Building a Daily Success Worksheet: Tactics – The 48 Laws of Power
Does Power = Success? If your goal is power for power’s sake, yes, but otherwise, not necessarily. People who hate this book express a revulsion at its underlying assumption that power is success – but that is the audience for whom this book is intended, and I believe it should be judged as such.
I have already categorized the 48 Laws according to the Covey Credibility Criterion previously – however I am going to try to adapt it to find a place for it in my Daily Success Worksheet (forthcoming).
Daily Practice
- General Behavioral Advice
- Law 3: Conceal Your Intentions
- Law 4: Always Say Less than Necessary
- Law 13: When Asking for Help, Appeal to People’s Self-Interest, Never to their Mercy or Gratitude
- Law 19: Know Who You’re Dealing With – Do Not Offend the Wrong Person
- Law 23: Concentrate Your Forces
- Law 28: Enter Action with Boldness
- Law 30: Make Your Accomplishments Seem Effortless
- Law 33: Discover Each Man’s Thumbscrew
- Law 35: Master the Art of Timing
- Law 40: Despise the Free Lunch
- Law 45: Preach the Need for Change, but never Reform too much at once
- Specific to Interacting with Peers
- Law 2: Never Put Too Much Trust in Friends, Learn How to Use Enemies
- Law 7: Get Others To Do The Work For You, but Always Take the Credit
- Law 8: Make Other People Come to You – Use Bait If Necessary
- Law 10: Infection: Avoid the Unhappy and Unlucky
- Law 11: Learn to Keep People Dependent on You
- Law 16: Use Absence to Increase Respect and Honor
- Law 18: Do Not Build Fortresses to Protect Yourself – Isolation is Dangerous
- Law 27: Play on People’s Need to Believe to Create a Cultlike Following
- Law 34: Be Royal in Your Own Fashion: Act like a King to be Treated like one
- Law 36: Disdain things you cannot have: Ignoring them is the Best Revenge
- Law 38: Think as you like but Behave like others
- Law 43: Work on the Hearts and Minds of others
- Specific to Interacting with Enemies
- Law 2: Never Put Too Much Trust in Friends, Learn How to Use Enemies
- Law 9: Win Through Your Actions, Never Through Argument
- Law 12: Use Selective Honesty and Generosity to Disarm Your Victim
- Law 14: Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy
- Law 15: Crush Your Enemy Totally
- Law 21: Play a Sucker to Catch a Sucker – Seem Dumber than Your Mark
- Law 22: Use the Surrender Tactic: Transform Weakness into Power
- Law 29: Plan All the Way to the End
- Law 31: Control the Options: Get Others to play with the Cards you Deal
- Law 39: Stir Up Waters to Catch Fish
- Law 42: Strike the Shepherd and the Sheep will scatter.
- Law 44: Disarm and Infuriate with the Mirror Effect
- Law 47: Do not go past the mark you aimed for: In Victory, Learn When to Stop
- Law 48: Assume Formlessness
- Specific to Interacting with Superiors
- Law 1: Never Outshine the Master
- Law 6: Court Attention at All Cost
- Law 20: Do Not Commit to Anyone
- Law 24: Play the Perfect Courtier
- Reputation
- Law 5: So Much Depends on Reputation – Guard It With Your Life
- Law 7: Get Others To Do The Work For You, but Always Take the Credit
- Law 17: Keep Others in Suspended Terror: Cultivate an Air of Unpredictability
- Law 25: Re-create Yourself
- Law 26: Keep Your Hands Clean
- Law 32: Play to People’s Fantasies
- Law 37: Create Compelling Spectacles
- Law 46: Never Appear Too Perfect
Special Situations
- Law 41: Avoid Stepping Into A Great Man’s Shoes
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