Stir up waters

January 12, 2017January 12, 2017 ~ J. Michael Dennis ~ Leave a comment

In adversity, always maintain your composure and dignity

Anger and emotion are strategically counterproductive. You must always stay calm and objective. But if you can make your enemies and rivals angry while staying calm yourself, you gain a decided advantage. Put your rivals and enemies off-balance: Find their chink in their vanity through which you can rattle them and you hold the strings.

If possible, no animosity should be felt for anyone. To speak angrily to a person, to show your hatred by what you say or by the way you look, is an unnecessary, dangerous, foolish, ridiculous, vulgar proceeding. Anger or hatred should never be shown otherwise than in what you do; and feelings will be all the more effective in action, in so far as you avoid the exhibition of them in any other way.

Maintain composure and dignity

What a pity it is to see a great man display such bad manners. This is the problem with the angry response. At first it may strike fear and terror, but only in some, and as the days pass and the storm clears, other responses emerge, embarrassment and uneasiness about the shouter’s capacity for going out of control, and resentment of what has been said. Losing your temper, you always make unfair and exaggerated accusations.

To show your frustration is to show that you have lost your power to shape events; it is the helpless action of the child who resorts to a hysterical fit to get his way. The successful and powerful never reveal this kind of weakness. Tantrums neither intimidate nor inspire loyalty. They only create doubts and uneasiness about your power. Exposing your weakness, these stormy eruptions often herald a fall.

Maintain control

You want to expose your rivals and enemies, draw them out, get under their skin and push them into action before they are ready. Always see several moves ahead, think everything out ahead making sure the actions of your rivals and enemies will come to nothing, and that you can use these actions against them.

When the waters are still, your opponents have the time and space to plot actions that they will initiate and control. So, stir the waters, force the fish to the surface, get your rivals and enemies to act before they are ready, steal the initiative. The best way to do this is to play on uncontrollable emotions such as pride, vanity, love and hate. The angrier your enemies and rivals become, the less control they have.

Avoid looking ridiculous

Never launch an army out of anger, never start a war out of wrath; angry people usually end up looking ridiculous, for their response seems out of proportion to what occasioned it. They have taken things too seriously, exaggerating the hurt or insult that has been done to them. They are so sensitive to slight that it becomes comical how much they take personally. More comical still is their belief that their outbursts signify power. Understand this: Petulance is not power; it is a sign of helplessness. People may temporarily be cowed by your tantrums, but in the end, they lose respect for you. They also realize they can easily undermine you, that they can easily undermine anyone with so little self-control.

The answer, however, is not to repress our angry or emotional responses. For repression drains us of energy and pushes us into strange behavior. Instead we have to change our perspective: We have to realize that nothing in the social realm, and in the game of success and power, is personal. If a person explodes with anger at you, you must remind yourself that it is not exclusively directed at you. The cause is much larger, goes way back in time, involves dozens of prior hurts, and is actually not worth the bother to understand. Instead of seeing it as a personal grudge, look at the emotional outburst as a disguised power move, and attempt to control or punish you cloaked in the form of hurt feelings and anger.

This shift of perspective will let you play the game of success and power with more clarity and energy. Instead of ever reacting, and becoming ensnared in people’s emotions, you will turn their loss of control to your advantage: You keep your head while they are losing theirs.

Anger only cuts off our options, and the powerful and successful cannot thrive without options. Once you train yourself not to take matters personally, and to control your emotional responses, you will have placed yourself in a position of tremendous power: Now you can play with emotional responses of other people. Stir the insecure into action by impugning their manhood, and by dangling the prospect of an easy victory before their faces. Reveal an apparent weakness to lure your enemies and rivals into action. Then you can beat them with ease. With the arrogant too you can appear weaker than you are, taunting them into a rash action.

In the face of a hot-headed enemy or rival, an excellent response is often no response. Nothing is as infuriating as a man who keeps his cool while others are losing theirs. If it will work to your advantage to unsettle people, affect the aristocratic, bored pose, neither mocking nor triumphant but simply indifferent. This will light their fuse. When they embarrass themselves with a temper tantrum, you will have gained several victories, one of them being that in the face of their childishness you have maintained your dignity and composure.

Study the enemy beforehand

When playing with people’s emotions you have to be careful. Study the enemy beforehand: Some fish are best left at the bottom of the pond. You can bait the powerful and get them to commit and divide their forces, but test the waters first. Find the gap in their strength. If there is no gap, if they are impossibly strong, you have nothing to gain and everything to lose by provoking them. Choose carefully whom you bait, and never stir up the sharks.

Understand and remember: There are times when a well-timed burst of anger can do you good, but your anger must be manufactured and under your control. Then you can determine exactly how and on whom it will fall. Never stir up reactions that will work against you in the long run. Use your thunderbolts rarely, to make them the more intimidating and meaningful. Whether purposefully staged or not, if your outburst come too often, they will lose their power.

JMD

Owner of Bunkumless.com and King Global Earth and Environmental Sciences Corporation, JMD, a former attorney, is a Columnist for The Futurist Daily News and editor of the Social and Political Blog JMDlive.com Follow JMD @ jmdlive

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Think as you like but behave like others

January 11, 2017January 11, 2017 ~ J. Michael Dennis ~ 1 Comment

Blend in and nurture the common touch

If you make a show of going against the times, flaunting your unconventional ideas and unorthodox ways, people will think that you only want attention and that you look down upon them. They will find a way to punish you for making them feel inferior. It is far safer to blend in and nurture the common touch. Share your originality only with tolerant friends and those who are sure to appreciate your uniqueness.

It is easy to run into danger by trying to swim against the stream. Disagreement is regarded as offensive because it is a condemnation of the views of others. Truth is for the few, error is as casual as it is vulgar. The wise man avoids being contradicted as sedulously as he avoids contradicting. Thought is free; it cannot and should not be coerced. Retire in the sanctuary of your silence and if you sometimes allow yourself to break it, do so under the aegis of a discreet few. He lives well who conceals himself well.

Wise men are like coffers with double bottoms: Which when others look into being opened, they see not all that they hold. Never combat any man’s opinion; for you would never have done setting him right upon all the absurd things that he believes. Avoid correcting people’s mistakes in conversation, however good your intentions may be; for it is easy to offend people, and difficult, if not impossible to mend them. If you feel irritated by the absurd remarks of whoever you are talking with, just walk away.

Never discuss with the fool

Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot and turn to attack you. The herd shuns the black sheep, uncertain whether or not it belongs with them. So it straggles behind, or wanders away from the herd, where it is cornered by wolves and promptly devoured. Stay with the herd, there is safety in numbers. Keep your differences in your thoughts and not in your fleece.

It is inevitable in society that certain values and customs lose contact with their original motives and become oppressive. And there will always be those who rebel against such oppression, harboring ideas far ahead of their time. However, there is no point in making a display of your dangerous ideas if they only bring you suffering and persecution. Martyrdom serves no purpose, better to live onion an oppressive world, even to thrive in it. Meanwhile, find a way to express your ideas subtly for those who understand you. Laying your pearls before swine only bring you trouble.

People who flaunt their infatuation with different values and cultures are expressing a disdain and contempt for their own. They are using the outward appearance of the unknown and the exotic to separate themselves from the common folk who unquestioningly follow the local customs and laws. Their need to show their difference often makes them disliked by the people whose beliefs they challenge. Measure and moderate your desire to show your difference.

Do not renounce your beliefs, disguise their outward appearance

In the face of oppression and persecution, it is foolish to openly and directly express your ideas. In the face of awesome persecution, it is always better to disguise your beliefs and ideas while insinuating them at the same time: You pretend to disagree with dangerous beliefs and ideas, but in the course of your disagreement, you give those beliefs and ideas expression and exposure. You seem to conform to the prevailing orthodoxy, but those who know you will understand the irony involved.

We all tell lies and hide our true feelings, for complete free expression is a social impossibility. From an early age we learn to conceal our thoughts, telling the prickly and insecure what we know they want to hear, watching carefully lest we offend them. For most of us this is natural; there are ideas and values that most people accept, and it is pointless to argue. There are people, however, like me, who see such restraints as an intolerable infringement on their freedom, and who often have the temptation to prove the superiority of their values, ideas and beliefs. In the end, though, their arguments convince only a few and offend a great deal more.

Wise and clever people learn early on that they can display conventional behavior and mouth conventional ideas without having to believe in them. The power you gain from blending in is that of being left alone to have the thoughts you want to have, and to express them to the people you want to express them to, without suffering isolation or ostracism. Once you have established yourself in a position of power, you can, then, try to convince a wider circle of the correctness of your ideas.

Play the clever fox, be all things to all people

In society, outward appearances are what matter. Make a show of blending in, even going so far as to be the most zealous advocate of the prevailing orthodoxy. If you stick to conventional appearances in public, few will believe you think differently in private. Your outward conformity will give you the freedom to work unhindered, without having to change your thinking. Not only do people of power avoid the offences, they also learn to play the clever fox and feign the common touch.

You want to achieve success and power! Re-invent yourself, re-create yourself: Overcome your natural aristocratic stance to cultivate a familiarity with the common man; express your familiarity in little gestures, often symbolic, to show the people that you share popular values, despite your different status, values and ideas. When you go in society, leave behind your own ideas and values, and put on the mask that is most appropriate for the group in which you find yourself. People will swallow the bait because it flatters them to believe that you share their ideas.

Understand this: The only time it is worth standing out is when you already stand out, when you have achieved an unshakable position of power and you no longer have to observe the protocols and niceties of others. Whatever you do, remember: The truth is that, even when you attain the heights of success and power, you would, often, be better off at least affecting the common touch, for at some point you may need popular support.

Finally, there is always a place in this world for the gadfly, the person who successfully defies custom and mocks what has grown lifeless in culture. One may achieve considerable social power in making it clear that he disdains the usual ways of doing things. Just be careful: Even if your audience, people are expecting you to insult them and welcome it, this is still a dangerous game; without the ability to amuse and delight, your barbs will simply offend people and possibly destroy you.

JMD

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Are you spending your time wisely?

January 10, 2017 ~ J. Michael Dennis ~ Leave a comment

Run your own race

In a world where everybody’s lives are a perpetual display of accolades, achievements, and accomplishments, it’s easy to continually compare yourself to other people.

Nobody ever won a race by looking sideways

Stopped reading people’s income reports, blog posts about tactics and start to do your work.

Start to run your own race

Comparing yourself to people who have more is not going to turn you into one of them. We all have a unique destiny in this world. And running your own race is a great way ensure the realization of that destiny and live a much richer and rewarding life.

JMD

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The simpler the spectacle the better

January 10, 2017January 10, 2017 ~ J. Michael Dennis ~ Leave a comment

Create compelling spectacles

When re-creating yourself, re-inventing yourself, create compelling spectacles, striking imagery and grand symbolic gestures to create this aura of power to which everyone will respond. Stage spectacles, full of arresting visuals and radiant symbols that will heighten your presence for those around you. Dazzled by appearances, no one will notice what you are really doing.

Human nature is such that people do not always want words, or rational explanations, or demonstrations of the powers of science; they want an immediate appeal to their emotions. Give them that and they will do the rest. The simpler the spectacle the better. Understand and remember this: Your search for success and power depends on shortcuts. You must always circumvent people’s suspicions, their perverse desire to resist your will.

Images are an extremely effective shortcut: Bypassing the head, the seat of doubt and resistance, they aim straight for the heart. Overwhelming the eyes, they, they create powerful associations, bringing people together and stirring their emotions. Symbols and images, like colors, are very potent weapons.

Weave visual clues into an encompassing gestalt to establish a trademark that will set you apart. Then, take the game further: Find an image or symbol from the past that will neatly fit your situation, and put it on your shoulders. It will make you seem larger than life.

Short-circuit the labyrinth of words

Using words to lead your case is risky business: Words are dangerous instruments, and often go astray. The words people use to persuade us virtually invite us to reflect on them with words of our own; we null them over, and often end up believing the opposite of what they say. It also happens that words offend us, stirring up associations unintended by the speaker. The visual, on the other hand, short-circuits the labyrinth of words. It strikes with an emotional power and immediacy that leave no gaps for reflection and doubt. It leaps right over rational, reasonable thoughts.

Understand this: Words put you on the defensive. If you have to explain yourself your power is already in question. The image, on the other hand, imposes itself as given. It discourages questions, creates forceful associations, resists unintended interpretations, communicates instantly, and forges bonds that transcend social differences. Words stir up arguments and divisions; images bring people together. They are the quintessential instruments of success and power.

The symbol has the same force, whether it is visual or a verbal description of something visual. The symbolic object stands for something else, something abstract. The abstract concept, patriotism, courage, love, is full of emotional and powerful associations. The symbol is a shortcut of expression, containing dozens of meanings in one simple phrase or object. The symbol contains untold power.

Never neglect the way you arrange things visually

The first step in using symbols and images is to understand the primacy of sight among the senses. In the past, it has been argued, sight and the other senses operated on a relatively equal plane. Today, the visual has come to dominate the others, and is the sense we most depend on and trust.

Never neglect the way you arrange things visually. Factors like color, have enormous symbolic resonance. The visual contains great emotional power. Find and associate yourself with the images and symbols that will communicate in this immediate way today, and you will have untold power.

Most effective of all is a new combination, a fusion of images and symbols that have not been seen together before, but that through their association clearly demonstrate your new idea or message. The creation of new images and symbols out of old ones in this way has a poetic effect; viewers’ associations run rampant, giving them a sense of participation.

Visual images often appear in sequence, and the order in which they appear creates a symbol. The first to appear symbolizes power; the image at the center seems to have central importance. The idea is to give yourself an aura, a stature that your normal banal appearance simply will not create.

The best way to use images and symbols is to organize them into a grand spectacle that awes people and distracts them from unpleasant realities. This is easy to do: People love what is grand, spectacular, and larger than life. Appeal to their emotions and they will flock to your spectacle in hordes. The visual is the easiest route to their hearts.

People are always impressed by the superficial appearance of things.

JMD

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Master the art of timing

January 7, 2017January 7, 2017 ~ J. Michael Dennis ~ Leave a comment

Never be too precipitate where there is a possibility of danger

When re-creating yourself, re-inventing yourself, master the art of timing, never seem to be in a hurry. Hurrying betrays a lack of control over yourself, and over time. Always seem patient, as if you know that everything will come to you eventually. Become a detective of the right moment; sniff out the spirit of the times, the trends that will carry you to power. Learn to stand back when the time is not yet ripe, and to strike fiercely when it has reached fruition.

Perseverance is more effective than brute strength and there are many difficulties that cannot be overcome if you try to do everything at once, but which will yield if you master them little by little. The truth is that continuous effort is irresistible, for this is the way in which Time captures and subdues the greatest powers on earth. Time is a good friend and ally to those who use their intelligence to choose the right moment, but a most dangerous enemy to those who rush into action at the wrong one. One Time is right, the other wrong; success depends not on ratiocination but on timing and rhythm.

Never be too precipitate where there is a possibility of danger. Take due time to consider, before you risk an action that may be fatal. Let someone else make the experiment before you.

Play for time, recognize the spirit of the times

In a period of unprecedented turmoil, it becomes critical to recognize the spirit of the times. Always look two steps ahead, find the wave that will carry you to power and success, and ride on it. Always work with times, anticipate twists and turns, and never miss the boat. Sometimes the spirit of the times is obscure: Recognize it not by what is the loudest and most obvious in it, but by what lies hidden and dormant. Look forward to the future rather than holding on to the ruins of the past.

Recognizing the prevailing winds does not necessarily mean running with them. Any potent social moment creates a powerful reaction, and it is wise to anticipate what the reaction will be. Rather than ride the cresting wave of the moment, wait for the tide’s ebb to carry you back to success and power. Upon occasion, bet on the reaction that is brewing, and place yourself in the vanguard of it.

Without patience as your sword and shield, your timing will fail and you will inevitably find yourself a loser. When the times are against you, do not struggle, get emotional, or strike out rashly. Keep your cool and maintain a low profile, patiently building support among citizenry, the bulwark in your next rise to power. Whenever you find yourself in a weaker position, play for time, which will always be your ally if you are patient. Space we can recover, time never. Recognize the moment, then, to hide in the grasser slither under a rock, as well as the moment to bare your fangs and attack.

Time is an artificial concept that mankind has created to make the limitlessness of eternity and the universe more bearable. Since we have constructed the concept of time, we can mold it to some degree and play with it. The time of a child is long and slow with vast expanses; the time of an adult whizzes by frighteningly fast. Time, then, depends on perception, which we can willfully altered. And, once we control our emotional responses to events, time will move much more slowly. This altered way of dealing with things tends to lengthen our perception of future time, opens up possibilities that fear and anger close off, and allows us the patience that is the principal requirement in the art of timing.

There are three kind of time for us to deal with; each one presenting specific problems that we can solve with skill and practice. First there is “Long Time”: The drawn-out, years-long kind of time that must be managed with patience and gentle guidance. Our handling of long time should be mostly defensive: This is the art of not reacting impulsively, of waiting for opportunity. Next there is “Forced Time”: The short-term time that we can manipulate as an offensive weapon, upsetting the timing of our rivals and opponents. Finally, there is “End Time”, when a plan must be executed with speed and force.

Managing Long Time

Long time is to be managed with patience. When you force the pace out of fear and impatience, you create a nest of problems that require fixing, and you end up taking much longer than if you had taken your time. Hurriers may occasionally get there quicker, but new dangers arise, and they find themselves in constant crisis mode, fixing the problems that they themselves have created. Sometimes, not acting in the face of danger is your best move; you wait and deliberately slow down. As time passes, it will eventually present opportunities you had not imagined.

Waiting involves controlling not only your own emotions but those of these friendly people around you, who mistaking action for success and power, may try to push you into making rash moves. In your rivals and opponents, on the other hand, you can encourage the same mistake: If you let them rush headlong into trouble while you stand back and wait, you will soon find ripe moments to intervene and pick up the pieces. Better to stand patiently on the sidelines, even for many years, and then be in position to seize power when the time is right.

You do not deliberately slow time down to live longer, or to take more pleasure in the moment. You deliberately slow time to better play the game of power and success. First, when your mind is uncluttered by constant emergencies you will see further into the future. Second, you will be able to resist the baits that people dangle in front of you, and will keep yourself from becoming another impatient sucker. Third, you will have more room to be flexible. Opportunities will inevitably arise that you had not expected and would have missed have you forced the pace. Fourth, you will not move from one deal to the next without completing the first one. To build your power’s and success’s foundation can take years; make sure that the foundation is secure.

Finally, slowing time down gives you a perspective on the times we live in, letting you take a certain distance and putting you in a less emotionally charged position to see the shapes of things to come. Hurriers will often mistake surface phenomena for a real trend, seeing only what they want to see. How much better to see what is really happening, even if it is unpleasant or makes your task harder.

Forcing Time

The trick in forcing time is to upset the timing of others by making hem hurry, making them wait, making them abandon their own pace, to distort their perception of time. By upsetting the timing of your rivals and opponents while you stay patient, you open up time for yourself, which is half the game.

Making people wait is a powerful way of forcing time, as long as they do not figure out what you are up to. You control the clock, they linger in limbo, and rapidly come unglued, opening up opportunities for you to strike. The opposite strategy is also powerful: You make your rivals and opponents hurry. Start off your dealings with them slowly, then suddenly apply pressure, making them feel that everything is happening at once. People who lack the time to think will make mistakes; set their deadlines for them. During negotiations, suddenly press vehemently for a decision thus upsetting your opponent’s timing and patience.

The “Deadline Strategy” is a very powerful tool. Close off the vistas of indecision and force people to make up their damn mind or get to the point. Never let people make you play on their excruciating terms. Never give them time.

Remember: The best way to alter our perception of time is often to slow down the pace by creating suspense. Going slower, moving slower, telling a story slower, makes what you are doing more interesting. The audience, people yield to your pace, become entranced.

Waiting for the Right Moment to Act

You can play all you want the game of power and success with the utmost artistry, waiting patiently for the right moment to act, putting your competitors off their form by messing with their timing, but it will not mean a thing unless you know how to finish, how to close. Patience is worthless unless combined with a willingness to fall ruthlessly on your rivals and opponents at the right moment. You can wait as long as necessary for the conclusion to come, but when it comes, it must come quickly. Use speed to paralyze your rivals and opponents, cover up any mistakes you might make, and impress people with your aura of authority and finality.

There is never a good reason to allow the slightest hitch in your endgame. Your mastery of timing can really only be judged by how you work with end time, how you quickly change the pace and bring things to a swift and definitive conclusion.

JMD

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Court attention at all cost

January 4, 2017January 4, 2017 ~ J. Michael Dennis ~ Leave a comment

In today’s world, everything is judge by its appearance.

While creating your new public image, and establishing your reputation, what you want to do is to court attention at all cost. In today’s world, everything is judge by its appearance; what is unseen counts for nothing. You have to draw attention to yourself by creating an unforgettable, even controversial image when appropriate.

Court scandal when necessary. Do anything to make yourself seem larger than life. Make no distinction between kinds of attention, notoriety of any sort will bring you power. Better to be slandered than ignored.

Never let yourself get lost in the crowd. Stand out. Make yourself a magnet of attention by appearing larger, more colourful, more mysterious than the bland and timid masses.

All you need to ensure success is notoriety.

Understand the fundamental truth about attracting attention: Once people’s eyes are on you, you have a special legitimacy.

Creating interest means creating a crowd; every crowd has a silver lining. And crowds tend to act in conjunction. If one person stops to see you beggarman laying bricks in the street, more will do the same. They will gather like dust bunnies. Then, given a gentle push, they will come to you and watch your show.

To create a crowd, you have to do something different and odd. Any kind of curiosity will serve the purpose, for crowds are magnetically attracted by the unusual and inexplicable. And once you have their attention, never let it go. If it veers toward other people, it does so at your own expense. At the beginning of your rise to the top, spend all your energy on attracting attention. And, most important, the quality of the attention is irrelevant. Like they say: Bad publicity is better than no publicity”. No matter how badly you are criticized, or how slanderously personal are the attacks, never complain. Attention, whether negative or positive, is one of the main ingredient of success. The worst fate in the world for anyone who yearns fame, and, of course, power is to be ignored.

Burning more brightly than those around you is a skill that no one is born with. You have to learn to attract attention. At the start of your career, when re-creating and re-inventing yourself, you must attach your name and reputation to a quality, an image, that sets you apart from other people. This image can be something like a characteristic style of dress, or a personality peculiarity that amuses people and gets talked about you. Once the image is established, you have an appearance, a place in the sky for your star.

Court controversy, even scandal

Today, it is a common mistake to imagine that this particular appearance of yours should not be controversial, that to be attacked or slandered is somehow bad. Nothing could be further from the truth. To avoid being a flash in the pan, and having your notoriety eclipsed by another, you must not discriminate between different types of attention; in the end, every kind of attention will work in your favor. Society craves larger-than-life figures, people who stand above the general mediocrity.

Never be afraid of the qualities that set you apart and draw attention to you. When useful or necessary, do not hesitate to court controversy, even scandal. It is better to be attacked, even slandered, then ignored. All livings are ruled by this law, and all professionals must have a bit of showman about them. Welcome personal attacks and feel no need to defend yourself; just make sure, however, whatever you do, to maintain your good reputation as an honest person. This being said, if you find yourself in a lowly position that offers little opportunity for you to draw attention, an effective strategic move is to attack the most visible, most powerful person you can find. Remember, however, to use such tactics sparingly after you have the public’s attention, when the act can wear thin.

Adapt to the changing times

Once in the limelight you must constantly renew it by adapting and varying your method of courting attention. If you don’t, your audience will grow tired, will take you for granted, and will move on to a new star. Never allow yourself to fade into the background.

Maintaining attention requires constant vigilance and creativity. If and when your name becomes too attached to a particular style or brand, deliberately upset your audience with a new sequence of actions that will go against all expectations. Understand this: People feel superior to the person whose actions they can predict. If you show them who is in control by playing against their expectations, you both gain their respect and tighten your hold on their fleeting attention.

Better to create something ugly and disturbing than to let your audience grow too familiar with your work. Always act in mysterious ways. There is room only for one actor at a time in the limelight’s narrow beam; do whatever it takes to make yourself its focus. Be ostentatious and be seen; what is not seen is as though it did not exist.

Create an air of mystery

In a world growing increasingly banal and familiar, what seems enigmatic instantly draw attention. Never make it too clear what you are doing or about to do; never not reveal all your cards. An air of mystery heightens your presence by creating anticipation; everyone is watching you to see what will happen next. The mysterious cannot be grasped, and what cannot be seized and consumed creates power.

Do not imagine that to create an air of mystery you have to be grand and awe-inspiring; mystery that is woven into your day-to-day demeanor, and is subtle, has that much more power to fascinate and attract attention. Understand this: Most people are upfront, can be read like an open book, take little care to control their word or image, and are hopelessly predictable. By simply holding back, keeping silent, occasionally uttering ambiguous phrases, deliberately appearing inconsistent, and acting odd in the subtlest of ways, you will emanate an aura of mystery. The people around you will then magnify that aura by constantly trying to interpret you.

If you do not declare yourself immediately, you arouse expectation. Mix a little mystery with everything, and the very mystery stirs up veneration. And when you explain, be not too explicit. An air of mystery can make the mediocre appear intelligent and profound.

If your social position prevents you from completely wrapping your actions in mystery, you must at least learn to make yourself less obvious. Every now and then, act in a way that does not mesh with other people’s perception of you. This way you keep those around you on the defensive, eliciting the kind of attention that makes you powerful.

Never offend or challenge the reputation of those above you

In the beginning of your rise to the top, you must attract attention at all cost, but as you rise higher you must constantly adapt. Never wear the public out with the same approach. An air of mystery works wonders when you need to develop an aura of power and get yourself noticed, but it must seem measured and under control. Do not let your air of mystery be slowly transformed into a reputation for deceit. The mystery you create must seem a game, playful and nonthreatening. Recognize when it goes too far, and pull back.

There are times when the need for attention must be deferred, and when scandal and notoriety are the last things you want to create. The attention you attract must never offend or challenge the reputation of those above you, not, at any rate, if they are secure. You will see not only paltry but desperate by comparison. There is an art to knowing when to draw notice and when to withdraw.

Never appear overly greedy for attention, then, for it signals insecurity, and insecurity drives power away. Understand that there are times when it is not in your best interest to be the center of attention. When in the presence of the powerful and mighty, a king or a queen, or the equivalent thereof, bow and retreat to the shadows; never compete.

JMD

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