Author: Robert Greene
Publisher: Penguin Books – 452 pages
Book Review by: Nano Khilnani
At the outset, I would say that the best use of power is for good, not evil purposes. It is not for cheating or fraud. The good could be for you or for others. Why do I say this? Because ultimately when people discover that you are using your power to do things that are improper or immoral, you will get discovered and lose your power.
Writing a review on this book that explains how to learn to successfully use such a large range of techniques – 48 of them – is to say the least, a difficult task. Moreover, space in this book reviews section does not permit me to describe each of the 48 laws of power.
Robert Greene, the author of this bestselling book has written two other books – The Laws of Seduction and The 33 Strategies of War. He has worked as a writer and editor at several magazines, including Esquire. He is also a sought-out speaker. He has a degree in classical studies, has lived in Barcelona, London and Paris and speaks several languages. He is also a playwright and lives in Los Angeles.
What are some specific ways this book can help you? Below we name five of them.
Since success in any endeavor requires people skills, especially in helping get people what they want so you can get what you want, this book shows you numerous ways in helping people satisfy their psychological needs.
People’s behavior is driven by their egos. They want to feel important and be perceived as smart or even brilliant. They want admiration, respect and love from their fellow beings. Robert Greene shows you 48 different ways to do that. But in that process, he demonstrates how you can benefit and achieve your own short- and long-term objectives.
1. If you’re looking to get a job, you can make yourself be perceived as someone who is in demand by many companies and people using Law No.6: Court Attention at All Cost. In that process you can probably ask for and get a higher amount than the salary offered for the position you seek.
2. If you’re in sales and trying to lose a deal in the first meeting with the prospect, you can learn, through skilled questioning, what is his or her most severe pain that you can provide relief for, with your product or service. You can achieve your purpose by using Law No.33: Discover Each Man’s Thumbscrew.
3. If you’re trying to find out if someone you love, loves you too, you can simply ask: “Do love me?” (after of course some time in a relationship wherein you can guess at or gauge his-her feelings towards you). But if you feel insecure that you will get a “No” response, you need to “learn to stand back when the time is not ripe yet, and to strike fiercely when it has reached fruition,” which is the gist of Law No. 35: Master the Art of Timing.
4. Another specific way you can benefit from learning and practicing the 48 laws of power is to effect governmental change – for example, to bring down escalating property taxes. People are creatures of habit, so even when they see their tax bills go up and up year after year, they do not think they can do much to hold them down, much less get them reduced.
Here is how you can be an agent of change, “if you are an outsider trying to build a power base, make a show of respective the old (government’s) way of doing things.” By using Law No. 45: Preach the Need for Change, But Never Reform Too Much At Once. Small, incremental, regular reductions can amount to substantial tax reductions over time.
5. If you’re in business and you want to develop a large, predictable and growing source of income, you can list down either the sources of your biggest customers or the customers themselves and decide to focus on them intensely, the “fat cows who will give you milk for a long time to come.” This is the essence of Law No. 23: Concentrate Your Forces.
Find out what are some of the other laws of power you can use from this book to bring about specific benefits to you in many areas your life, such as your business, your career, your family, your finances, your friends, your love life, your government and much more.
This is a very useful book for anyone who wants to be a winner in life (and there is nothing wrong with winning fairly). The book reflects the expertise, insight and high intelligence of Robert Greene. A lot of hard work has gone into it, as evidenced not only from its length of 452 pages, its list of 36 books used for research and reference, as itemized in the Bibliography, and the large number of terms used in it, as shown in its 20-page Index. With all this, the author provides immense value to readers.
