How To Win Friends And Influence People - VS - The 48 Laws Of Power

[muscleman]

This is for anyone who's read these two books. I'm about midway through both. Both are bestsellers and both more or less promote the same idea (at least what I'm getting out of them) - a rise to power in all aspects of life (= success). However, it seems they take somewhat different approaches.

How to Win Friends is all about being nice, this and that.

48 Laws is all about ruthlessness (with finesse).

Maybe they are actually one and the same and I'm missing the underlying concepts and their similarities, but some of the stuff seems contradictory. Can anyone elaborate?

 

[Bvbidd]

I've read a bit of both, but in my opinion you can be both. Conidering being nice to win friends over, is the same as being manipulative.

 

[muscleman]

^ Right. I'm just trying to get a better understanding of what I've read so far. Both contain many historical examples of successful people (rulers, emperors, contemporary succeess figures), yet they still seem to take a different approach, or at least they highlight and focus on different aspects.

For example, one of the more recent chapters I read in both dealt with enemies. How To Win Friends was all about disarming people and making enemies into friends, but it failed to address the issue that some people will still dislike you (for whatever reasons). 48 Laws, on the other hand, had a chapter specifically called "Crush your Enemies Completely".

I'm just a little confused.

 

[MR_PERFECT]

I think they are both useful, just know when to use them. The 48 Laws only comes in handy when you have an enemy or a situation that takes a lot of manipulation, like a problem boss or coworker.

 

[Lust]

A balance of the two is what is most important.

 

[Rebound Material]

yea, i noticed a common trend in 48 laws of power and it was to be antisocial. It almost turns people introverted.

 

[Rollo Tomassi]

If all you came away with from 48 Laws is ruthlessness, you missed the point. Robert Greene even goes into this in the preface; the laws are what they are, whether you employ them or not isn't the point. There are ethical considerations for all of the laws, but that doesn't diminsh the fact that they are laws. In other words, if you wont practice a certain law due to moral considerations, this is entirely acceptable, but you put yourself at a disadvantage if you don't understand the law itself when it's eventually used against you. Essentially if you have no understanding of the laws you're less able to defend yourself. I should also mention that at the end of most chapters is a counter or a reversal of that particular law.

48 Laws isn't an instruction manual on how to ruthlessly weild power - if anything it's how to do so responsibly - but, moreover, it is a reference book on how and why these laws functions. So you can play patsy with how to Influence people, but remember that to deemphasize or reject the role that power plays in life is in essence a method of using power.