Law 34 - BE ROYAL IN YOUR OWN FASHION: ACT LIKE A KING TO BE TREATED LIKE ONE

Extracts from the 48 laws of power by Robert Greene

Judgement:

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.

An example: Napoleon who is a Showman; to have presence.

Powerful people may be tempted to affect a common-man aura, trying to create the illusion that they and their subjects or underlings are basically the same.

But the people whom this false gesture is intended to impress will quickly see through it.

They understand that they are not being given more power - that it only appears as if they shared in the powerful person's fate.

The only kind of common touch that works is the kind affected by Franklin Roosevelt, a style that said the president shared values and goals with the common people even while he remained a patrician at heart.

He never pretended to erase the distance from the crowd.

Leaders who try to dissolve that distance through false chumminess gradually lose the ability to inspire loyalty, fear or love.

Instead they elicit contempt.

Understand: It is within your power to set your own price. How you carry yourself reflects what you think of yourself.

If you ask for little, shuffle your feet and lower your head, people will assume this reflects your character. But this behaviour is not you -

it is only how you have chosen to present yourself to others.

Columbus Strategy:

1. Always make a bold demand. Set your price high and do not waver.

2. In a dignified manner, go after the highest person in the building,

This immediately puts you on the same plane as the chief executive you are attacking.

It is the David and Goliath Strategy: By choosing a great opponent, you create the appearance of greatness.

3. Give a gift of sort to those above you. This is the strategy of those who have a patron: By giving your patron a gift, you are essentially saying that the two of you are equal.

It is the old con game of giving so that you can take.

With all great deceivers there is a noteworthy occurrence to which they owe their power.

In the actual act of deception, they are overcome by belief in themselves: it is this which then speaks so miraculously and compelling to those around them.

Remember: It is up to you to set your own price, ask for less and that is just what you will get. Ask for more, however, and you send a signal that you are worth a king's ransom.

Even those who turn you down respect you for your confidence and that respect will eventually pay off in ways you cannot imagine.

Authority: Everyone should be royal after his own fashion.

Let all your actions, even though they are not those of a king, be, in their own sphere, worthy of one.

Be sublime in your deeds, lofty in your thoughts; and in all your doings show that you deserve to be a king even though you are not one.

(Baltasar Gracian, 1601-1658)

Reversal:

The idea of regal confidence is to differentiate yourself from others, but if you take it too far, it will be your own undoing.

Never elevate yourself by humiliating others.

Also, it is never a good idea to loom too high above the crowd - you make an easy target.

Stiff 'kingliness' offends people and spur revolts.

Understand: You are radiating confidence, not arrogance or disdain.

Finally, power can be found through earthly vulgarity, which prove to be amusing by its extremeness.

To win this game by going beyond limits; extremeness is dangerous

There will always be people more vulgar, younger or worse.