The 50th Law (15 page)

In general, you must be less respectful of the rules that other people have established. They do not necessarily fit the times or your temperament. And there is great power to be had by being the one to initiate a new order.

IMPOSSIBLE DYNAMICS

Sometimes in life you find yourself in a negative situation that cannot be improved no matter what you do. You might find yourself working for people who are irrational. Their actions seem to serve no purpose apart from imposing their power and making you miserable. Everything you do is wrong. Or it could be a relationship in which you are constantly forced to rescue a person. This usually involves types who present themselves as weak victims in need of attention and assistance. They stir up a lot of drama around them. No matter what you do, the need to be rescued keeps recurring.

You can recognize this dynamic by your emotional need to somehow solve the problem, mixed with your complete frustration in finding any kind of reasonable answer. In truth the only viable solution is to terminate the relationship—no arguing, no bargaining, no compromising. You leave the job (there are always others); you leave the person who is tormenting you with as much finality as possible. Resist the temptation to feel any guilt. You need to create as much distance as possible, so they cannot inveigle these emotions into you. They must become dead to you so you can go on with your life.

Reversal of Perspective

The problem with confrontational moments, and why we often seek to avoid them, is that they churn up a lot of unpleasant emotions. We feel personally aggrieved that someone is trying to hurt or harm us. This makes us wonder about ourselves and feel insecure. Did we deserve this in some way? If we go through a few of these unpleasant moments, we become increasingly skittish. But this is really a problem of perception. In our own inner turmoil we tend to exaggerate the negative intentions of our opponents. In general we take conflicts far too personally. People have problems and traumas that they carry with them from their childhood on. Most often when they do something to harm or block us, it really is not directed at us personally. It comes from some unfinished business from the past, or deep insecurities. We happen to cross their path at the wrong moment.

It is essential that you develop the reverse perspective: life naturally involves conflicting interests; people have their own issues, their own agendas, and they collide with yours. Instead of taking this personally or concerning yourself with people’s intentions, you must simply work to protect and advance yourself in this competitive game, this bloody arena. Focus your attention on their maneuvers and how to deflect them. When you have to resort to something that isn’t conventionally moral, it is just another maneuver you are executing in the game—nothing to feel guilty about. You accept human nature and the idea that people will resort to aggression. This calm, detached perspective will make it that much easier to design the perfect strategy for blunting their aggression. With your emotions unscathed by these battles, you will grow accustomed to them and will even take some pleasure in fighting them well.

IN THE RING, OUR OPPONENTS CAN GOUGE US WITH THEIR NAILS OR BUTT US WITH THEIR HEADS AND LEAVE A BRUISE, BUT WE DON’T DENOUNCE THEM FOR IT OR GET UPSET WITH THEM OR REGARD THEM FROM THEN ON AS VIOLENT TYPES. WE JUST KEEP AN EYE ON THEM…NOT OUT OF HATRED OR SUSPICION. JUST KEEPING A FRIENDLY DISTANCE. WE NEED TO DO THAT IN OTHER AREAS. WE NEED TO EXCUSE WHAT OUR SPARRING PARTNERS DO, AND JUST KEEP OUR DISTANCE—WITHOUT SUSPICION OR HATRED.

—Marcus Aurelius

Lead from the Front—Authority

IN ANY GROUP, THE PERSON ON TOP CONSCIOUSLY OR UNCONSCIOUSLY SETS THE TONE. IF LEADERS ARE FEARFUL, HESITANT TO TAKE ANY RISKS, OR OVERLY CONCERNED FOR THEIR EGO AND REPUTATION, THEN THIS INVARIABLY FILTERS ITS WAY THROUGH THE ENTIRE GROUP AND MAKES EFFECTIVE ACTION IMPOSSIBLE. COMPLAINING AND HARANGUING PEOPLE TO WORK HARDER HAS A COUNTERPRODUCTIVE EFFECT. YOU MUST ADOPT THE OPPOSITE STYLE: IMBUE YOUR TROOPS WITH THE PROPER SPIRIT THROUGH YOUR ACTIONS, NOT WORDS. THEY SEE YOU WORKING HARDER THAN ANYONE, HOLDING YOURSELF TO THE HIGHEST STANDARDS, TAKING RISKS WITH CONFIDENCE, AND MAKING TOUGH DECISION. THIS INSPIRES AND BINDS THE GROUP TOGETHER. IN THESE DEMOCRATIC TIMES, YOU MUST PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH.

The Hustler King

NO MAN CAN PROPERLY COMMAND AN ARMY FROM THE REAR. HE MUST BE AT THE FRONT…AT THE VERY HEAD OF THE ARMY. HE MUST BE SEEN THERE, AND THE EFFECT OF HIS MIND AND PERSONAL ENERGY MUST BE FELT BY EVERY OFFICER AND MAN PRESENT WITH IT….

—General William T. Sherman

By the spring of 1991, young Curtis Jackson had proved himself to be one of the savviest hustlers in the neighborhood. His pool of repeat customers had increased to a point where he had to hire his own crew to keep up with their demand. But as he knew, nothing good ever lasts too long in the hood. Just as Curtis was making plans to expand his business, an older hustler named Wayne began to make threatening gestures towards him. Wayne had recently returned to the streets from prison; he was determined to make as much money as fast as possible and then dominate the local drug trade. Curtis, it seemed, was his main rival. He tried to intimidate the younger hustler, warning him that he better curtail his operations or pay a price. Curtis ignored him. Then Wayne decided to up the ante: he sent out word on the street that he was going to have Curtis killed.

Curtis had seen this happen before and he knew what would happen next. Wayne would never do the job himself—he could not risk a return to prison. Instead he was banking on the fact that some young kid would hear of his desire to kill Curtis and, eager to gain some street credibility, would take it upon himself to do the dirty work. Sure enough, a few days after hearing of Wayne’s intentions, Curtis noticed a young kid named Nitty trailing him on the streets. He felt certain that Nitty was the one planning to do the hit, and it would happen soon.

This was the depressing dynamic of hustling in the hood: the more success a hustler had, the more he attracted the wrong kind of attention. Unless he inspired some fear and terror, rivals would keep coming at him, trying to take what he had and continually threatening his position on the streets. Once that started to happen, the once successful dealer would find himself drawn into a cycle of violence, reprisals, and time in the pen.

There were a few hustlers, however, who had somehow managed to rise above this dynamic. In the hood, they were like kings—just hearing their names or seeing them on the street would elicit a gut reaction, a mix of fright and admiration. What elevated them above others was a series of actions they had taken in the past that demonstrated they were fearless and smart. Their maneuvers would be unpredictable and all the more terrifying for it. If people thought of challenging them, they would quickly remember what these types had done in other circumstances and back off. All of this would give them an aura of power and mystery. Instead of challengers on all sides, they would have disciples ready to follow them as far as they wanted. If Curtis saw himself as the kingly type, it was time now to show it to others, as dramatically as possible.

With death staring him in the face, he worked to control his emotions and thought long and hard about the dilemma that Wayne had posed. If he came after Wayne to kill him first, Wayne would be ready and would have the perfect excuse to kill Curtis in self-defense. If instead he went after Nitty and killed him, the police would catch Curtis and he would end up in prison for a long time, an equally fortunate result for Wayne. And if he did nothing, Nitty would finish him off. But Wayne’s strategy had a fatal flaw—his fear of doing the job with his own hands. He was no king himself, but just another frightened hustler pretending to be tough. Curtis would come after him from an unexpected angle and turn everything around.

Without wasting any more time, he asked a member of his crew named Tony to accompany him that afternoon. Together they surprised Nitty on the street, and while Tony held him, Curtis slashed the kid in the face with a razor blade. He did it just deep enough to send him screaming to the hospital, and to leave a nice scar for a while. Then a few hours later, he and Tony found Wayne’s empty car and shot it up—an ambiguous message that meant either they hoped he was inside, or they were taunting him to come out and attack them in the open.

The following day, the dominoes fell just as Curtis thought they would. Nitty sought out Wayne, expecting that the two of them would then go together to exact revenge on Curtis—after all, Wayne had been attacked as well. Wayne, however, still insisted the kid do it alone. Now Nitty could see through the game—he was just the patsy to do the dirty work, and Wayne was not as tough as he had made himself out to be. Nitty would have nothing more to do with him, but he was also too afraid to take on Curtis by himself. He decided he could live with the scar. Wayne was now in a delicate position. If he asked someone else to do the job it would start to look like what it was—a man too scared to do it himself. Better to let the whole thing just go away.

In the days to come, the hood was abuzz with the story of what had happened. Young Curtis had outmaneuvered and outsmarted the older rival. Unlike the latter, he was unafraid to do the violence himself. What he had done was bold and dramatic—it had come out of nowhere. Every time people would see Nitty on the streets with the long scar on his face, they were reminded of the incident. Rivals would now have to think twice before challenging his status—he showed he was tough and crafty. And those in his crew were duly impressed with his sangfroid and how he had turned the situation around. They now saw him differently, as somebody who could last in this jungle and was worth following.

Curtis followed this up with other similar actions, and slowly he elevated himself above the other hustlers. Now there were younger ones who looked up to him and would soon form the core of a devoted band of disciples who would help him in his transition into music.

After the success of his first album in 2003, Curtis (now known as 50 Cent) began to realize his dream of forging a business empire. But as this took shape in the months and years to follow, he began to feel that something was wrong. It would be natural to believe that with his current position and fame, those working for him would simply follow his lead and do what he wanted. But his whole life had been a lesson in the opposite—people continually take from you; they doubt your powers and challenge you.

In this environment, his executives and managers were not trying to take his money or his life, but rather he had the feeling they were nibbling away at his power, trying to soften his image and make him more corporate and predictable. If he let this go on, he would lose the only quality that made him different—his propensity to take risks and do the unexpected. He might become a safe investment, but he would no longer be a leader and a creative force. In this world, you cannot relax and rest on your name, your past achievements, your title. You have to fight to impose your difference and compel people to follow your lead.

All of these thoughts became painfully clear to him in the summer of 2007. His third album,
Curtis
, was to be released in September of that year, and everyone seemed to be asleep. The record label, Interscope, was acting as if the album would sell itself. His management team had put together a marketing campaign that he felt was too tame, passive, and corporate. They were trying to control too much. Then one August afternoon, an employee at G-Unit Records (Fifty’s own label within Interscope) told him that a video from the upcoming album somehow just got leaked to the Internet. If it spread, it would mess up the carefully orchestrated rollout of songs that had been planned for that month. Fifty was the first to hear of this, and after contemplating what to do next, he decided it was finally time to shake up the dynamic, do the unpredictable, and play the part of the hustler king.

He called into his office his radio and Internet team at G-Unit. Instead of working to contain the viral spread of the video—the usual response to such a problem and what management would advocate—he ordered them to surreptitiously leak it to other sites and let it spread like wildfire.

On top of this move, they created the following story to tell journalists for public consumption: When Fifty heard of the leak, he flew into a wild rage. He threw his phone at the window with such force he cracked it. He tore the plasma TV off the wall and smashed it into pieces. He left the building in a fit, and the last thing they heard him yelling was that he was shutting it all down and going on vacation. That evening, on Fifty’s orders, they had the maintenance man for the building take pictures of the damage (all faked for this purpose), and then “leaked” the photos to the Internet. They were to keep all of this a secret—not even management was to know that this drama was completely manufactured.

In the days to come Fifty watched with satisfaction as this story spread everywhere. Interscope was awakened from its slumber. Management was sent the message that he was now in command—if he refused to do any more publicity, as he had threatened, their whole campaign was doomed. They had to follow his lead here and let him set the tone for the publicity, which meant something more aggressive and fluid. Among Fifty’s executives and employees, word spread quickly of what had supposedly happened—his reputation for being unpredictable and violent brought to life. When they now saw him in the offices, they felt a twinge of fear. Better to pay attention to what he wanted than risk witnessing his anger. And for the public, this was just the kind of story they expected from the thug rapper. It compelled their attention. They could laugh at his out-of-control antics, not realizing that it was Fifty, directing the drama, who would have the last laugh.