30/52: Everyone casts a shadow

#CapitalAtRisk

Above: The 48 Laws of Power (Special Edition) by Robert Greene. So good I bought it twice

The 2010s was the decade of the Entrepreneur. The 2020s will be the decade of the Investor.

“Sometimes not acting in the face of danger is your best move — you wait, you deliberately slow down. As time passes it will eventually present opportunities you had not imagined”.

Robert Greene

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Snippets

It’s been a long summer, and a good one — a lot better than last year.

I’m properly back in action today so I’ll be writing to you more frequently again and I’ll begin with a some posts in the next few days that are simply interesting snippets of things I’ve read, thought or observed over the summer…

Look at what's underneath

I heard the following on Robert Greene’s Instagram and had Otter listen in and give me the transcription¹:

“When you first meet somebody, they're not laying all their cards on the table. They're trying very hard to impress you, to please you.

So all the other aspects of their personality that they may be a little bit ashamed of, that aren't so great, they're working hard to disguise it.

So you're kind of lured into a relationship with this person, but you don't really know who they are.

You don't really know their secrets, their shadow side, their darkness, and then you get involved with them and then it comes out and they grate you, they irritate you and you break off the relationship.

You have to be able, if you are in that situation where you're looking for a long term relationship, to look below the surface.

Try and engage the person's character, not their personality, which is different their personality is the masks that they wear, how they appear in social situations.

You want to look at what's underneath it all.

Their character, how strong they are, if they’re a person who shares your basic values about life who has a kind of inner strength”.