Stay Away, Am Reading

The arrow shot by the archer may or may not kill a single person.
But stratagems devised by a wise man can kill even babes in the womb. 
Kautilya,
Indian Philosopher (3rd century BC)



In all honesty, I have been having a very illuminating moment reading Robert Greene's The 48 Laws of  Power. Contrary to all the hullabaloo on how evil the book is et al, I have come to understand over time that no knowledge is evil in itself. It depends on the application of knowledge.

Its like a gun. It is amoral (neither good nor bad in itself), it depends on who is in possession of it. The individual at the end of the gun will tilt the scale of good or bad.

This book is about retaining power and a chapter of political concern to me is chapter 6. I got to learn of PT Barnum, an American premier shown man in the 19 Century.
He loved to be in the news. He strategized to constantly make headlines.
You see, he ran a circus and then a unique kind of museum.

To him this line of business required attention so he deployed different eye swaying techniques to be in the newspapers. Criticism, reviews etc. If there was no news coverage about him, he would write a critique on his own business.

I asked myself why?
And so I found out.
You see, over the years Barnum had come to understand the power of followership or the crowd.
He understood that to keep making money, he had to keep the focus on him (whether good or bad).

He observed that people lost interest easily so when he found out that an approach was waning, he would come up with another controversial or outrageous report to stir up more interest in his business. This kept money coming his way.

He did this untill he was granted access to perform in Buckingham palace for Queen Victoria.
Can you believe that?

This strategy worked for him and can be deployed by any business person that can think out of the box. Keep the attention on you. Be in the news - ALWAYS.

So for those of you listening to those keeping you away from reading books, my advise to you is stay away from them. Your destiny is as far apart from them as the sun is to the earth. Pick up a book and read. Ideas will come to you only if you dare read.

Unitil we meet again, keep winning.



Thank you,

Mr David Chiaka
Twitter: @MrChiaka