we have somehow lost a part of ourselves. As
we grapple with this, the shadow of our own mortality
falls over us for an instant. We are made aware of the
permanence of this loss and feel regret that we did not
appreciate them more. We may even feel some anger that
life simply goes on for other people, that they are
oblivious to the reality of death that has suddenly struck
us.
For several days or perhaps weeks after this loss, we
tend to experience life differently. Our emotions are
rawer and more sensitive. Particular stimuli will bring
back associations with the person who has died. This
intensity of emotion will fade, but each time we are
reminded of the person we have lost, a small portion of
that intensity will return.
If we consider death as the crossing of a threshold
that terrifies us in general, the experiences enumerated
above are intimations of our own death in smaller doses.
Separating from people we know, traveling in a strange
land, clearly entering some new phase of life, all involve
changes that cause us to look back at the past as if a part
of us has died. In such moments, and during the more
intense forms of grief from actual deaths, we notice a
heightening of the senses and a deepening of our
emotions. Thoughts of a different order come to us. We
are more attentive. We can say that our experience of life
is qualitatively different and charged, as if we
temporarily became someone else. Of course, this
alteration in our thinking, feeling, and senses will be
strongest if we ourselves survive a brush with death.
Nothing seems the same after such an experience.
Let us call this the paradoxical death effect—these
moments and encounters have the paradoxical result of
making us feel more awake and alive. We can explain the
paradoxical effect in the following way.
For us humans, death is a source not only of fear but
also of awkwardness. We are the only animal truly
conscious of our impending mortality. In general, we
owe our power as a species to our ability to think and
reflect. But in this particular case, our thinking brings us
nothing but misery. All we can see is the physical pain
involved in dying, the separation from loved ones, and
the uncertainty as to when such a moment might arrive.
We do what we can to avoid the thought, to distract
ourselves from the reality, but the awareness of death
lies in the back of our minds and can never be completely
shaken.
Feeling the unconscious impulse to somehow soften
the blow of our awareness, our earliest ancestors created
a world of spirits, gods, and some concept of the afterlife.
The belief in the afterlife helped mitigate the fear of
death and even give it some appealing aspects. It could
not eliminate the anxiety of separating from loved ones
or lessen the physical pain involved, but it offered a
profound psychological compensation for the anxieties
we seemingly cannot shake. This effect was fortified by
all of the elaborate and pleasing rituals that surrounded
the passage to death.
In the world today, our growing reasoning powers and
knowledge of science have only made our awkwardness
worse. Many of us can no longer believe in the concept of
the afterlife with any conviction, but we are left with no
compensations, with only the stark reality confronting
us. We might try to put a brave face on this, to pretend
we can accept this reality as adults, but we cannot erase
our elemental fears so easily. In the course of a few
hundred years of this change in our awareness, we
cannot suddenly transform one of the deepest parts of
our nature, our fear of death. And so what we do instead
of creating belief systems such as an afterlife is to rely on
denial, repressing the awareness of death as much as
possible. We do so in several ways.
In the past, death was a daily and visceral presence in
cities and towns, something hard to escape. By a certain
age, most people had seen firsthand the deaths of others.
Today, in many parts of the world, we have made death
largely invisible, something that occurs only in hospitals.
(We have done something similar to the animals that we
eat.) We can pass through most of life without ever
physically witnessing what happens. This gives a rather
unreal aspect to what is so profoundly a part of life. This
unreality is enhanced in the entertainment we consume,
in which death is made to seem rather cartoonish, with
dozens of people dying violent deaths without any
attendant emotion except excitement at the imagery on
the screen. This reveals how deep the need is to repress
the awareness and desensitize ourselves to the fear.
Furthermore, we have recently come to venerate
youth, to create a virtual cult around it. Objects that have
aged, films from the past unconsciously remind us of the
shortness of life and the fate that awaits us. We find ways
to avoid them, to surround ourselves with what is new,
fresh, and trending. Some people have even come to
entertain the idea that through technology we can
somehow overcome death itself, the ultimate in human
denial. In general, technology gives us the feeling that we
have such godlike powers that we can prolong life and
ignore the reality for quite a long time. In this sense, we
are no stronger than our most primitive ancestors. We
have simply found new ways to delude ourselves.
As a corollary to all this, we find hardly anyone willing
to discuss the subject as a personal reality we all face,
and how we might manage it in a healthier manner. The
subject is simply taboo. And by a law of human nature,
when we go so far in our denial, the paradoxical effect
takes hold of us in the negative direction, making our life
more constrained and deathlike.
We became aware of our mortality quite early on in
childhood, and this filled us with an anxiety that we
cannot remember but that was very real and visceral.
Such anxiety cannot be wished away or denied. It sits in
us as adults in a powerfully latent form. When we choose
to repress the thought of death, our anxiety is only made
stronger by our not confronting the source of it. The
slightest incident or uncertainty about the future will
tend to stir up this anxiety and even make it chronic. To
fight this, we will tend to narrow down the scope of our
thoughts and activities; if we don’t leave our comfort
zones in what we think and do, then we can make life
rather predictable and feel less vulnerable to anxiety.
Certain addictions to foods or stimulants or forms of
entertainment will have a similar dulling effect.
If we take this far enough, we become increasingly
self-absorbed and less dependent on people, who often
stir up our anxieties with their unpredictable behavior.
We can describe the contrast between life and death
in the following manner: Death is absolute stillness,
without movement or change except decay. In death we
are separated from others and completely alone. Life on
the other hand is movement, connection to other living
things, and diversity of life forms. By denying and
repressing the thought of death, we feed our anxieties
and become more deathlike from within—separated from
other people, our thinking habitual and repetitive, with
little overall movement and change. On the other hand,
the familiarity and closeness with death, the ability to
confront the thought of it has the paradoxical effect of
making us feel more alive, as the story of Flannery
O’Connor well illustrates.
 By connecting to the reality of death, we connect more
profoundly to the reality and fullness of life. By
separating death from life and repressing our awareness
of it, we do the opposite.
What we require in the modern world is a way to
create for ourselves the positive paradoxical effect. The
following is an attempt to help us accomplish this, by
forging a practical philosophy for transforming the
consciousness of our mortality into something
productive and life enhancing.

A Philosophy of Life Through Death

The problem for us humans is that we are aware of our
mortality, but we are afraid to take this awareness
further. It is like we are at the shore of a vast ocean and
stop ourselves from exploring it, even turning our back
to it. The purpose of our consciousness is to always take
it as far as we can. That is the source of our power as a
species, what we are called to do. The philosophy we are
adopting depends on our ability to go in the opposite
direction we normally feel toward death—to look at it
more closely and deeply, to leave the shore and explore a
different way of approaching life and death, taking this
as far as we can.
The following are five key strategies, with appropriate
exercises, to help us achieve this. It is best to put all five
into practice, so that this philosophy can seep into our
daily consciousness and alter our experience from
within.
Make the awareness visceral. Outof fear, we convert
death into an abstraction, a thought we can entertain
now and then or repress. But life is not a thought; it is a
flesh-and-blood reality, something we feel from within.
There is no such thing as life without death. Our
mortality is just as much a flesh-and-blood reality as life.
From the moment we are born, it is a presence within
our bodies, as our cells die and we age. We need to
experience it this way. We should not see this as
something morbid or terrifying. Moving past this block
of ours in which death is an abstraction has an
immensely liberating effect, connecting us more
physically to the world around us and heightening our
senses.
In December of 1849, the twenty-seven-year-old
writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky, imprisoned for participating
in an alleged conspiracy against the Russian czar, found
himself and his fellow prisoners suddenly transported to
a square in St. Petersburg, and told that they were about
to be executed for their crimes. This death sentence was
totally unexpected. Dostoyevsky had only a few minutes
to prepare himself before he faced the firing squad. In
those few minutes, emotions he had never felt before
came rushing in. He noticed the rays of light hitting the
dome of a cathedral and saw that all life was as fleeting
as those rays. Everything seemed more vibrant to him.
He noticed the expressions on his fellow prisoners’ faces,
and how he could see the terror behind their brave
façades. It was as if their thoughts and feelings had
become transparent.
At the last moment, a representative from the czar
rode into the square, announcing that their sentences
had been commuted to several years’ hard labor in
Siberia. Utterly overwhelmed by his psychological brush
with death, Dostoyevsky felt reborn. And the experience
remained embedded in him for the rest of his life,
inspiring new depths of empathy and intensifying his
observational powers. This has been the experience of
others who have been exposed to death in a deep and
personal way.
The reason for this effect can be explained as follows:
Normally we go through life in a very distracted,
dreamlike state, with our gaze turned inward. Much of
our mental activity revolves around fantasies and
resentments that are completely internal and have little
relationship to reality. The proximity of death suddenly
snaps us to attention as our whole body responds to the
threat. We feel the rush of adrenaline, the blood
pumping extra hard to the brain and through the
nervous system. This focuses the mind to a much higher
level and we notice new details, see people’s faces in a
new light, and sense the impermanence in everything
around us, deepening our emotional responses. This
effect can linger for years, even decades.
We cannot reproduce that experience without risking
our lives, but we can gain some of the effect through
smaller doses. We must begin by meditating on our
death and seeking to convert it into something more real
and physical. For Japanese samurai warriors, the center
of our most sensitive nerves and our connection to life
was in the gut, the viscera; it was also the center of our
connection to death, and they meditated on this
sensation as deeply as possible, to create physical death
awareness. But beyond the gut, we can also feel
something similar in our bones when we are weary. We
can often sense its physicality in those moments before
we fall asleep—for a few seconds we feel ourselves
passing from one form of consciousness to another, and
that slip has a deathlike sensation. There is nothing to be
afraid of in this; in fact, in moving in this direction, we
make major advancements in diminishing our chronic
anxiety.
We can use our imagination in this as well, by
envisioning the day our death arrives, where we might
be, how it might come. We must make this as vivid as
possible. It could be tomorrow. We can also try to look at
the world as if we were seeing things for the last time—
the people around us, the everyday sights and sounds,
the hum of the traffic, the sound of the birds, the view
outside our window. Let us imagine these things still
going on without us, then suddenly feel ourselves
brought back to life—those same details will now appear
in a new light, not taken for granted or half perceived.
Let the impermanence of all life forms sink in. The
stability and solidity of the things we see are mere
illusions.
We must not be afraid of the pangs of sadness that
ensue from this perception. The tightness of our
emotions, usually so wound up around our own needs
and concerns, is now opening up to the world and to the
poignancy of life itself, and we should welcome this. As
the fourteenth-century Japanese writer Kenko noted, “If
man were never to fade away like the dews of Adashino,
never to vanish like the smoke over Toribeyama, but
lingered on forever in the world, how things would lose
their power to move us! The most precious thing in life is
its uncertainty.”
When we unconsciously
Awaken to the shortness of life.
disconnect ourselves from the awareness of death, we
forge a particular relationship to time—one that is rather
loose and distended. We come to imagine that we always
have more time than is the reality. Our minds drift to the
future, where all our hopes and wishes will be fulfilled. If
we have a plan or a goal, we find it hard to commit to it
with a lot of energy. We’ll get to it tomorrow, we tell
ourselves. Perhaps we are tempted in the present to work
on another goal or plan—they all seem so inviting and
different, so how can we commit fully to one or another?
We experience a generalized anxiety, as we sense the
need to get things done, but we are always postponing
and scattering our forces.
Then, if a deadline is forced upon us on a particular
project, that dreamlike relationship to time is shattered
and for some mysterious reason we find the focus to get
done in days what would have taken weeks or months.
The change imposed upon us by the deadline has a
physical component: our adrenaline is pumping, filling
us with energy and concentrating the mind, making it
more creative. It is invigorating to feel the total
commitment of mind and body to a single purpose,
something we rarely experience in the world today, in
our distracted state.
We must think of our mortality as a kind of continual
deadline, giving a similar effect as described above to all
our actions in life. We must stop fooling ourselves: we
could die tomorrow, and even if we live for another
eighty years, it is but a drop in the ocean of the vastness
of time, and it passes always more quickly than we
imagine. We have to awaken to this reality and make it a
continual meditation.
This meditation might lead some people to think,
“Why bother to try anything? What’s the point of so
much effort, when in the end we just die? Better to live
for the pleasures of the moment.” This is not, however, a
realistic assessment but merely another form of evasion.
To devote ourselves to pleasures and distractions is to
avoid the thought of their costs and to imagine we can
fool death by drowning out the thought. In devoting
ourselves to pleasures, we must always look for new
diversions to keep boredom at bay, and it’s exhausting.
We must also see our needs and desires as more
important than anything else. This starts to feel soulless
over time, and our ego becomes particularly prickly if we
don’t get our way.
As the years go by, we become increasingly bitter and
resentful, haunted with the sense we have accomplished
nothing and wasted our potential. As William Hazlitt
observed, “Our repugnance to death increases in
proportion to our consciousness of having lived in vain.”
Let the awareness of the shortness of life clarify our
daily actions. We have goals to reach, projects to get
done, relationships to improve. This could be our last
such project, our last battle on earth, given the
uncertainties of life, and we must commit completely to
what we do. With this continual awareness we can see
what really matters, how petty squabbles and side
pursuits are irritating distractions. We want that sense of
fulfillment that comes from getting things done. We want
to lose the ego in that feeling of flow, in which our minds
are at one with what we are working on. When we turn
away from our work, the pleasures and distractions we
pursue have all the more meaning and intensity,
knowing their evanescence.
In 1665 a terrible plague
See the mortality in everyone.
roared through London, killing close to 100,000
inhabitants. The writer Daniel Defoe was only five years
old at the time, but he witnessed the plague firsthand
and it left a lasting impression on him. Some sixty years
later, he decided to re-create the events in London that
year through the eyes of an older narrator, using his own
memories, much research, and the journal of his uncle,
creating the book A Journal of the Plague Year.
As the plague raged, the narrator of the book notices a
peculiar phenomenon: people tend to feel much greater
levels of empathy toward their fellow Londoners; the
normal differences between them, particularly over
religious issues, vanish. “Here we may observe,” he
writes, “. . . that a near View of Death would soon
reconcile Men of good Principles, one to another, and
that it is chiefly owing to our easy Scituation in Life, and
our putting these Things far from us, that our Breaches
are fomented, ill blood continued. . . . Another Plague
Year would reconcile all these Differences, a close
conversing with Death, or with Diseases that threaten
Death, would scum off the Gall from our Tempers,
remove the Animosities among us, and bring us to see
with differing Eyes.”
There are plenty of examples of what seems to be the
opposite—humans slaughtering thousands of fellow
humans, often in war, with the sight of such mass deaths
not stimulating the slightest sense of empathy. But in
these cases, the slaughterers feel separate from those
they are killing, whom they have come to see as less than
human and under their power. With the plague, no one is
spared, no matter their wealth or station in life.
Everyone is equally at risk. Feeling personally vulnerable
and seeing the vulnerability of everyone else, people’s
normal sense of difference and privilege is melted away,
and an uncommon generalized empathy emerges. This
could be a natural state of mind, if we could only
envision the vulnerability and mortality of others as not
separate from our own.
With our philosophy, we want to manufacture the
cleansing effect that the plague has on our tribal
tendencies and usual self-absorption. We want to begin
this on a smaller scale, by looking first at those around
us, in our home and our workplace, seeing and imagining
their deaths and noting how this can suddenly alter our
perception of them. As Schopenhauer wrote, “The deep
pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arises
from the feeling that there is in every individual
something which is inexpressible, peculiar to him or her
alone, and is, therefore, absolutely and inextricably lost.”
We want to see that uniqueness of the other person in
the present, bringing out those qualities we have taken
for granted. We want to experience their vulnerability to
pain and death, not just our own.
We can take this meditation further. Let us look at the
pedestrians in any busy city and realize that in ninety
years it is likely that none of them will be alive, including
us. Think of the millions and billions who have already
come and gone, buried and long forgotten, rich and poor
alike. Such thoughts make it hard to maintain our own
sense of grand importance, the feeling that we are special
and that the pain we may suffer is not the same as
others’.
The more we can create this visceral connection to
people through our common mortality, the better we are
able to handle human nature in all its varieties with
tolerance and grace. This does not mean we lose our
alertness to those who are dangerous and difficult. In
fact, seeing the mortality and vulnerability in even the
nastiest individual can help us cut them down to size and
deal with them from a more neutral and strategic space,
not taking their nastiness personally.
In general, we can say that the specter of death is
what impels us toward our fellow humans and makes us
avid for love. Death and love are inextricably
interconnected. The ultimate separation and
disintegration represented by death drive us to unite and
integrate ourselves with others. Our unique
consciousness of death has created our particular form of
love. And through a deepening of our death awareness
we will only strengthen this impulse, and rid ourselves of
the divisions and lifeless separations that afflict
humanity.
Embrace all pain and adversity. Life by its nature involves
pain and suffering. And the ultimate form of this is death
itself. In the face of this reality, we humans have a simple
choice: We can try to avoid painful moments and to
muffle their effect by distracting ourselves, by taking
drugs or engaging in addictive behavior. We can also
restrict what we do—if we don’t try too hard in our work,
if we lower our ambitions, we won’t expose ourselves to
failure and ridicule. If we break off relationships early
on, we can elude any sharp, painful moments from the
separation.
At the root of this approach is the fear of death itself,
which establishes our elemental relationship to pain and
adversity, and avoidance becomes our pattern. When bad
things happen, our natural reaction is to complain about
what life is bringing us, or what others are not doing for
us, and to retreat even further from challenging
situations. The negative paradoxical death effect takes
hold.
 The other choice available to us is to commit
ourselves to what Friedrich Nietzsche called amor fati
(“love of fate”): “My formula for greatness in a human
being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be other
than it is, not in the future, not in the past, not in all
eternity. Not merely to endure that which happens of
necessity . . . but to love it.”
What this means is the following: There is much in
life we cannot control, with death as the ultimate
example of this. We will experience illness and physical
pain. We will go through separations with people. We
will face failures from our own mistakes and the nasty
malevolence of our fellow humans. And our task is to
accept these moments, and even embrace them, not for
the pain but for the opportunities to learn and
strengthen ourselves. In doing so, we affirm life itself,
accepting all of its possibilities. And at the core of this is
our complete acceptance of death.
We put this into practice by continually seeing events
as fateful—everything happens for a reason, and it is up
to us to glean the lesson. When we fall ill, we see such
moments as the perfect opportunity to retreat from the
world and get away from its distractions, to slow down,
to reassess what we are doing, and to appreciate the
much more frequent periods of good health. Being able
to accustom ourselves to some degree of physical pain,
without immediately reaching for something to dull it, is
an important life skill.
When people resist our will or turn against us, we try
to assess what we did wrong, to figure out how we can
use this to educate ourselves further in human nature
and teach ourselves how to handle those who are
slippery and disagreeable. When we take risks and fail,
we welcome the chance to learn from the experience.
When relationships fail, we try to see what was wrong in
the dynamic, what was missing for us, and what we want
from the next relationship. We don’t cocoon ourselves
from further pain by avoiding such experiences.
In all of these cases, we will of course experience
physical and mental pain, and we must not fool ourselves
that this philosophy will instantly turn the negative into
a positive. We know that it is a process and that we must
take the blows, but that as time passes our minds will go
to work converting this into a learning experience. With
practice, it becomes easier and quicker to convert.
This love of fate has the power to alter everything we
experience and lighten the burdens we carry. Why
complain over this or that, when in fact we see such
events as occurring for a reason and ultimately
enlightening us? Why feel envy for what others have,
when we possess something far greater—the ultimate
approach to the harsh realities of life?
Open the mind to the Sublime.Think of death as a kind of
threshold we all must cross. As such, it represents the
ultimate mystery. We cannot possibly find the words or
concepts to express what it is. We confront something
that is truly unknowable. No amount of science or
technology or expertise can solve this riddle or verbalize
it. We humans can fool ourselves that we know just
about everything, but at this threshold we are finally left
dumb and groping.
This confrontation with something we cannot know or
verbalize is what we shall call the Sublime, whose Latin
root means “up to the threshold.” The Sublime is
anything that exceeds our capacity for words or concepts
by being too large, too vast, too dark and mysterious.
And when we face such things, we feel a touch of fear but
also awe and wonder. We are reminded of our smallness,
of what is much vaster and more powerful than our puny
will. Feeling the Sublime is the perfect antidote to our
complacency and to the petty concerns of daily life that
can consume us and leave us feeling rather empty.
 The model for feeling the Sublime comes in our
meditation on mortality, but we can train our minds to
experience it through other thoughts and actions. For
instance, when we look up at the night sky, we can let our
minds try to fathom the infinity of space and the
overwhelming smallness of our planet, lost in all the
darkness. We can encounter the Sublime by thinking
about the origin of life on earth, how many billions of
years ago this occurred, perhaps at some particular
moment, and how unlikely it was, considering the
thousands of factors that had to converge for the
experiment of life to begin on this planet. Such vast
amounts of time and the actual origin of life exceed our
capacity to conceptualize them, and we are left with a
sensation of the Sublime.
We can take this further: Several million years ago,
the human experiment began as we branched off from
our primate ancestors. But because of our weak physical
nature and small numbers, we faced the continual threat
of extinction. If that more-than-likely event had
happened—as it had occurred for so many species,
including other varieties of humans—the world would
have taken a much different turn. In fact, the meeting of
our own parents and our birth hung on a series of chance
encounters that were equally unlikely. This causes us to
view our present existence as an individual, something
we take for granted, as a most improbable occurrence,
considering all of the fortuitous elements that had to fall
into place.
We can experience the Sublime by contemplating
other forms of life. We have our own belief about what is
real based on our nervous and perceptual systems, but
the reality of bats, which perceive through echolocation,
is of a different order. They sense things beyond our
perceptual system. What are the other elements we
cannot perceive, the other realities invisible to us? (The
latest discoveries in most branches of science will have
this eye-opening effect, and reading articles in any
popular scientific journal will generally yield a few
sublime thoughts.)
We can also expose ourselves to places on the planet
where all our normal compass points are scrambled—a
vastly different culture or certain landscapes where the
human element seems particularly puny, such as the
open sea, a vast expanse of snow, a particularly
enormous mountain. Physically confronted with what
dwarfs us, we are forced to reverse our normal
perception, in which we are the center and measure of
everything.
In the face of the Sublime, we feel a shiver, a foretaste
of death itself, something too large for our minds to
encompass. And for a moment it shakes us out of our
smugness and releases us from the deathlike grip of
habit and banality.

—
In the end, think of this philosophy in the following
terms: Since the beginning of human consciousness, our
awareness of death has terrified us. This terror has
shaped our beliefs, our religions, our institutions, and so
much of our behavior in ways we cannot see or
understand. We humans have become the slaves to our
fears and our evasions.
When we turn this around, becoming more aware of
our mortality, we experience a taste of true freedom. We
no longer feel the need to restrict what we think and do,
in order to make life predictable. We can be more daring
without feeling afraid of the consequences. We can cut
loose from all the illusions and addictions that we
employ to numb our anxiety. We can commit fully to our
work, to our relationships, to all our actions. And once
we experience some of this freedom, we will want to
explore further and expand our possibilities as far as
time will allow us.
Let us rid death of its strangeness, come to know it, get used
to it. Let us have nothing on our minds as often as death. At
every moment let us picture it in our imagination in all its
aspects. . . . It is uncertain where death awaits us; let us
await it everywhere. Premeditation of death is premeditation
of freedom. . . . He who has learned how to die has unlearned
how to be a slave. Knowing how to die frees us from all
subjection and constraint.
—Michel de Montaigne
 Acknowledgments

F irst and foremost, I would like to thank Anna Biller

for her assistance on so many aspects of this book—
including her deft editing, the endless insightful ideas
she supplied me during our discussions, and all the love
and support during the writing. This book would not be
possible without her many contributions, and I am
eternally grateful.
I would like to thank my agent, Michael Carlisle of
Inkwell Management, master of human nature, for all his
invaluable advice and assistance on the project. Also at
Inkwell, my thanks go to Michael Mungiello, and to
Alexis Hurley, for bringing the book to a global audience.
I have many people to thank at Penguin, most
important of all my editor, Andrea Schulz, for all her
much appreciated work on the text, and our numerous
conversations in which she helped sharpen the concept
and share with me her own insights on human nature. I
must also thank the original editor on the project,
Carolyn Carlson, as well as Melanie Tortoroli for her
editorial contributions. I would also like to thank
Andrea’s assistant, Emily Neuberger; the designer of the
cover Colin Webber; in the marketing department, Kate
Stark and Mary Stone; and Carolyn Coleburn and
Shannon Twomey for their work on the publicity front.
I must also thank Andrew Franklin, publisher of
Profile Books in England, who has been there for all six
of my books, and whose literary and publishing acumen I
can always count on.
As always, I must thank my former apprentice and
now bestselling author and master strategist Ryan
Holiday for all of his research suggestions, marketing
help, and overall wisdom.
I cannot forget to thank my cat, Brutus, who has now
overseen the production of my last five books and who
has helped me understand the human animal from a
very different perspective.
I would like to thank my dear sister, Leslie, for all her
love, support, and many ideas she has inspired over the
years. And of course I must thank my very patient
mother, Laurette, for everything she has done for me, not
least of all instilling in me a love of books and history.
And finally, I would like to thank all those
innumerable people throughout my life who’ve shown
me the worst and the best in human nature, and who’ve
supplied me endless material for this book.
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 ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Index

The page numbers in this index refer to the printed version of this book. The link provided will take you to the beginning
of that print page. You may need to scroll forward from that location to find the corresponding reference on your e-
reader.
ABC, 291–92, 296–99, 301
ABC News, 232
Abel and Cain, 273
Absalom, 46
absence, 131
balancing presence with, 99–100, 467–68
knowing how and when to withdraw, 143–44
silence, 468
acting, 80–81, 82
groups and, 413–14
method, 99
see also role-playing
action, masculine and feminine styles of, 351–53
adaptability, and authority, 469
addiction, 44, 111, 577, 583, 586
aggressive behavior as, 497
admiration, 290
adversity, 225–26, 583–84
Aeschylus, 290
aging, 556, 557–58
aggression, 6, 406, 473–517
as addiction, 497
aggressor’s trap, 497
ambition and, 513–14
anger and, 491, 498, 516–17
chronic, 495–97, 500, 512, 513
controlled, 498, 499, 511–17
denial of, 501–3
energy of, 486, 492–93, 512–13
examining your own, 498–99
fearlessness and, 515–16
fighting dirty, 500–501
generations and, 541–42
genetic component to, 495
insecurity and, 491, 493–96
internal saboteur and, 498, 512
narrative of, 487–88, 490, 498–500
obsessions and, 500
persistence and, 514–15
positive and negative aspects of, 493
primitive, 489, 495–96
root of word, 493
self-opinion and, 491–92
 sophisticated, 489, 496, 500
source of, 493–503
spectrum of, 493, 498
taking action against, 490–91
technology and, 502
tolerance of, 499
aggression, passive, 424, 473, 493, 498, 503–11, 513
Blame-Shifter Strategy, 508–10
Dependency Strategy, 506–7
Insinuating-Doubt Strategy, 508
Passive-Aggressive Charmer, 250–51
Passive-Tyrant Strategy, 510–11
Subtle-Superiority Strategy, 504–5
Sympathy Strategy, 505–6
aimlessness, see purpose, sense of
Aislabie, John, 153
Alcibiades, 35, 46
alcohol, Prohibition and, 163
Alexander VI, Pope, 327–28
Alexander the Great, 227
Alone (Byrd), 409
Ambassadors, The (James), 84, 190
ambition, 513–14
ambivalent-enmeshed attachment pattern, 112, 113
amor fati, 583–84
Andrews, Samuel, 475, 476
anger, 3, 4, 25, 467
aggression and, 491, 498, 516–17
envy and, 25, 272, 273
toxic, 516
using in work, 517
anima and animus, 335–39, 341, 355
animus voices, 354
Anne, Queen of England, 152
Antony, Mark, 83–84, 100
anxiety, 240, 372–73, 375–76, 414, 556, 586
aggression and, 496
groups and social force and, 407, 408
anxious attitude, 218–19
appearance, and conformity, 412
appearance bias, 30
armies, 376
art
anger in, 517
authority in, 461–62
Aśoka, 37, 457
atheists, 252
Athena, 15, 19–21, 27, 38, 41
Athens, 13–21, 26, 27, 199–200, 374
Attacher, 281–82
attachment patterns between mothers and children, 112–13, 118, 128
attention
need for, 42–43
pursuit of, 388–89
 seeking status through, 6
sudden, 34
attention span, 161, 166
attitude, 202–30
authority and, 464–65
cool, 227
Jung’s definition of, 213
soul and, 229–30
attitude, negative (constricted), 202, 215–24
anxious, 218–19
avoidant, 219–21
depressive, 221–22
hostile, 217–18
resentful, 222–24
attitude, positive (expansive), 202, 215–16, 224–30
adversity and, 225–26
energy and health and, 228
other people and, 228–29
viewing the world with, 225
viewing yourself with, 226–27
attribution bias, 50
audience, adapting to, 99
Augustus (Octavius), 84, 100–101, 116, 162, 223
aura, 467–68
authenticity, 97–98, 254
authority and, 463–64
humility and, 100
authority, 438–72
adaptability and, 469
in the arts, 461–62
attitude and, 464–65
aura and, 467–68
authenticity and, 463–64
disdain for, 461–62
false forms of, 462
group, 462
inner, 469–72
overpromising and, 468–69
parents as figures of, 461, 462
strategies for establishing, 460, 463–69
taking and giving and, 468–69
tone and, 466–67
vision and, 465–66
see also leaders, leadership
autonomous/free attachment pattern, 112
autonomy, in self-opinion, 185, 186, 191–92
avoidant attitude, 219–21
baby boomers, 542, 543, 545, 546, 548–50
Babylonians, 541
backbiting, 276
Baker, Josephine, 255, 260, 549, 552
Balsan, Etienne, 132–34, 137
banality, 253
baseline expression and mood, 83–84
Bassui, 201
bats, 585
Battlefield News, 397, 401
battles, tactical hell and, 165
Bay of Pigs, 284
Beaumarchais, Pierre-Augustin Caron de, 139, 193–94
Behrs, Sonya, 63–66
Benson, Byron, 482–84, 488–89
Bergman, Ingmar, 259
Bergman, Ingrid, 379, 384–85
Bevel, James, 364
biases, 28–32
appearance, 30
attribution, 50
blame, 31
confirmation, 29
conviction, 29–30, 95
group, 30–31, 35
in interpreting nonverbal cues, 85
negative, 141
superiority, 31–32
Big Talker, 124–25
Birmingham, Ala., 363–65, 368
Black Death, 484
blame bias, 31
Blame-Shifter Strategy, 508–10
Blunt, Charles, 156
Blunt, John, 150–58
Bly, Robert, 255–56
Boccaccio, Giovanni, 321
body language, 83, 84
see also nonverbal communication
Boleyn, Anne, 439, 440, 450
boredom, 372, 375
Borgia, Cesare, 328–29, 331
Born Red (Gao), 402, 403
Botticelli, Sandro, 323
Bouvier, Jack, 341–42
Bowie, David, 332
Bowlby, John, 112
brain, 3, 24, 25, 390, 538
character and, 112, 113, 127
imagination and, 141
induction and, 140–41
malleability in early years, 112
mirror neurons in, 51
observational skills and, 83
parts of, 24
short-term thinking and, 160–61
social interaction and, 49
sudden success and, 34
Brummell, Beau, 253
bubbles, 23, 164, 415
Bubble Act, 155, 157
 South Sea Company, 150–58, 415
Buffett, Warren, 37, 120, 162, 351, 457
Bülow, Hans von, 221–22
Byrd, Richard E., 409
Byrd, Robert, 179
Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 262–63, 265, 266, 269
Caesar, Julius, 35, 84, 162, 163, 164, 227
Cain and Abel, 273
Capel, Arthur “Boy,” 134, 382
career, 371–72, 374, 494
“Case of Identity, A” (Conan Doyle), 101
causes, 306, 373, 386–87, 413
armies and, 376
Cecil, William, 440–44
Chaerephon, 199–200
chameleon effect, 52
Chanel, Gabrielle “Coco,” 131–38, 145, 146, 260, 285, 382, 469, 554
Chanel No. 5, 135
Change (Watzlawick, Weakland, and Fisch), 197
Chaplin, Charlie, 255
character, 7–8, 111–12
awareness and covering up of flaws in, 113, 114
brain and, 112, 113, 127
childhood attachment pattern and, 112–13
conflicting traits, 114
etymology of word, 111
examining and shaping your own, 114, 128, 129–30
genetic component of, 112
habits and, 102, 113, 114, 127
indicators of, 115–21
positive traits, 113
power and, 117
strength of, 102–30
superior, 127–30
toxic types of, see toxic types
Charles II, Archduke of Austria, 442
Charles IX, King, 442
Charterhouse of Parma, The (Stendhal), 88
Chekhov, Alexander, 204–7
Chekhov, Anton, 11, 37, 39–40, 144, 202–11, 214, 227, 228, 378, 419–20
Sakhalin Island and, 208–9
Chekhov, Mikhail, 205–7
Chekhov, Nikolai, 204, 206
Chekhov, Pavel Yegorovich, 202–7, 209, 210, 214, 228
Chekhov, Yegor Mikhailovich, 205–6
Chesterfield, Philip Stanhope, Lord, 195
Chicago Bulls, 433
childhood, 539–40, 547
and ambivalence of emotions, 455
attachment patterns in, 112–13, 118, 128
character traits of, 254, 256, 258
envy and, 277–78
fearlessness in, 515
gender roles in, 332, 335–37
 grandiosity and, 305–6, 318
mortality awareness in, 577
parental power in, 424
primal inclinations in, 374, 378–79
remembering, 140, 455
sense of self in, 348
spirit of, 553
trigger points from, 32–33
see also parents
China, 352, 374
China, communist, 306, 391–405
Cultural Revolution in, 37, 315, 392–405, 411
Chopin, Frédéric, 338
Christian religion, 186, 559
chummy leader, 462
Churchill, Winston, 241, 255, 318
Cicero, 46, 520, 552
Cimino, Michael, 313–14
Civil Rights Act, 365
civil rights movement, 360–66, 573
Civil War, 166–67, 257, 475, 477, 481
Clark, James, 475
Clark, Maurice B., 473–77, 488, 489
Clinton, Bill, 35, 99, 285
clothing styles, 537–38, 554
Coltrane, John, 463
Columbo, 97
cobra effects, 164
cobras, in India, 163–64
Colson, Charles, 233, 235, 428
comparisons, 6, 11, 287–88, 289
downward, 288–89
emulation, 289–90
see also envy
competitive instincts, appeal to, 192
complacency, 141, 147, 585
compulsive behavior, 102–30
see also character
Conan Doyle, Arthur, 101
con artists, 96
confidence, 92, 94, 113–14, 354, 422, 437, 458
confirmation bias, 29
conformity, 30, 201, 391–437
see also groups
Connally, Tom, 172–74, 180
Connor, Bull, 363, 364–65
contradictory behavior, 241–42, 244, 248–54
contrasts, 140–41
conversation, 50
deep listening in, 188–89
conviction bias, 29–30, 95
Corneille, Pierre, 195
court and courtiers, 418–19, 424–32
Court Jester, 429
covetousness, see desire
crashes, financial, 23
of 1929, 166
of 2008, 22–23, 158, 388, 548
Crawford, Joan, 128–29, 226
Crime and Punishment (Dostoyevsky), 302
criticism, 516
aggression and, 496, 497, 499–500
in push and pull, 276–77
sense of purpose and, 381–82
cults, 37, 386–87, 423
cultural ecosystem, 374
Cultural Revolution, 37, 315, 392–405, 411
culture, 461
change in, 535–36, 537–38
contribution to, 377, 470
youth culture and, 541, 543
culture, group, 416–17, 422
Curie, Marie, 378, 514
cyberwar, 502
cynicism, 389
d’Allegre, Yves, 329
Danton, Gabrielle, 522, 530, 534
Danton, Georges-Jacques, 35, 508, 520–23, 526–31, 533–36, 542, 552
Darius, 465
dark side, see Shadow
Darnley, Henry Stuart, Lord, 443
Darwin, Charles, 37, 162, 560
David, King, 35, 273
deadlines, 381, 580
Dean, John, 233, 236, 237
death, 170, 385, 493, 555–61, 562–86
and awakening to the shortness of life, 580–81
and belief in afterlife, 576
childhood awareness of, 577
denial of, 577
and embracing pain and adversity, 583–84
in entertainment, 576
envisioning our own, 579–80
invisibility of, in modern world, 576
life contrasted with, 577
love and, 583
of loved one, 575
paradoxical death effect, 575–78
philosophy of life through, 578–86
seeing the mortality in everyone, 581–83
Sublime and, 319, 584–86
as taboo subject, 577
visceral awareness of, 578–80
deception
cues to, 86, 95–97
scale of, 97
decision making, 411–12, 421, 423, 461
hypercertainty and, 415–16
Decourcelle, Pierre, 132
Defense Department, 104, 105, 417
defensiveness, 172–201
Defoe, Daniel, 581–82
de Gaulle, Charles, 233, 238
Deliverer, 463
democracy, 461, 462
Deng Zeng, 396, 397
denial, 244–45
Dependency Strategy, 506–7
depression, 240, 373, 376, 498, 556
depressive attitude, 221–22
Depression, Great, 545, 548
desire, 131–49
contagious, 414
grass-is-always-greener syndrome, 139–42, 147
illicit, 146
induction and, 140–41, 146–47
and knowing how and when to withdraw, 143–44
possession and, 147
rivalries of, 144–46
strategies for stimulating, 143–47
supreme, 147–49
d’Este, Isabella, 313
details, being lost in, 168–69
Devilish Romantic, 341–42
Dick Tracy, 295
Diderot, Denis, 532
Dietrich, Marlene, 192, 260, 549
Diller, Barry, 291–92, 299–300
Ding Yi, 392–94, 396
dislike/like cues, 86–91
disorganized attachment pattern, 112
dismissing attachment pattern, 112–13
Disney, Roy, 293, 295, 298, 300
Disney, Walt, 292, 294, 295
Disney Company, 282–83, 291–301, 312
Euro Disney, 294, 298, 300, 301, 317
Go, 298
display rules, 85–86
Disraeli, Benjamin, 193, 332
Dods, Miss, 267
dominance/submission cues, 86, 91–95, 100
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 21, 96, 259, 302, 390, 574, 578–79
Drake, Francis, 445, 452
Drama Magnet, 123–24
dramatic effects, 99–100
dreams, 256–57, 258
DreamWorks, 301
Dreyfus, Alfred, 85
Dudley, Robert, 442, 443
East-Is-Red Corps, 397–402, 405
East-Is-Red Middle School, 401–2
Easy Moralizer, 126–27
ecosystems, 374
Edison, Thomas, 381, 514
Education of Cyrus, The (Xenophon), 319
Edward VI, King, 440
ego, 370, 372, 384, 469–70
Egypt, exodus from, 139
Ehrlichman, John, 233, 237
Einstein, Albert, 255, 258, 351, 384, 514
Eisenhower, Dwight D., 146, 178, 232
Eisner, Michael, 282–83, 291–301, 304, 306, 307, 312, 511
Ekman, Paul, 90
Eliot, George, 346
Elizabeth I, Queen, 162, 168, 352, 438–54, 457, 459, 466–69
Cecil and, 440–44
Essex and, 446–49, 452–53
Mary, Queen of Scots and, 443–45, 451
Philip II and, 168, 442, 444–46, 451–52
Ellington, Duke, 332
Elusive Woman of Perfection, 342–43
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 171
emotions, 7, 9, 11, 24–25, 455–56
ambivalence of, 455–56
balancing thinking and, 40
evolution of, 3, 4, 24, 25
examining to their roots, 38
in groups, 407, 410, 414–15, 435–36
inflaming factors and, 32–37
influence and, 197
mastering your Emotional Self, 13–41
reaction time and, 38–39
Shadow and, 244
social media and, 6, 26
strong, 455
see also irrationality
empathy, 9–10, 42–71, 113, 129, 187, 411, 437
analytic, 52–53, 54
attitude in, 49–50
in boys, 332, 335, 354–55
grandiosity and, 309
in leaders, 458–59
skill in, 53–54
visceral, 50–52, 54, 58, 458
see also narcissism, narcissists
emulation, transmuting envy into, 289–90
Endurance, 67, 69
“Enduring Chill, The” (O’Connor), 568
energy, purposeful, 382
Enlightenment, 532, 533
enmeshed-ambivalent attachment pattern, 112, 113
envier types, 277–83, 424
Attacher, 281–82
Insecure Master, 282–83
Leveler, 278–79
Self-entitled Slacker, 279–80
 Status Fiend, 280–81
envy, 6, 25, 140, 246, 261–90, 508
admiration and, 290
anger and, 25, 272, 273
backbiting and, 276
dealing with an attack by an envier, 286
disguising of, 272, 274
downward comparisons and, 288–89
microexpressions and, 88, 89, 274–75
Mitfreude and, 289, 290
moving beyond, 287–90
moving closer to what you envy, 288
origins in infancy and childhood, 277–78
passive and active, 273–74, 287
praise and, 275–77, 284
prevalence of, 286
“push and pull” and, 276–77
schadenfreude and, 275, 289
signs of, 88, 89, 274–77
social media and, 286
transmuting into emulation, 289–90
triggers of, 283–87
Erickson, Milton, 72–79, 86, 91, 197–98, 505
Essex, Robert Devereux, Earl of, 446–49, 452–53, 552
Euro Disney, 294, 298, 300, 301, 317
evil eye, 274
evolution, 319, 560
of emotions, 3, 4, 24, 25
of human nature, 3–4
of nonverbal communication, 81
excellence, 471
expectations about people, 190
explanations, seeking, 22
Extreme Entrepreneur, 253–54
extroverts, 112, 118–19, 128
narcissism and, 44
facial expressions, 83
microexpressions, 83, 87, 89, 274–75
smiles, 90
Fairbairn, Ronald, 512
Fallen Woman, 344–46
Fanatic, 251–52
fantasy, 138, 142–44, 147, 148
farsighted perspective, 160–62, 169–71
fashion, 537–38, 554
fate, 13, 111, 130
love of, 583–84
Favorite, 430–31
Fawcett, J. W., 479
fear, 11, 25
aggression and, 491
groups and, 414–15
fearlessness, 515–16
feedback, 53
Feo, Giacomo, 326–27, 331
Feo, Tommaso, 325–26
Filelfo, Francesco, 321
financial bubbles, 23, 164, 415
Bubble Act, 155, 157
South Sea Company, 150–58, 415
financial crashes, 23
of 1929, 166
of 2008, 22–23, 158, 388, 548
first impressions, 99, 274, 466
Fisch, Richard, 197
Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 559
Fitzgerald, Robert, 564
Fitzgerald, Sally, 564, 565–66
flattery, 97, 196, 418–19, 430
Flaubert, Gustave, 502
flexible mind, 199–201, 258
flow, 316, 383–84
focus, 471
force multiplier, 376
Ford, John, 433
Foreign Affair, A, 192
Founder, 463
Frames of Mind (Gardner), 379
France, 518–39
Estates General in, 522–24, 533
Flanders Regiment in, 525, 527
National Assembly in, 524–26
Revolution in, 35, 61, 250, 306, 376, 508, 526–31, 534–35
Terror in, 530, 531, 535
Frankenstein (Shelley), 261, 262, 266
Franklin, Benjamin, 557–58
Frazer, James, 457
free/autonomous attachment pattern, 112
Freemasons, 533, 553
Freud, Sigmund, 244, 318, 343, 491
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), 141
gains, sudden, 34
Gandhi, Indira, 312
Gandhi, Mahatma, 358, 360
Gao Yuan (Gao Jianhua), 391–402, 404, 405
Gardner, Howard, 379
Gatekeeper, 427
Gay, John, 153
gender projections, 339, 340–48
Devilish Romantic, 341–42
Elusive Woman of Perfection, 342–43
Fallen Woman, 344–46
Lovable Rebel, 344
Superior Man, 346–47
Woman to Worship Him, 347–48
gender roles and masculine and feminine traits, 320–55
action styles and, 351–53
as anima and animus, 335–39, 341, 355
 in childhood, 332, 335–37
equality and, 340, 349
generational differences in, 549
hyperfeminine woman, 338–39
hypermasculine man, 338
leadership and, 354–55
self-assessment and learning styles and, 353–54
shifting gender roles, 340
thinking styles and, 350–51
value judgments on, 349–50
General Tire Company, 107
generation, exploiting spirit of, 551–55
adapting and, 554–55
adapting the past to the present, 552–53
childhood and, 553
creating new social configuration, 553–54
pushing against the past, 551–52
subversion, 554
generations, 469, 518–61
aggressive individuals in, 541–42
future, 560–61
gender relationships and, 549
generational awareness, 539
Generation X, 545, 548
heroes and icons of, 549
length of, 538
millennial, 545
1920s, 542, 543, 546, 549, 553, 555, 559
1950s, 542, 546, 548, 549, 555
1960s, 542, 543, 545, 546, 548–50, 554
parenting styles of, 548–59
past, 558–60
patterns in, 544–46
personality or spirit of, 540, 542–43, 547–48
perspective of, 540, 541
present, 558
rebels in, 542
shadow side to, 549
tensions between, 550
variations in, 541–42
younger, judgment of, 541
your own, 546–47, 550, 551–55
youth culture and, 541, 543
zeitgeist and, 518, 543, 547, 550, 551, 554, 558
genetics, 538
aggression and, 495
character and, 112
George I, King, 151–54, 157
gifts and rewards, 192
global warming, 161
Go, 298
goals, 303, 374, 471
group, 408
ladder of, 382–83
 long-term, 150, 158, 160, 165, 168–70, 382–83, 471
Godwin, William, 262, 266
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 466, 556, 560–61
Golden Bough, The (Frazer), 457
Goldman Sachs, 285–86
“Good Country People” (O’Connor), 569
goodness, in self-opinion, 185, 186, 194–95
gossip, 276, 287
Graham, Katherine, 235
Grandier, Urbain, 59–62
grandiose leaders, 311–15, 458
“I am destined,” 311
“I have the golden touch,” 314
“I’m invulnerable,” 314–15
“I’m the common man/woman,” 311–12
“I rewrite the rules,” 313–14
“I will deliver you,” 312–13
grandiose victim, 308
grandiosity, 291–319, 436
big talk and, 309
calibrated challenges and, 317–18
childhood roots of, 305–6, 318
concentrating energy of, 316
empathy and, 309
fantastical, 315–17
humility and, 308
letting loose, 318
low-grade, 304
managing your own, 310, 315–18
measuring levels of, 308–9
negative forms of, 308
practical, 315–18
prevalence of, 306–7, 308
realistic attitude and, 310, 316–17
religion and, 306
reverse, 319
Grant, Ulysses S., 167
grass-is-always-greener syndrome, 139–42, 147
Great Depression, 545, 548
Greeley, Horace, 167
groups, 6, 80, 391–437
authority of, 462
battle-tested, 436–37
conformity in, 30, 201, 391–437
court and courtiers in, 418–19, 424–32
Court Jester in, 429
culture of, 416–17, 422
detaching from, 406–7, 423
differences and, 424
dynamics in, 416–21
dysfunctional, 431–33, 437
effects on individuals in, 412–16
elites in, 421
emotions in, 407, 410, 414–15, 435–36
 enemies of, 406, 419–20, 422
energy of belonging to, 407–8, 410
factions in, 406, 420–21, 432
Favorite in, 430–31
Gatekeeper in, 427
goals of, 408
group bias, 30–31, 35
group effect, 35–36
hypercertainty in, 415–16
insecurities and, 421–22
intelligence of, 411–12
Intriguer in, 425–26, 427
large-scale, 423
lieutenants in, 434
loyalty to, 407
Mirrorer in, 429–30
need to fit in with, 407, 410, 412–13, 422, 423
observing, 422–23
open communication in, 434–35
performing in, 413–14
Punching Bag in, 430–31
reality and, 422–23, 424, 431–37
rituals in, 410
rules and codes in, 417–18, 422
sacred cows in, 418
sense of purpose in, 433–34
Shadow Enabler in, 427–29
social force in, 408–11, 422
social personality and, 391
Stirrer in, 426–27, 432
success in, 418
suspicious toward outsiders to, 411
talking in front of, 408
tribalism in, 6, 423–24, 463
virtual, 410
guardrails, 494–95, 498, 501
Hadamard, Jacques, 258
Haig, Alexander, 237, 425–26
Hakuin, 198, 381, 514
Haldeman, Bob, 117, 233, 235–37
Haley, Alex, 51
halo effect, 30
Hanks, Tom, 293
Hannibal, 352, 515
hatred, 246
Hazlitt, William, 581
Healer, 464
health, 224
expansive attitude and, 228
Heaven’s Gate, 313
Hegel, G. W. F., 537
helicopters, 107–8
Hell’s Angels, 103–4, 106
helplessness, 494–96, 556
Henry IV, King of France, 522
Henry VIII, King of England, 439–41, 450
Heraclitus, 110
Hercules project, 104, 105
Hesiod, 283
Hess, E. H., 90
Hester, Betty, 568
Hewitt, Isaac, 479–80
Hewitt and Tuttle, 474
Hillary, Edmund, 70
Hiss, Alger, 234
history, 559, 561
Hitchcock, Alfred, 469, 555
Hitler, Adolf, 56
Hoffer, Eric, 407
Hogg, Thomas, 265–68, 270
Hollywood, 313–14, 417, 419
honesty, 138, 142, 187, 188, 419
Horace, 244
horse and rider metaphor, 40
hostile attitude, 217–18
hostility, and love, 494
Howard, Catherine, 440–41
Hudson, Huberht, 68
Hughes, Howard, Jr., 102–10, 115, 122, 127–28
Hughes, Howard, Sr., 102, 103, 108, 109, 110, 127
Hughes Aircraft, 104–5, 107, 110
Hughes Tool Company, 102, 103, 104, 107, 109–10
human nature, 1–6, 492
acceptance of, 39
evolution of, 3–4
laws of, 5–11
humility, 100, 493
grandiose, 308
Humphrey, Hubert, 176–82, 231, 232
Hunt, E. Howard, 236, 237
Hunt, Leigh, 265, 267–68, 270
Hurley, Frank, 68
hypercertainty, 415–16
hyperintention, 388
Hyperperfectionist, 121–22, 129
IBM, 433
Ibn Khaldun, 544
Ibsen, Henrik, 241
Idiot, The (Dostoyevsky), 96
Illustrious Women (Boccaccio), 321
imagination, 141, 142, 144, 147, 149, 373
brain and, 141
imitation, mimicking, and mirroring, 51–52, 410
immortality, strategy of, 561
impression management, 82, 97–101
inclinations, primal, 374, 378–79
induction, 140–41, 146–47
inflaming factors, 32–37
inflaming individuals, 35, 39
influence, 8–9, 172–83, 187–88
deep listening in, 188–89
insecurities in, 195–96
mood in, 189–91
prejudice against idea of, 187
resistance and stubbornness in, 196–98
self-opinion in, 191–95
strategies for, 188–98
In Search of Lost Time (Proust), 345
Insecure Master, 282–83
insecurity(ies), 372, 375, 493
aggression and, 491, 493–96
groups and, 421–22, 423
of others, allaying, 195–96
Insinuating-Doubt Strategy, 508
intellectuals, 536
intelligence
forms of, 379–80
group, 411–12
in self-opinion, 185, 186, 193–94
internal saboteur, 498, 512
internet, 49, 502
see also social media
Intriguer, 425–26, 427
introverts, 112, 118, 119, 128
narcissism and, 44
invidia, 274
invulnerability, in leaders, 314–15
Iraq, 164
Iribe, Paul, 285
irrationality, 13–41
biases and, see biases
defining, 26–27
fundamental, 24
high-grade, 28, 32
historical cycles of, 36–37
low-grade, 27–28
Rigid Rationalist and, 252–53
see also emotions; rationality
isolation, 409–10
Jackson, Michael, 143–44, 253
Jackson, Phil, 433, 436
Jackson, Reggie, 249, 280–81
James, Henry, 84, 190
James, William, 54, 211, 225
James VI, King, 443
Jeanne des Anges (Jeanne de Belcier), 59–62
Jester, 429
Jet Pilot, 106–7
Jews, 85
Nixon and, 235
Wagner and, 246
Jobs, Steve, 258, 259, 298, 378, 380, 384, 388, 457
Johnson, Lady Bird, 175
Johnson, Lyndon Baines, 95, 117–18, 172–82, 184, 190, 366, 417
Connally and, 172–74, 180
Humphrey and, 176–82
Russell and, 174–76, 178–81
Joseph (Old Testament character), 161–62, 273
Journal of the Plague Year, A (Defoe), 581–82
Jung, Carl, 213, 242, 260, 335, 354
on anima and animus, 335, 336
Katzenberg, Jeffrey, 282–83, 293, 295–98, 300–301, 511
Kenko, 580
Kennedy, Jacqueline, 136, 255, 260, 284, 288, 341–42, 552
Kennedy, John F., 146, 179, 231, 235, 284, 332, 342, 417
assassination of, 365
civil rights and, 363–65
New Frontier of, 553
Kennedy, Robert F., 235
Khrushchev, Nikita, 57
King, A. D., 367
King, Coretta Scott, 358, 359, 361, 362
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 356–70, 376, 379, 387, 457, 463, 467, 573
assassination of, 367
King, Martin Luther, Sr., 356–59, 367–68
Kirov, Sergey, 55
Kissinger, Henry, 233, 236, 238–39, 425
Klein, Melanie, 112, 277, 278, 495
Kohut, Heinz, 305
Korean War, 175, 176, 315
Kreutzer Sonata, The (Tolstoy), 64
Kurosawa, Akira, 379, 552–53
La Bruyère, Jean de, 183
Lagerfeld, Karl, 253
Langkjaier, Erik, 569–70, 572
language, in influence, 197–98
Law, John, 150–51, 156, 158
leaders, leadership, 308, 406, 407, 410, 423, 432
ambivalence and fickleness toward, 438, 456–59, 463
authority of, see authority
charismatic, 406, 407
court and courtiers of, 418–19, 424–32
dark side and, 247
disdain for, 461–62
empathy in, 458–59
enemies and, 420
grandiose, see grandiose leaders
masculine and feminine styles of, 354–55
narcissistic, 46, 47
as parental figures, 456
vision of, 458–59, 465–66
learning, 375
masculine and feminine styles of, 353–54
Lee, Robert E., 167
Lenin, Vladimir, 59
Leonardo da Vinci, 37, 375, 471, 556, 560
Leveler, 278–79
Liddy, G. Gordon, 236
lieutenants, 434
life
and awakening to shortness of, 580–81
connection with, 318–19
death contrasted with, 577
phases of, 556–58
philosophy of, through death, 578–86
life choices, 371
life force, 229
like/dislike cues, 86–91
limits, accepting, 310
see also grandiosity
Lincoln, Abraham, 37, 52, 117, 162, 166–68, 233, 241, 253, 255, 257–58, 355, 457, 481
Civil War and, 166–67, 257
Lin Sheng, 395–96
Lion King, The, 295, 296, 300
listening, deep, 188–89
Liszt, Cosima, 221–22
Liszt, Franz, 221
Long-Term Capital Management, 23
long-term goals, 150, 158, 160, 165, 168–70, 382–83, 471
losses, sudden, 34
Louis XIV, King, 89, 519, 523, 525, 532
Louis XV, King, 518, 519, 532
Louis XVI, King, 193–94, 518–29, 531–35
coronation carriage of, 521, 531–32, 536
Lovable Rebel, 344
love, and death, 583
love, falling in, 184, 333–34, 336–37, 340, 559
changes occurring in, 334–35
hostility and, 494
Lustig, Victor, 96
Lynch, David, 463
MacArthur, Douglas, 176, 314, 315
Machiavellianism, 100, 195, 247
Madoff, Bernie, 96
Magruder, Jeb, 117
Mailer, Norman, 260
maker’s mind-set, 37–38
Malcolm X, 226, 517
Mao Zedong, 306, 315, 392–406, 420
Marcus Aurelius, 37
Marguerite de Valois, 37
Marie Antoinette, 518–19, 521, 522, 525, 532
Marriage of Figaro, The (Beaumarchais), 193–94
Martin, Billy, 249
Marx, Karl, 358, 396
Mary, Queen of Scots, 443–45, 450, 451
Mary I, Queen, 439, 441, 444
masks, 72, 101
see also role-playing
Maslow, Abraham, 227, 383
May, Rollo, 517
McCarthy hearings, 37
McCord, James, 236, 237
McFarland, Ernest, 178
McGovern, George, 236
McNeish, Harry, 69
Mead, Margaret, 37, 351
Meade, George, 167
Medici, Giovanni de’, 327
Merkel, Angela, 92–94, 457
Merrill Lynch, 315
method acting, 99
Michelangelo, 283
microexpressions, 83, 87, 89, 274–75
microtrends, 166
Middlemarch (Eliot), 346
midlife crisis, 348
Mignon, Canon, 59–60
Miramax, 296
Mirrorer, 429–30
mirroring and mimicking, 51–52, 410
Mississippi Company, 150–51, 155
Mitfreude, 289, 290
Miyamoto Musashi, 352
money, pursuit of, 387–88
Montaigne, Michel de, 586
Montgomery, Ala., 359–60, 362, 368, 369
Montgomery bus boycott, 360, 379
Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), 360–62, 368
mood(s), 455
baseline, 83–84
influence and, 189–91
morality, 115, 126–27, 142
in self-opinion, 185, 186, 194–95
mortality, see death
Moses, 139–40, 457, 463
mystery, 100, 131, 138, 143
NAACP, 359, 360, 362
Napoleon, 306, 376, 432, 435, 466
narcissism, narcissists, 42–71
complete control, 54–59
couples, 63–66
deep, 43–49, 62, 66, 304
examples of types of, 54–71
extroverted, 44
functional, 47–48
healthy, 48, 67–71
introverted, 44
leaders, 46, 47
Self-entitled Slacker and, 279
self-love and, 47
spectrum of, 42–54, 66
theatrical, 59–63
see also empathy
negative bias, 141
Nehru, Jawaharlal, 312
Nero, 46
Nettles, Graig, 280–81
news cycle, 161, 166
Newton, Isaac, 153, 155–58
Nicias, 17–18
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 41, 200, 289, 370, 389, 437, 583
Nixon, E. D., 360
Nixon, Hannah, 233, 237, 239
Nixon, Pat, 234
Nixon, Richard, 117, 231–42, 244–45, 255, 338
childhood of, 238–39
Colson and, 233, 235, 428
Eisenhower and, 232
Haig and, 425–26
Hiss and, 234
tapes of, 233–34, 237–40
Vietnam War and, 234, 235
Watergate and, 236–38, 425
Nobel Peace Prize, 365
noble savage, 501
nonverbal communication, 72–79
body language, 83, 84
cultural differences in, 85–86
deception cues, 86, 95–97
dislike/like cues, 86–91
dominance/submission cues, 86, 91–95, 100
Erickson and, 72–79, 86, 91
evolution of, 81
interpreting, 85–86
mastery of, 98–99
mixed signals in, 84
and observational skill development, 82–86
observing your own, 86
rapport and, 190
validation and, 410
see also facial expressions
nous, 19, 20
O’Brien, Larry, 235, 236
observational skills, 82–86
of Erickson, 75–79
observing yourself, 86
oceanic feeling, 318–19
O’Connor, Flannery, 562–74, 578
Octavius, see Augustus
Odlum, Floyd, 106
oil industry, 475–78, 487
Standard Oil, 478–85, 487–88, 502
Onassis, Aristotle, 288, 342
Onassis, Jacqueline Kennedy, 136, 255, 260, 284, 288, 341–42, 552
O’Neal, Stan, 315
Orsi, Ludovico, 325–26
Ortega y Gasset, José, 472
ostinato rigore, 471
Othello (Shakespeare), 81, 85
Othello’s error, 85
overidealization, 245–46
Ovitz, Michael, 296–98, 301
Pampered Prince/Princess, 125
panderer, 462
Paramount Pictures, 291–93, 295, 299
parents, 424, 467, 504, 540
as authority figures vs. friends, 461, 462
children’s dependence on, 507
domineering, 495, 504
leaders associated with, 456
parenting styles of, 548–59
see also childhood
Parks, Rosa, 360
partner or spouse, choice of, 118
passive-aggressiveness, see aggression, passive
Pasteur, Louis, 258, 351
patience, 168, 494
Pavese, Cesare, 130
Payne, Oliver H., 477–79, 488
peaceful human, myth of, 501
peak experiences, 227, 383–84
Pearl Harbor attack, 163–64
Pennsylvania Railroad, 481, 487
people
expectations about, 190
viewing with expansive attitude, 228–29
Perelle, Charles, 105–6
Pericles, 14–21, 27, 36–38, 41, 457
Perkins, Frances, 429–30
Persia, 465
persistence, 514–15
persona, 101
personality, 101
Personalizer, 123, 129
perspective
farsighted, 160–62, 169–71
see also shortsightedness
persuasion, see influence
Philip II of Spain, King, 168–69, 442, 444–46, 451–52
Picasso, Pablo, 463, 469
Picture of Dorian Gray, The (Wilde), 201
Pixar, 298
Pleaser, 125–26, 129, 219
pleasure, pursuit of, 386, 581
pleasure principle, 28, 29
political correctness, 146
Pope, Alexander, 153
pornography, 141
possession, and desire, 147
potential, realizing, 10–11
power, 101, 128, 494
 character and, 117
pragmatism, 310–11
praise
for effort vs. talent, 195–96
envy and, 275–77, 284
presence, 131
balancing absence with, 99–100, 467–68
present circumstances, 150, 157–59, 169–71
Price, Ray, 238
primal inclinations, 374, 378–79
prioritizing, 471
Prohibition, 163
projection
gender, see gender projections
of Shadow, 246
promises, 468–69, 507
Proust, Marcel, 333, 345
psychiatry, 75
psychoanalysis, 538
psychosomatic maladies, 94, 220
Punching Bag, 430–31
purpose, sense of, 356–90
absorbing purposeful energy, 382
creating a ladder of descending goals, 382–83
discovering your calling in life, 378–80
false purposes vs., 385
in groups, 433–34
losing yourself in the work, 383–85
strategies for developing, 378–85
using resistance and negative spurs, 380–82
purposes, false, 377, 385–90
causes and cults, 386–87
cynicism, 389
pursuit of attention, 388–89
pursuit of money and success, 387–88
pursuit of pleasure, 386
real purpose vs., 385
Putin, Vladimir, 93
Quiet Pragmatist, 464
railroads, 478–84
Pennsylvania Railroad, 481, 487
Raphael, 283
rationality, 13, 19–21, 27, 37, 40–41
defining, 26–27
Rigid Rationalist and, 252–53
strategies toward, 37–41
see also irrationality
Raw Youth, A (Dostoyevsky), 21
reactive mode, 150, 158, 162, 170
Reagan, Ronald, 426
realistic attitude, 310–11, 316–17
reality, 96, 212, 389, 585
reality groups, 422–23, 424, 431–37
Red Guards, 397, 404
Red Rebels, 398–402, 405
Reed, Luther, 103
Relentless Rebel, 122–23, 129
religion, 115, 186, 252, 306, 373, 385
grandiosity and, 306
repression, 231–60
see also Shadow
Republic Oil, 484
resentful attitude, 222–24
resistance, 172–201
in developing sense of purpose, 380–82
of others, using, 196–98
rewards and gifts, 192
Riario, Girolamo, 322–24, 326–27
Rice, George, 484–85
Richelieu, Cardinal, 61, 195
rider and horse metaphor, 40
rigidity, influence and, 198
Rigid Rationalist, 252–53
RKO Pictures, 106–7
Robespierre, Maximilien, 250, 508, 530, 531
Robinson, Isabel, 267–68
Rockefeller, John D., 474–89, 497, 499–500, 504
Benson and, 482–84, 488–89
childhood of, 486–87
Clark and, 474–77, 488, 489
Fawcett and, 479
Payne and, 478–79, 488
Rice and, 484–85
Scott and, 481–82, 488–89
Rockefeller, William, 486, 487
role-playing, 72–101
authenticity and, 97–98
impression management, 82, 97–101
negative connotations of term, 97–98
see also nonverbal communication
Romans, 457–58
Romanticism, 534, 559
Ronche, Giacomo del, 325–26
Roosevelt, Eleanor, 120, 219, 260
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 120, 177–79, 219, 433
Perkins and, 429–30
Roosevelt, Sara, 219
Roots (Haley), 51
Rubin, Robert, 285–86
rules, 373
grandiosity and, 313–14
in groups, 417–18, 422
Russell, Richard, 174–81
Sacre coronation carriage, 521, 531–32, 536
Saint, 250
saintliness, 100, 194, 220, 241
Sakhalin Island, 208–9
Saldivar, Yolanda, 281–82
salons, 553
Sand, George, 338
sans-culottes, 527
Sarkozy, Nicolas, 93–94
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 378
Saul, King, 273
Savior, 126
schadenfreude, 275, 289
Schary, Dore, 106
Scipio Africanus, 457
Schopenhauer, Arthur, 1, 79–80, 149, 230, 275, 582
Schorr, Daniel, 235
scientists, 350–51
Scott, Tom, 480–82, 488–89
Selena, 281–82
self
childhood sense of, 348
higher and lower, 10–11, 469–70
social, 348
viewing with expansive attitude, 226–27
self-absorption, 42, 78–79, 82, 142, 182, 463, 577, 582
self-assessment and learning, masculine and feminine styles of, 353–54
self-awareness, 113–14, 247
grandiosity and, 310
groups and, 391
self-confidence, 92, 94, 113–14, 354, 422, 437, 458
Self-entitled Slacker, 279–80
self-esteem, 43–48, 389, 422
aggression and, 496–97
low, 354
self-image, 43, 44, 47, 48, 389
self-knowledge, 38
of limits, 310
and overcoming negative traits, 9
self-love, 42, 47, 48, 50
narcissism and, 47
see also narcissism, narcissists
self-objects, 45
self-opinion, 172–201, 422
aggression and, 491–92
autonomy in, 185, 186, 191–92
goodness in, 185, 186, 194–95
grandiose, see grandiosity
intelligence in, 185, 186, 193–94
low, 187, 196
personalized, 185–86
your own, 201
self-sabotage and self-destructive behavior, 116, 161, 229, 240
see also attitude, negative
Severus, Cassius, 116
Sexualizer, 124–25
Sforza, Caterina, 320–32
Sforza, Galeazzo Maria, 320–22, 324, 327, 328, 330
Shackleton, Ernest Henry, 67–71, 355
Shadow, 4, 6, 231–60, 472
“accidental” behavior and, 245
contradictory behavior and, 241–42, 244, 248–54
creation of, 242–43
denial and, 244–45
dreams and, 256–57
embracing, 257–58
emotional outbursts and, 244
exploring, 258–59
Extreme Entrepreneur and, 253–54
Fanatic and, 251–52
generations and, 549
integration of, 254–60
Jung on, 242
leaders and, 247
niceness and, 259, 260
overidealization and, 245–46
Passive-Aggressive Charmer and, 250–51
projection and, 246
Rigid Rationalist and, 252–53
Saint and, 250
seeing, 255–57
showing, 259–60
Snob and, 252–53
Tough Guy and, 249–50
Shadow Enabler, 427–29
Shakespeare, William, 81, 85, 144
shamans, 349, 355
Sharp-Hughes Tool Company, 102, 103, 104, 107, 109–10
Shelley, Harriet, 262, 264
Shelley, Mary, 261–71, 284
Jane Williams and, 262–71, 274–76, 286
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 261–70
Shelley, Percy Florence, 261, 264–67, 270
Sherman, William Tecumseh, 167
shortsightedness, 150–71
lost in trivia, 168–69
signs of, and strategies to overcome, 162–69
tactical hell, 165
ticker tape fever, 166–68
unintended consequences, 162–65
Shuttlesworth, Fred, 363, 364
silence, 468
Sixtus IV, Pope, 322, 323
Sixtus V, Pope, 446
smiles, 90
Snob, 252–53
social animals, 24, 25, 30, 42, 188, 189, 280, 410–11, 414, 491
social force, 408–11, 422
social media, 6, 26, 49, 146, 194, 247, 389, 410, 413, 423, 462, 468, 551
aggression and, 491
envy and, 286
grandiosity and, 307
social personality, 391
sociology, 538
Socrates, 162, 199–200, 465
solitary confinement, 409
Sontag, Susan, 355
Sophocles, 498
soul, 229–30
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), 362–63, 365
Southern Improvement Company (SIC), 478–80, 488
South Sea Company, 150–58, 415
Soviet Union, 234
Spain, 168–69, 444–46, 452
Sparta, 13–14, 16–18
spouse, choice of, 118
Spruce Goose, 106
Stalin, Joseph, 37, 54–59
Standard Oil, 478–85, 487–88, 502
standards of excellence, 471
status
need for, 407
seeking through attention, 6
Status Fiend, 280–81
Steinbrenner, George, 281
Stendhal, 88
Stevenson, Robert Louis, 248
Stewart, Martha, 287
Stirrer, 426–27, 432
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 167
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The (Stevenson), 248
stress, 372–73, 375–76
relationships in handling of, 112–13
rising pressure, 34–35
strongman, 462
Sublime, 319, 584–86
submission/dominance cues, 86, 91–95, 100
Subtle-Superiority Strategy, 504–5
success
envy and, 283–84
pursuit of, 387–88
sudden, 34, 283
Suetonius, 223
superiority
bias, 31–32
Subtle-Superiority Strategy, 504–5
Superior Man, 346–47
Surin, Jean-Joseph, 60–62
Swann’s Way (Proust), 345
Swift, Jonathan, 153, 154
Sympathy Strategy, 505–6
symptoms, psychosomatic, 94, 220
Syracuse, 17–18
taboos, 141, 373
tactical hell, 165
Talman, William, 280
Teacher, 464
technology, 411, 551, 561, 577
aggression and, 502
grandiosity and, 307
internet, 49, 502
see also social media
terrorism, 161
Thalberg, Irving, 226
theatrical quality of social life, 81, 82
see also role-playing
thinking, masculine and feminine styles of, 350–51
Tiberius, 223–24
ticker tape fever, 166–68
Tidewater Pipeline Company, 482–84
time, 169–71, 555–61
awakening to the shortness of life, 580–81
Time, 232
timidity, 515
Tolstaya, Sonya Behrs, 63–66
Tolstoy, Leo, 63–66
Tom Sawyer (Twain), 191–92
tone, and authority, 466–67
Tough Guy, 249–50
toxic types, 8, 47, 121–27
Big Talker, 124–25
Drama Magnet, 123–24
Easy Moralizer, 126–27
Hyperperfectionist, 121–22, 129
Pampered Prince/Princess, 125
Personalizer, 123, 129
Pleaser, 125–26, 129, 219
Relentless Rebel, 122–23, 129
Savior, 126
Sexualizer, 124–25
tribalism, 6, 423–24, 463
trigger points from early childhood, 32–33
trivia, being lost in, 168–69
troubadours, 559
Truman, Harry, 175
truth, 138, 142
Truth Seeker, 463–64
Tydings, Millard, 175–76
Tyrone, Hugh O’Neill, Earl of, 447
ubiquity, illusion of, 138–39
unconscious, 258
uniqueness, 373–74, 378, 388, 411, 470–71, 516
unintended consequences, 162–65
Ursuline nuns, 59–62
utopia, 140, 306
Valentino, Rudolph, 549
validation, 184, 186
nonverbal, 410
see also self-opinion
Vidal, Gore, 272
Vietnam War, 107, 234, 235, 365, 366, 369, 417, 425, 548
vision, of leaders, 458–59, 465–66
Visionary Artist, 463
visual system, 140
Voltaire, 532
von Sternberg, Josef, 106
Voting Rights Act, 365
voyeurism, 146
Wagner, Richard, 221–22, 246
warfare, 501–3
Washington Post, 235, 236
Watergate scandal, 96, 236–38, 425, 548
Watson, Thomas, 433
Watzlawick, Paul, 197
Wayne, John, 106, 107
Weakland, John H., 197
Wells, Frank, 293–97, 300
Whitman, Walt, 71
Wilde, Oscar, 201
Wilder, Billy, 192
Williams, Edward, 262–67, 269
Williams, Jane, 262–71, 274–76, 286
Wilson, Woodrow, 233
Wise Blood (O’Connor), 565, 568, 59
Wollstonecraft, Mary, 262, 560
Woman to Worship Him, 347–48
women
niceness and, 260
successful, envy of, 284–85
see also gender roles and masculine and feminine traits
Wonderful World of Disney, The, 294
Woods, Tiger, 378
work world, 371–72, 494, 548
world, viewing with expansive attitude, 225
World War II, 104, 175, 318, 417, 545, 548, 554, 560
Chanel and, 135–36
Pearl Harbor attack, 163–64
Wren, Christopher, 279–80
wu-wei, 352
Xenophon, 319, 454, 465
Yahoo!, 298
Yamamoto, Kajiro, 379
Yizhen Middle School (YMS), 391–92, 394, 396, 398–401, 403–5
youth culture, 541, 543, 576–77
zao fan, 394
zeitgeist, 518, 543, 547, 550, 551, 554, 558
Zeus, 19
Zhuge Liang, 162

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
 About the Author

Robert Greene, the #1 New York Times bestselling

author of The 48 Laws of Power, The 33 Strategies of
War, The Art of Seduction, and Mastery, is an
internationally renowned expert on power strategies. He
lives in Los Angeles.
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