The 50th Law

The book was very popular with rappers um as I said because of the nature of the music industry and um he reached out to me he wanted to meet me because the 48 laws of power was sort of his Bible as he expressed it so I met him in New York um kind of in the back room of the steakhouse and sort of like a something straight out of the godfather I was kind of the one white guy amongst his whole group there I was a little bit intimidated to be honest I didn't know what to expect because he has this reputation and it up he was really nice really interesting actually very kind of sweet guy not what you expect and we I just finished writing my book on war fair and strategy which is kind of my version of Sunsu's art of war how to strategize in conflicts sort of like what you're talking about and he has a very strategic mind and he got we got very we kind of had a really nice connection and I thought you know so much in our culture is creating these stupid kind of divisions and walls like you're in academia you only write academic books you're a popular person you only write popular books you know you come from this community you come from that community and they should you never communicate and I thought it would be very interesting to write a book coming from two opposite um backgrounds you know me middle class Jewish boy from Los Angeles and him from south side queens something interesting could happen from a collaboration there's not enough of that in our culture I believe because even though our our circumstances were very different our minds were very similar we were thinking at a similar plane that kind of transcended these sort of superficial differences so I spent time with him and I was trying to figure out what is the essence of his power what makes him such a compelling figure and made him not one of those people in south side queens who ended up kind of spiraling downward ending up in prison what saved him and I determined that the quality he had was this kind of fearlessness and it isn't the kind of fearlessness where you go beating people up or something it's kind of an inner strength he had been shot when he was like 20 years old like nine bullets right there through a car window um kind of law one of them bullets lodged in his mouth and he survived miraculously and it gave him this kind of calmness like I have nothing to fear I almost died bring it on I don't really care and so I observed him in meetings I observed that kind of calmness and how he could take over a meeting not by being super aggressive but just by having this kind of dominant persona and I thought there was tremendous power in this fearlessness not being afraid to be different not being afraid to have conflict and confrontation not being afraid of actually of death itself not being afraid of the reality of your situation on and on so the book that we formed together was kind of a meditation on 10 forms of fearlessness and I found you know I thought that I was a relatively fearless person which in some ways I am I seem agreeable but I'm actually in some ways a little bit old and adventurous and but compared to him I realized no I'm actually riddled with fears and just being around him and kind of riding the book helped me a lot in my you know kind of overcome some of my own limits some of my own fears so that's where that book is.