The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene Law number 28: Enter Action with Boldness
If you are unsure of a course of action, do not attempt it.
Your doubts and hesitations will infect your execution.
Timidity is dangerous: Better to enter with boldness.
Any mistakes you commit through audacity are easily corrected with more audacity.
Everyone admires the bold; no one honors the timid.
In May of 1925, five of the most successful dealers in the French scrapmetal business
found themselves invited to an 'official', but 'highly confidental' meeting in the most
luxurious hotel in Paris.
Bursting with curiosity the men met the host, general director Monsieur Lustig.
He explained that the government had planned to destroy the Eiffeltower and the metal would
be sold to the highest bidder.
Lustig gave them all the possible information they needed, not leaving out one tiny detail.
As to why, he explained the Eiffeltower needed many repairs, as was recently in the newspapers,
the maintenance costs had grown and in times of the crisis they faced, many Parisians would
be delighted to see it go, Lustig provided them with sheets of government stationery
filled with figures, such as the tonnage of the tower's metal.
As they calculated possible profits they could make from selling the metal, they grew increasingly
euphoric.
The businessmen were then driven to the Eiffeltower in a limo, where Lustig would continue his
speech.
It all seemed so real.
Too big of a target, too extraordinary to not be real, way too bold.
Several days after the offers were submitted, one of the five, a Monsier P., received notice
that his bid was the winner and that to secure the sale he should come to the suite at the
hotel within two days, bearing a certified check for more than 250'000 francs (the equivalent
of 1 million dollars today).
However Monsier P. started having doubts, the whole thing seemed a bit odd, suspicious
to say the least.
Why for example did they meet in a hotel and not in an official government building?
Why hadn't he heard of the officials?
Upon arrival Monsieur Lustig, a master con-artist robbed Monsier P. not only from his hesitations,
but from all the money he had bid on the Eiffeltower.
When Monsier P. realized he was scammed, it was no option for him to go to the police.
His reputation would have been destroyed, causing business suicide.
Everyone would laugh at him, pointing to the man who thought he was in all seriousness
buying the Eiffeltower.
Amazingly, the story does not end here.
Monsier Lustig returned to Paris six months later and sold the Eiffeltower once more for
a sum in francs equivalent today to over one-and-a-half million dollars.
Boldness in the truest of its forms.
Largeness of scale deceives the human eye.
It distracts and awes us, and is so self-evident that we cannot imagine there is any illusion
or deception afoot.
Asking for more puts the other person on the devensive, cuts out the nibbling effect of
compromise and doubt, and overwhelms with its boldness.
This is the story of Ivan the Terrible.
In 1533, Vasily, the Grand Duke of Moscow and ruler of a semi-united Russia, proclaimed
his three-year-old son, Ivan IV, as his successor.
Until Ivan reached his majority, however, his mother Helena would have the ruling hand.
She sought out help from her trusted friend Prince Ivan Obolensky to help her.
The boyar clan, the opposite party, poisened Helena and had Obolensky starve to death in
prison.
At the age of 8, Ivan was now a despised orphan.
The boyars would treat him roughly, dress him up in robes with a ceptar, mocking him,
beating and banishing his only friend.
He'd roam the palace, ill-cloathed, hungry and hiding from the boyars.
He remained strictly silent throughout all of this.
They thought their plan had worked, they had crushed the little man, Ivan was no longer
a threat.
They could ignore him.
December 29th, 1543 Ivan turned 13 and asked Prince Andrei Shuisky, the head of the boyars,
to come to his room.
When the Prince arrived, the room was filled with palace guards.
Ivan pointed with his finger, ordering Andrei's arrest, death and that his body be thrown
to the bloodhounds in the royal kennel.
Over the next few days Ivan had all of Andrei's close associates arrested and banished, the
boyars now stood in mortal terror of the young future Ivan the Terrible, who had planned
and waited for five years to take revenge with this one swift and bold act that would
secure his power for decades to come.
I've separated the theory of this law into a second part, because it would've been a
real drag to animate in the same way and not at all pleasing to the eye and also, because
the average attention span is far less then 4 minutes.
So, don't miss out on the rest to understand what's behind Monsieur Lustig's incredible
con and Ivan the Terrible's bloodthirsty boldness, through which he would later earn his name.
As always thank's for watching.