October 14th, 2008

The 48 LAWS of Power

Just thought of posting this after somehow browsing thru it..saw this post from a friend's blog site and just wanted to share to somehow help everyone understand and somehow live life this way so that it won't be as complicated as it seems...

 

The 48 Laws of Power

by Robert Greene and Joost Elffers

Law 1

Never Outshine the Master

Always make those above you feel comfortably superior.  In your desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite – inspire fear and insecurity.  Make your masters appear more brilliant than they are and you will attain the heights of power.

Law 2

Never put too Much Trust in Friends, Learn how to use Enemies

Be wary of friends-they will betray you more quickly, for they are easily aroused to envy.  They also become spoiled and tyrannical. But hire a former enemy and he will be more loyal than a friend, because he has more to prove.  In fact, you have more to fear from friends than from enemies.  If you have no enemies, find a way to make them.

 Law 3

Conceal your Intentions

Keep people off-balance and in the dark by never revealing the purpose behind your actions.  If they have no clue what you are up to, they cannot prepare a defense.  Guide them far enough down the wrong path, envelope them in enough smoke, and by the time they realize your intentions, it will be too late.

 Law 4

Always Say Less than Necessary

When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control.  Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinxlike.  Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less.  The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish.

 

 

 

 Law 5

So Much Depends on Reputation – Guard it with your Life

Reputation is the cornerstone of power.  Through reputation alone you can intimidate and win; once you slip, however, you are vulnerable, and will be attacked on all sides.  Make your reputation unassailable.  Always be alert to potential attacks and thwart them before they happen.  Meanwhile, learn to destroy your enemies by opening holes in their own reputations.  Then stand aside and let public opinion hang them.

 Law 6

Court Attention at all Cost

Everything is judged by its appearance; what is unseen counts for nothing.  Never let yourself get lost in the crowd, then, or buried in oblivion.  Stand out.  Be conspicuous, at all cost.  Make yourself a magnet of attention by appearing larger, more colorful, more mysterious, than the bland and timid masses.

  Law 7

Get others to do the Work for you, but Always Take the Credit

Use the wisdom, knowledge, and legwork of other people to further your own cause.  Not only will such assistance save you valuable time and energy, it will give you a godlike aura of efficiency and speed.  In the end your helpers will be forgotten and you will be remembered.  Never do yourself what others can do for you.

 Law 8

Make other People come to you – use Bait if Necessary

When you force the other person to act, you are the one in control.  It is always better to make your opponent come to you, abandoning his own plans in the process.  Lure him with fabulous gains – then attack.  You hold the cards.

 Law 9

Win through your Actions, Never through Argument

Any momentary triumph you think gained through argument is really a Pyrrhic victory:  The resentment and ill will you stir up is stronger and lasts longer than any momentary change of opinion.  It is much more powerful to get others to agree with you through your actions, without saying a word.  Demonstrate, do not explicate.

 

 Law 10

Infection: Avoid the Unhappy and Unlucky

You can die from someone else’s misery – emotional states are as infectious as disease.  You may feel you are helping the drowning man but you are only precipitating your own disaster.  The unfortunate sometimes draw misfortune on themselves; they will also draw it on you.  Associate with the happy and fortunate instead.

Law 11

Learn to Keep People Dependent on You

To maintain your independence you must always be needed and wanted.  The more you are relied on, the more freedom you have.  Make people depend on you for their happiness and prosperity and you have nothing to fear.  Never teach them enough so that they can do without you.

 Law 12

                          Use Selective Honesty and Generosity to Disarm your Victim

One sincere and honest move will cover over dozens of dishonest ones.  Open-hearted gestures of honesty and generosity bring down the guard of even the most suspicious people.  Once your selective honesty opens a hole in their armor, you can deceive and manipulate them at will.  A timely gift – a Trojan horse – will serve the same purpose.

 Law 13

When Asking for Help, Appeal to People’s Self-Interest,

Never to their Mercy or Gratitude

If you need to turn to an ally for help, do not bother to remind him of your past assistance and good deeds.  He will find a way to ignore you.  Instead, uncover something in your request, or in your alliance with him, that will benefit him, and emphasize it out of all proportion.  He will respond enthusiastically when he sees something to be gained for himself.

 Law 14

Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy

Knowing about your rival is critical.  Use spies to gather valuable information that will keep you a step ahead.  Better still: Play the spy yourself.  In polite social encounters, learn to probe.  Ask indirect questions to get people to reveal their weaknesses and intentions.  There is no occasion that is not an opportunity for artful spying.

 Law 15

Crush your Enemy Totally

All great leaders since Moses have known that a feared enemy must be crushed completely.  (Sometimes they have learned this the hard way.)  If one ember is left alight, no matter how dimly it smolders, a fire will eventually break out.  More is lost through stopping halfway than through total annihilation:  The enemy will recover, and will seek revenge.  Crush him, not only in body but in spirit.

 Law 16

Use Absence to Increase Respect and Honor

Too much circulation makes the price go down:  The more you are seen and heard from, the more common you appear.  If you are already established in a group, temporary withdrawal from it will make you more talked about, even more admired.  You must learn when to leave.  Create value through scarcity.

 Law 17

Keep Others in Suspended Terror: Cultivate an Air of Unpredictability

Humans are creatures of habit with an insatiable need to see familiarity in other people’s actions.  Your predictability gives them a sense of control.  Turn the tables: Be deliberately unpredictable.  Behavior that seems to have no consistency or purpose will keep them off-balance, and they will wear themselves out trying to explain your moves.  Taken to an extreme, this strategy can intimidate and terrorize.

 Law 18

Do Not Build Fortresses to Protect Yourself – Isolation is Dangerous

The world is dangerous and enemies are everywhere – everyone has to protect themselves.  A fortress seems the safest. But isolation exposes you to more dangers than it protects you from – it cuts you off from valuable information, it makes you conspicuous and an easy target.  Better to circulate among people find allies, mingle.  You are shielded from your enemies by the crowd.

 Law 19

Know Who You’re Dealing with – Do Not Offend the Wrong Person

There are many different kinds of people in the world, and you can never assume that everyone will react to your strategies in the same way.  Deceive or outmaneuver some people and they will spend the rest of their lives seeking revenge.  They are wolves in lambs’ clothing.  Choose your victims and opponents carefully, then – never offend or deceive the wrong person.

 Law 20

Do Not Commit to Anyone

It is the fool who always rushes to take sides.  Do not commit to any side or cause but yourself.  By maintaining your independence, you become the master of others – playing people against one another, making them pursue you.

 Law 21

Play a Sucker to Catch a Sucker – Seem Dumber than your Mark

No one likes feeling stupider than the next persons.  The trick, is to make your victims feel smart – and not just smart, but smarter than you are.  Once convinced of this, they will never suspect that you may have ulterior motives.

 Law 22

Use the Surrender Tactic: Transform Weakness into Power

When you are weaker, never fight for honor’s sake; choose surrender instead.  Surrender gives you time to recover, time to torment and irritate your conqueror, time to wait for his power to wane.  Do not give him the satisfaction of fighting and defeating you – surrender first.  By turning the other check you infuriate and unsettle him.  Make surrender a tool of power.

 Law 23

Concentrate Your Forces

Conserve your forces and energies by keeping them concentrated at their strongest point.  You gain more by finding a rich mine and mining it deeper, than by flitting from one shallow mine to another – intensity defeats extensity every time.  When looking for sources of power to elevate you, find the one key patron, the fat cow who will give you milk for a long time to come.

 Law 24

Play the Perfect Courtier

The perfect courtier thrives in a world where everything revolves around power and political dexterity.  He has mastered the art of indirection; he flatters, yields to superiors, and asserts power over others in the mot oblique and graceful manner.  Learn and apply the laws of courtiership and there will be no limit to how far you can rise in the court.

 

 

Law 25

Re-Create Yourself

Do not accept the roles that society foists on you.  Re-create yourself by forging a new identity, one that commands attention and never bores the audience.  Be the master of your own image rather than letting others define if for you.  Incorporate dramatic devices into your public gestures and actions – your power will be enhanced and your character will seem larger than life.

 Law 26

Keep Your Hands Clean

You must seem a paragon of civility and efficiency: Your hands are never soiled by mistakes and nasty deeds.  Maintain such a spotless appearance by using others as scapegoats and cat’s-paws to disguise your involvement.

Law 27

Play on People’s Need to Believe to Create a Cultlike Following

People have an overwhelming desire to believe in something.  Become the focal point of such desire by offering them a cause, a new faith to follow.  Keep your words vague but full of promise; emphasize enthusiasm over rationality and clear thinking.  Give your new disciples rituals to perform, ask them to make sacrifices on your behalf.  In the absence of organized religion and grand causes, your new belief system will bring you untold power.

 Law 28

Enter Action with Boldness

If you are unsure of a course of action, do not attempt it.  Your doubts and hesitations will infect your execution.  Timidity is dangerous:  Better to enter with boldness.  Any mistakes you commit through audacity are easily corrected with more audacity.  Everyone admires the bold; no one honors the timid.

 Law 29

Plan All the Way to the End

The ending is everything.  Plan all the way to it, taking into account all the possible consequences, obstacles, and twists of fortune that might reverse your hard work and give the glory to others.  By planning to the end you will not be overwhelmed by circumstances and you will know when to stop.  Gently guide fortune and help determine the future by thinking far ahead.

 Law 30

Make your Accomplishments Seem Effortless

Your actions must seem natural and executed with ease.  All the toil and practice that go into them, and also all the clever tricks, must be concealed.  When you act, act effortlessly, as if you could do much more.  Avoid the temptation of revealing how hard you work – it only raises questions.  Teach no one your tricks or they will be used against you.

 Law 31

Control the Options: Get Others to Play with the Cards you Deal

The best deceptions are the ones that seem to give the other person a choice:  Your victims feel they are in control, but are actually your puppets.  Give people options that come out in your favor whichever one they choose.  Force them to make choices between the lesser of two evils, both of which serve your purpose.  Put them on the horns of a dilemma:  They are gored wherever they turn.

 Law 32

Play to People’s Fantasies

The truth is often avoided because it is ugly and unpleasant.  Never appeal to truth and reality unless you are prepared for the anger that comes for disenchantment.  Life is so harsh and distressing that people who can manufacture romance or conjure up fantasy are like oases in the desert:  Everyone flocks to them. There is great power in tapping into the fantasies of the masses.

 Law 33

Discover Each Man’s Thumbscrew

Everyone has a weakness, a gap in the castle wall.  That weakness is usual y an insecurity, an uncontrollable emotion or need; it can also be a small secret pleasure.  Either way, once found, it is a thumbscrew you can turn to your advantage.

  Law 34

Be Royal in your Own Fashion:  Act like a King to be treated like one

The way you carry yourself will often determine how you are treated; In the long run, appearing vulgar or common will make people disrespect you.  For a king respects himself and inspires the same sentiment in others.  By acting regally and confident of your powers, you make yourself seem destined to wear a crown.

 

Currently feeling: indescribable

Posted by njl_angel at 12:17 AM | Add a Comment

August 12th, 2008

my 1st year anniversary at work

just thought of writing this since I was surfing my multiply and had read my friend's blog about her 1st yr at work. Thought of doing this just to somehow recall what I have learn in my 1 year of working for a telecoms company as a customer service representative...

 

Actually its my 1yr n 3 months at work.. will update this again when I could think more of what I had learned..haha..

 

the first few months was really hard..or should I stay really tough..

1]Trusted everyone in terms of my work. but as time passed I have learn that not everyone is really trusted in my line of work. there are lots of "ahas"  or should I say evils around...U should always be careful.

2] there are indeed many kinds of people u meet..most of them are nice ones, but much of them are rude, arrogant, and some are really hard to deal with..others are uneducated so they act like they are inside the public market when inquiring or dealing with u.

3]People who are really rich doesn't boast of what they own or how much their credit limit are (talking about credit card limit in applying for a line) but the "pretending to be rich" people are too boastful about how much they have and would even say that they own this or that..


4] People who inquire about requirements are lazy in terms of reading it by themselves or should I say that they refuse to read and wanted us customer service ppl to read for them. most of them don't even know how to fill up the application form or know how to read the billing statement and ended up irate.

 

5] Subscribers always assume on something they don't know and they would end up embarrased after being irate since at the end, they would shut up after knowing what's wrong with their fone or with their account.

 

6] Beware of D.O.M's, maniacs and other creatures who visits the center just to see u and would ask stupid questions for them to simply talk to u.

 

7] some good prospects u meet (for lifetime partners) are either taken, married or at times super torpe.. Sometimes I would ask myself " where was I when this guy wasn't taken yet?" haha..kapal ko tlaga..


8] Not all of ur officemates are being true in terms of being ur friends, some are just pretending to be good to u and at the same time good to ur enemies.

9] If u feel the client/ officer is wrong in terms of accusing u on something...answer back...never hold back in doing so..because the more u keep silent the more they will make more issues about u. U can always be nice but when tough times come..learn to answer back especially when u feel u are right and they are wrong.. (I know u might be afraid that the officer will fire u out..but at least u have fought for what is right...come on..don't be such a loser!)

10] always be patient especially in dealing with difficult people..just rant after the client exits the center.


11] learn to unwind w/ friends..

12] give all ur attention to what u are doing to avoid mistakes..but never feel too stressed if u commit mistakes..after all..even the officers have big mistakes that ends up with u being irated by ur client.

13] learn to voice out what u want or what is right for people to respect u...don't mind them if they think that ur too epal to do so..

14] befriend everyone at work but always be careful of who u trust just to avoid gossips...

Posted by njl_angel at 12:35 AM | Add a Comment

July 6th, 2008

shopping...to forget..

Today I had some retail therapy for me to somehow forget about what I wish I didn't knew.. As we were going to another mall w/ my friend I had then told her about what had happened yesterday..then had a few chika over merienda, after discussing it over merienda I just had forget part of it..I don't wanna remember..but of course it would be part of what I am...I have to learn from it..and not make the same mistake again the next time I will be finding the one.
Posted by njl_angel at 11:23 PM | Add a Comment

July 5th, 2008

I wish I didn't know

the past few days I had been receiving text messages or should I say quotes that talks about something u wish u never knew, never felt, never see so that there will be no pain... I just dreaded those messages since it doesn't even ring a bell in me...I can't relate to it at some point..

 

But......

 

Just awhile ago..I suddenly realized that it did struck me hard.. you know why? its because the guy I like called me... at first I thought he was just calling me just to ask something or will be informing me about his business trip to Davao again.. But I was wrong..it was first about the people he plans to invite on our group for his wedding then we were talking about his wedding then he suddenly had mentioned that Tomorrow is his engagement! I was a bit devastated...mixed emotions for me as well as for him since he joked " kidnapin nyo na lang ako kasi ayoko pumunta sa engagement ko" it somewhat had given me a bit or should a say a piece of hope that their might be even just (.00000000 times one million chance) that we can be together soon and he will call off his wedding... but reality came again when I was thinking "HEY! its too late" the engagement is tomorrow! oh well..its heart breaking..devastating..tragic..whatever u call it..it breaks my heart that I am invited on his wedding..we still have unfinished business to talk about and to finish for all of what I am feeling to be clear. I spoiled the chance I got when he was here for two days for business trip and he simply came to visit and spend time with me..too bad we hadn't had the time to talk about it..

 

OH well..its too late...

 

 

by the way..it was funny that one time out of nowhere I was so used of not thinking of him or anything but I had this strong feeling that one day he will be back here..to surprise me..it was a clear picture of him visiting me here again..hahaha..I guess I should stop dreaming..hahaha... 

Currently feeling: crushed
Posted by njl_angel at 11:40 PM | 2 give me a hug...

June 5th, 2008

walang hiyang buhay!

ang hirap pala maging isang totoong kaibigan..gnawa ko na ang lahat para maging ok kami ngunit ganun pa rin naman..halos ako ang naghirap para sa mga bagay na ayaw gawin ng kaibigan ko para lang maramdaman nya na may gamit rin pala ung site na sinasabi ko sa kanya na ok.. Tumawag siya kanina upang ako ay kamustahin..nagmamadali ako kaninang papasok ng sasakyan dahil ako ay sinundo ng kapatid ko galing sa trabaho.. ng biglang may tumatawag..nung una akala ko parents ko ang tumawag..nde ko na tiningnan kung cno ung tumawag at sinagot ko na agad..nung pag sagot ko nagpasalamat pa sya at nagsabi pa na napaka buting tao ko daw dahil nagka oras ako na gawan sya ng cd na may mga litrato namin at konting mga kanta na gusto ko ibahagi sa kanya, biglang nabanggit ko na nakta ko na ung mga litrato nila nung nagpnta sila ng iisa ko pang kaibigan sa probinsya..pagkatapos ng usapang un biglang napagsabihan ako na wag ko na daw i-view ang friendster profile ng kanya mga lalakeng kaibigan, dahil baka daw isipin ng mga lalakeng un na nagkukwento sya sa akin tungkol sa mga lalakeng un. ako naman napa-isip at sinabi ko na sobrang babaw n sobrang no big deal ung mga ganun..parang feel ko sya lang ung gumagawa ng big deal out of it! nakakainis! kala mo naman sino sya..

 

Lately mejo wala ako sa mood and mejo palaban ako sa office.dahil napag sabihan nanaman ako ng bading namin na officer na nde daw ok trabaho ko..parang ako lang ung sinisisi nila dahil nde kami naka hit ng quota last month (MAY 2008), parang ako lang ang nde gumagawa ng paraan.. nde lang nila nakkta ung mga gnagawa ko sa office..puro lang ako ang sinisisi kasi shempre ako ung nsa frontline..sobrang unfair..sobrang kala mo sino sila..e yang baklang yan pa naman ung pnaka palpak sa lahat ng palpak..nakakasawa na makipag away..nakakasawa na rin magkaroon ng ganitong pakiramdam..ngunit andto na ito..parang ngayon lang ata ako nagka freedom ulit mag voice out kung ano man gusto ko sabihin, parang ngayon ko lang ulit nabuksan ang mata ko sa katotohanan na puro lang sila plastik..na wala akong kaibigan sa lahat sa office..sobrang feel ko wala tlaga akong kakampi..alam ko naman meron sila sarili nilang trabaho..ang akin lang sana tinutulungan rin nila ako..parang pag nde nagkaquota ako na lang lagi ung sinisisi kasi ako ung kumukuha ng applications..pero teka...kasalanan ko ba kung approved na ang mga clients ko at wala silang panahion na kunin agad ang kanilang mga telepono?? parang tanga ang mga tao sa office..nagsasawa na rin ako..cguro few more months na lang aalis na rin ako..nde rin naman ok ang sweldo ko eh..parang manila style pa rin ako dto..ako gumagastos sa pagkain ko..sa transpo ko..un nga lang at the end of the day pag-uwi ko andto family ko kaya natitiis ko! hayyyy..ang hirap mabuhay! sana mamatay na lang silang lahat! sawang sawa na ako!!!

 

Posted by njl_angel at 11:56 PM | Add a Comment
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