Bing - What Would Machiavelli Do?

In the spirit of the master, Im going to suppress the impulse to dedicate this book to my family, my friends, my bosses, the people who have influenced my thoughts and shaped my path as I make my way toward its completion. Instead, Im going to do what Machiavelli would tell me to do, and dedicate this book to myself.

H ow in the world did that person get to where he is today? You hear that question everywhere lately, as people stare at the cover of Fortune or Business Week or the pen-and-ink drawings in the Wall Street Journal and contemplate the great and powerful leader of the moment who just made his second hundred million or, more likely than not, his fourth billion.

How can I be more like that person, in the sense that I rule everything that comes near me and enjoy compensation by the ton? you hear people ask not only themselves, but each other.

And its a darn good question. Are the super-powerful giants who mold our lives different than you or me? Of course they are. Well, at least theyre different than you. Because you dont yet walk in the path of the truly successful, those who are guided by the basic teaching of the simple bureaucrat from Florence who spoke to us five hundred years ago or thereabouts.

Throughout our time here on earth, we all have a choice. To do things the mediocre way... or Machiavellis way.

Some choose to follow the easy road. They allow their human impulses to guide them. They try to be decent. They view other people as free individuals who have a right to live their own lives. They are embarrassed by power and greed and manipulation. In short, they find their own little cubbyhole and crawl into it. These are the men and women whom you see on the train or bus or subway every morning in their humdrum designer knockoffs, eating a dry little muffin from a brown paper bag and reading, confused and dejected, about the next Internet millionaire. In other words, you or me. Or at least you. I very often drive to work in my company car.

And then there are the other people. They rise like gas bubbles in Mot to the top of any corporate hierarchy. They make decisions. They make money. They make other people do what they want. They rule. Because they are the people who every day, in every way, ask themselves the key question that transforms a middle manager into a CEO: What would Machiavelli do?

This book attempts to answer that question for all aspects of your life, because obviously, you need help.

When the world calls upon you to be mean, youre nice.

When the world requires you to be lousy, you remain decent.

When the world needs you to be decisive, even though you dont really know what to do... you ask other people for their opinions. Sometimes you even pay a consultant, you fool.

On most weekends, you like to spend time with your family and friends, and assume that others would like to do the same.

Youre sometimes satisfied with what you have.

You want to be happy, and to make other people happy if you can.

In other words, youre doomed. Doomed to the middle. Doomed to be one of those who are acted upon, not one of those who act. Thats all right. We can take care of that.

This book will take you by the shoulders, shake you, and make you begin to live your sorry life differently. To take stock of a situation and ask yourself, before you act: What would Machiavelli do?

And the answer, in almost all cases, is: Whatever is necessary.

Thats right. Machiavelli would advise you to do whatever is necessary , and thats it. The goal? To grow your personal power. Remember it. Live by it. Because your personal power and nobody elses is the ultimate good. For society. For the world in which we live. For puppies and kittens and all the little children.

Simple? Sure. But not so simple that you dont need this book. Put it in your briefcase. Take it on your train. Sneak it into meetings in one of those cheap fake-leather binders they give you because they think youre too stupid to bring your own pen and paper. And when Mr. Roover leans over and begins to work on you about the upcoming budget, or the fourth-quarter numbers, or the productivity of your department, or the future of the industry as he sees it and where he expects you to play a role in it stop!

Lean back. Ask yourself: What would Machiavelli do? And if you dont know, dont worry. You have this book.

Unless youre standing up at some bookstore right now, trying to decide whether to buy it and rifling through its contents without paying for it. If thats you, close the book right now, you pathetic loser. Go to the cash register immediately, pay for at least one copy, if not two. Go home. Read it cover to cover. It wont take long. I didnt want it to be too weighty or demanding, because I know you have no real attention span, particularly since you started cruising the Net every night instead of reading cheesy magazines and mail-order catalogs the way you used to. For that reason, I also chopped up the advice in here into digestible little nuggets, because I know thats the way you like things. I made the whole book easy to read, easy to understand, almost impossible not to buy for people who are ambitious, smart, and insecure. Hopefully by now Ive created the fear in you that if you do not listen to me, you will fail. Maybe not today, not this week, but soon, and for therest of your life. And operating under that fear, you will do what I want you to do.

Good!

Lets get mean.