Greene: Power requires soft influence because ruthless aggression creates vindictive enemies
Robert Greene · Manipulation Expert: Success Isn’t Luck, It’s Rigged | Robert Greene · Apr 16, 2025 · at 24:27
Robert Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power, explains to Codie Sanchez why total aggression in business disputes backfires over time.
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“If you're alienating everybody, if you're crushing all of these people, if you're just having lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit, there, there'll be a bounce back effect where you won't have many allies next time you're in trouble, right? People will resent you. You'll have more enemies on the horizon, and when you slip up in this media crazy era, all those enemies will suddenly come out of the woodwork, and they'll be on social media, and you know, The mobs will come after you and you'll suffer for it. So there's an aspect of power where you have to play the soft game, where you have to please as many people as possible, make allies, make them think that they're doing what they want, but in fact they're doing what you want, which is the art of seduction itself, you know.”
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