Before becoming a best-selling author, Robert Greene had about 80 jobs around the world in fields as varied as construction work, interpreting, and screenwriting. Greene combined his globetrotting adventures and interactions with all kinds of people with his survey of thousands of years of human decision making to distill 48 general principles that govern the human hunger for power. For people looking to gain power, guard against losing power, or simply understand its dynamics, Greene’s book has been hailed as an important read by luminaries in world politics, business, film, and music. The following provides a sampling of the rules that animate the power game that people can’t help but play.

In 1661, Louis XIV’s finance minister Nicolas Fouquet planned the most opulent banquet Europe had seen. There were elaborate fireworks displays, a seven course meal was served featuring Far East cuisine that was unfamiliar to Europeans, and someone wrote a play specifically for the occasion. The brightest and most famous of European society were present to admire their host, his beautiful chateau, and the exquisite gardens he led them through. The king himself joined the party and strolled through the grounds with Fouquet. The next day, one of Louis XIV’s musketeers arrested the finance minister. He was tried and found guilty of pilfering money from the state treasury, and sent to a remote prison in the mountains where he lived out the rest of his days.

Whatever money he had stolen from the treasury had been at the king’s behest. He had generously thrown a party in honor of the king, but he was thrown in prison for his troubles. What did Fouquet do wrong? His problem was that, whatever honor he wanted to bring to King Louis XIV, all heads were turned toward him—in effect, robbing a prideful and insecure king of the limelight. Fouquet made himself a target by threatening the king’s fragile sense of self-worth. He was trying to ingratiate himself with a lavish display of devotion, but he provoked a king’s jealousy instead.

Not only was Fouquet arrested, but his money was redirected to the king himself, who then used those funds to build an even more elaborate palace in Versailles (in a style very reminiscent of Fouquet’s) and threw even more elaborate parties. The man Louis instated to replace Fouquet was famous for throwing boring parties.

No one is free of insecurities. When you show the world the talents and intelligence you have, you will inevitably kick up people’s envy and vindictiveness. You can’t let the fragile egos of others rule you, but you need to make an exception for your superiors. If you surpass your masters, they could become mildly passive aggressive or unbelievably cruel. Depending on how insecure your superior is, you might outshine him simply by being yourself. You might also begin to overestimate your importance and feel  that you can do whatever you want.

Instead of outshining your master, your goal should be to make your master shine. Masters enjoy their elevated position, and it is your job to keep them secure in that. If their skill is intelligence, conceal your own. If it’s humor, withhold your wit and support theirs.

Want to learn something new every day? Check out Morning Brew - the free daily newsletter covering all things business, finance, & tech from Wall Street to Silicon Valley. It only takes 5 minutes to read and gives you the firepower to have a productive day.

Try it.

The fifth century BC Roman general Gnaeus Marcius (also called Coriolanus) was a strategist of great renown throughout the empire. His campaigns had kept chaos at bay and earned him the respect of his countrymen. But while he was practically a demigod as a general, no one really knew him. Still, his reputation preceded him and he leveraged it to gain entry into Roman politics.

The first time Coriolanus appeared as a candidate before the Roman people, he showed them his battle scars. No one remembered his speech, but his scars spoke to his courage and loyalty to Rome. He had all but cinched the election. But in the speeches that followed that initial foray into public life, he said far too much, and what he said was pompous. He pandered more to the elites who had begun cozying up to him than to the people. His jokes didn’t land. His war stories were self-aggrandizing. Maybe he was a brilliant fighter, but he showed himself to be self-absorbed. The more he said, the less powerful he became. The mystique of valor and might evaporated to reveal a cocky, insecure soldier. People turned out in droves to vote him down, and he was soundly defeated.

Perception is central to the game of power. If you charge in, speaking your mind without thought to the consequences, you lose your power. Power builds in those who choose not to waste their words, but learn to tame their mischievous tongues.

By contrast to the careless Cariolanus, Louis XIV used silence to enhance his power. He kept his face expressionless as his advisors debated their views on a pressing issue, and would end meetings with “I shall see” and walk away without another word. Louis would then decide a course without seeking out his advisors further.

Louis XIV was garrulous as a young man, but he learned to adopt silence as a way of keeping his cards close. It also served to extract more information from those who would fretfully prattle on to avoid the unbearable silence to which he subjected them. And because no one knew what he thought, they could not tell him what he wanted to hear. They had no idea. His reticence gave him power, and made what he did say seem profound.

If you stay a person of few words, you will appear more powerful than you actually are. We humans are eager to connect dots and interpret what someone else is thinking. People cannot discern your goals or values if you give short answers or no answers at all. Andy Warhol was right when he remarked, “I learned that you actually have more power when you shut up.” Once you have put words out there, you can’t pull them back in.

Even when Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba off the Italian coast, Europe was still uneasy. Some wanted him exiled to a more remote location. Some just wanted him dead. The leaders of England and Austria feared that he would escape, and one day, he did. Seemingly under the nose of a whole fleet of British ships surrounding the island of Elba, Napoleon managed to escape.

With his small fighting force, Napoleon not only returned to France but marched on Paris. At the sight of their former leader, the king’s forces joined Napoleon. Napoleon took the city on a whim, but his reestablished reign lasted only 100 days. The euphoria of Napoleon’s return died down and the country returned to the realities of debt and poverty that ardent dedication to their fearless leader failed to fix. Forces rose up against Napoleon and he was defeated finally and decisively at the Battle of Waterloo. He was then exiled to a remote island off the west African coast.

This all went according to plan for Napoleon’s former foreign minister, Talleyrand, who had conspired with British and Austrian powers to “liberate” Napoleon and incept the idea that Europe would be loyal to Napoleon should he ever manage to escape. It was all an elaborate ruse, but Napoleon took the bait. The British let Napoleon “escape” with the knowledge that Talleyrand was luring Napoleon out of prison only to crush him decisively when he tried to regain the throne.

The France that Napoleon reacquired was a sinking ship impossible to salvage. His actions became rash, and he rushed around reactively plugging holes as his enemies sharpened their knives. Whatever power he had regained, he lost quickly because his aggression was haphazardly channeled to threats as they emerged. He technically possessed the throne, but he was only reacting to the moves that Talleyrand was making, which meant Emperor Napoleon was never really in control. You are in power when others are reacting to the initiatives you take.

Through deception and slaughter, Castruccio Castracani (1281-1328) became the ruler of the Italian city of Lucca. His ascendancy was possible only with the aid of an influential family, the Poggios, but he ignored them once he had secured power. While Castruccio was away battling neighboring kingdoms, the Poggios whipped up the anger of other prominent families and they prepared to battle those loyal to Castruccio. It would have been a massacre if Stefano, a respected Poggio elder, had not convinced his family to lay down arms and try negotiating.

When Castruccio returned, he was surprised to find his city was serene and not in flames, after receiving word while abroad of unrest and rebellion back home. Stefano came to the ruler explaining how he’d pacified the warring parties and asked for mercy on his rash and rowdy family. Stefano asked him to remember how the Poggio family had supported his rise to power and begged that he listen to their complaints. Castruccio seemed ready to relent. He asked Stefano to bring in the Poggio family so he could hear their grievances. When the family came, every single Poggio was rounded up, imprisoned, and executed—including the peaceable Stefano. 

Stefano di Poggio believed that lofty ideals like gratitude and goodness would win out. He tried to leverage his family’s past good deeds to ensure good deeds from Castruccio in return. He should have paid more attention to Castruccio’s savagery and deception en route to the throne. That would have been a far better predictor of his behavior than hoping for a surge of good will.

When you are seeking assistance, your best bet is to appeal to people’s self-interest rather than the better angels of their nature. Gratitude is great, but it is a heavy burden, and one that many people are happy to get rid of. Castruccio eliminated his moral debt by eliminating his debtors. Stefano would have had more success reminding the king of his family’s influence, and what they could still do for him: their connections to other powerful families and what that could unlock for him.

We all know the Castruccio-type who only speaks the language of force and ambition. You win over (or at least pacify) pragmatists not by reminding them of good past deeds you did, but by promising them future deeds that will benefit them. You will inevitably find yourself in positions where you will have to ask people for favors. Your best bet is to appeal to their own interests—not begging them for mercy or trying to cash in on a past favor they have no obligation to honor.

Twentieth-century German writer Bertolt Brecht became a Communist sympathizer around the same time Hitler was coming to power. He fled Germany in 1941 and moved to Los Angeles in hopes of breaking into the film industry. His plays, poems, and stories were full of shots at capitalism, and, while gaining little success, they gained notoriety as anti-Marxist sentiment intensified in the United States at the end of World War II. In 1947, just a month before Brecht was planning on moving back to Germany, he and 18 filmmakers and screenwriters were subpoenaed to appear before a US Congress subcommittee examining an alleged Communist invasion in Hollywood. These writers became known as “the Hollywood 19.”

When the group gathered to talk strategy, everyone but Brecht agreed that garnering publicity through belligerence was the best way to win support for their cause. They would challenge the committee’s legitimacy and the subpoena’s constitutionality. So one after another of the Hollywood 19 stood before the committee, arguing with them and insulting them. Then it was Brecht’s turn to stand. Instead of sinking to the level of petty argument and insult, he was a picture of grace. He wore a suit; he smoked a cigar after learning that the committee’s head was a cigar aficionado; he was polite, deferent, and showed no sign of defensiveness; when they questioned anti-capitalistic lines from his plays, he kindly reminded them that he had only written in German, so he could not be held responsible for poor translations. When they asked him what his aim was, he told them he was criticizing Hitler’s Third Reich. What American could find fault with that? He rebranded himself as the most noble kind of revolutionary. They wished him well and offered their assistance in the event that anyone tried to delay his return to Germany further.

The majority of the Hollywood 19 sank to the level of the committee and tried to become martyrs. Brecht made fools of the powerful without them realizing it, all the while smiling pleasantly and gaining their appreciation. He gave them no reason to be angry at him.  With no power, standing at the mercy of the committee, Brecht saw that his best play was to surrender in one moment, then bide his time to become powerful in the next. He saw no point in becoming a martyr and missing the opportunity to sway people toward Communism for decades after.

An earthier expression of the same principle comes from the Ethiopian adage: “When the great lord passes, the wise peasant bows deeply and silently farts.”

When the Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck began flexing his military might in 1863, most of Europe just saw him as power hungry. At his prompting, Prussian forces had scored quick wins against their neighbor, Denmark, taken out the formidable Austria, and then came for France. Europe wondered who was next to fall, but Bismarck did little more than maintain his holdings for the rest of his rule. Some surmised that he had become soft and complacent in his old age.

But Bismarck never had his sights on total domination. All he wanted was an independent German nation. By taking over parts of Denmark, he took back land that had belonged to Prussia and aroused national sentiment. By standing up to Austria and forcing them to compromise in negotiations, Bismarck showed Europe that the mighty Austria was in decline. Prussia ended up beating them and breaking up Austria’s control of the German Federation, re-forming a new North German Confederation with Prussia as the flagship. He provoked war against France to rally the various German nations in the confederacy against a shared foe and unify the disparate Germanic states. Bismarck knew what he wanted and he planned his moves to that end—and not beyond. He knew when to stop and resisted the allure of further conquest and glory.

Ancient Athens attacked Sicily in 415 BC, but they underestimated the toll of the journey to reach Sicily, the will of the Sicilians to defend their home, and the willingness of scattered rivals to rally behind Sicily. The ancient Athenians saw potential glory, but their planning was too vague and failed to foresee potential setbacks and consequences that would come of their quest. This is a textbook case of humanity’s tendency to be led by heart rather than head, to be imprisoned by the immediacy of momentary emotions and circumstances while brushing aside ancillary pains and pleasures that present themselves along the path to power.

These insights are just an introduction. If you're ready to dive deeper, pick up a copy of The 48 Laws of Power here. And since we get a commission on every sale, your purchase will help keep this newsletter free.