Who?
Anyone interested in people, power, or politics, and anyone interested in 50 Cent.
When?
No rush.
Why?
In a similar way to how a well written biography is intriguing, this book is also an intriguing examination of the power principles that supposedly underpin 50 Cent’s life.
Best Quote
By a paradoxical law of human nature, trying to please people less will make them more likely in the long run to respect and treat you better.
Review
To me. The 50th Law is Robert Greene’s best book. The 48 Laws of Power comes across as too much of a laundry list, and The Art of Seduction made me feel slimy. I want to note though that the narrator/reader of both of those audiobook did not help at all though. This book shares a lot of characteristics with those books, but has a central character that is at least intriguing and in the public space, so reading this book makes you feel a bit like you’re getting a little insider information on 50 Cent.
I do not fully agree with 50 Cent’s worldview, but clearly, he is highly accomplished, apparently very smart, and has experiences that I will never get close to, so whether you agree with how he views the world should be a second consideration after the fact that you can easily learn a lot about how people very different from your view and experience life just by reading this book.
One of the main things that stuck out to me in this book was 50 Cent’s view of fear. Fear makes you weak. It causes you to make bad decisions, not take chances you need to in order to succeed, and take chances that you would have been better off passing on. This is one reason that 50 Cent has focused so much time on learning from others very different from him, doing things that make him uncomfortable, and not accepting weakness in those around him. Letting fear reside within himself or people around him creates more opportunities for failure.
Last Word
As I said, I don’t really view the world in the same way that 50 Cent does, but there’s a lot that you can learn from The 50th Law, and at the very least, I think that you’ll enjoy the writing and personal stories woven in.
