To be honest, I was a bit hesitant about The 50th Law when I initially discovered it. My preliminary assumption was that this book would be nothing but fluff content recycled from The 48 Laws of Power. While I did find this book to have some of the same topics covered in The 48 Laws of Power, it wasn’t nearly enough overlap to be a deal breaker. Since I am a huge Robert Greene fan so I decided to give it a try, despite my skepticism. SPOILER ALERT: I hands down LOVE THIS book. While you don’t necessarily need to be fan of 50 Cent or his music, it does help if you are.
However, before I jump into the full book review, I cannot stress enough the importance of listening to books on audible.
Below please find highlights from the 3 most important chapters:
Chapter 8: Respect the Process – Mastery
The 50th law preaches, “one must master and respect a process in order to obtain the heights or power.” Learning a process from the ground up is something I have first hand knowledge of and I understand how difficult it can be to stay focused on one task. However, I never realized that boredom is a manufactured emotion. Understanding this distinction helped put into perspective what boredom means to mean and I’ve not realized that I do not have time to be bored.
After reviewing in detail the themes covered in this chapter I realized how important the ability to master slow and steady process of life. While these small individual tasks may seem boring and monotonous, mastering the ability to accomplish them will mean mastering the ability to reach larger goals. To fail at these small individual tasks will mean to fail at my ability to stay focused thus leading to the ultimate failure of accomplishing my larger life goals.
Chapter 9: Push Beyond Your Limits – Self-Belief
The 50th law preaches, “you must ask for more, aim high, and believe that you are destined for something”. Learning to be bold may not come naturally for most individuals. In fact learning any of the laws of power may indeed be unnatural, because power is more god-like than human. In order to push beyond your limits and reach certain goals in life, the 50th law preaches that you must have the confidence in yourself to know that you are moving in the right direction. While most people in life are uncertain, so long as you are slightly more certain than your opponent, you will have the upper hand.
Chapter 10: Confront Your Mortality – the Sublime
The 50th law preaches, “You must learn how to die in order to learn how to live”. When I initially heard this, I was confused. How can learning about death teach me how to live? However, understanding that everyone’s clock is ticking will help put things into perspective. The book preaches that you will “gain a sense of proportion, become able to separate what is petty from what is truly important.” Being able to ascertain the important from the irrelevant will allow you to make critical decisions with ease. As Greene states in the 48 Laws Of Power, “this action will lead me towards my goal; this one will not.”
Once you are able to see clearly what actions are required in order to live a meaningful life, you will then know how to live. Finally, once you know how to live, you will know how to die accepting that death is an inescapable part of life and a phenomenon that levels the playing field for all individuals regardless or age, social standings or any other factor.
The Final Review
A mentioned, I am a huge Robert Greene fan and I’ve now read all of his books. I highly recommend you do too, unless you want to be… powerless.