Corporate Machiavelli, Final Message

This is interesting stuff. Thanks.

Just skimmed through the site, cool stuff will look on more detail tomorrow.  

I just had a chance to skim and can’t wait to dive in more deeply. This compilation of wisdom and your efforts to put it together are truly remarkable. You’ve left behind something most of us couldn’t if we had a thousand years on earth.

Thank you; that means the world to me.

Please download the CM Files, so they are preserved if the website crashes after I die.

I've been reading your blogs since IM in 2017. 

Appreciate your insights, really accelerated my career 

thank you and godspeed!

thats some real cringe shit touted at highschoolers trying to be "machiavelli"

ill just leave this here

edit: added one more example:

Lol OP reads Jordan Peterson and suddenly thinks he has the world figured out. Also, Roosh is a psycho and Aaron Clarey is an ass.

Get off the Intellectual Dark Web and go talk to a girl in real life.

Insightful yet clearly missing the point

To those disturbed by the content of the CM Writings,

I am genuinely surprised.

Most of you have read 'The 48 Laws Of Power', and the CM Writings are no more or less offensive than that.

This is certified cringe

Bravo, CM. I thought the writings were insightful and thought me new words including mental health terms and tied to real life examples/lessons to Big 5 personality traits.  As someone who has high agreeableness, I’ve had the fortune of having to adapt to working with narcissists and people with borderline personality disorder of both genders (after reading CM and looking this term up) and protecting myself.  Things have not always worked out, but from these experiences, I believe I can work with anyone (as CM wrote).  I had a hodgepodge of experiences that could be summed up nicely in these writings. 

Even if you think CM’s writing is dark, it is good to know to recognize how others play the game. Someone mentioned they preferred other tenets to live by, and that’s fine.  I am also a fan of Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People (sent a copy to a high schooler few months ago). There are different approaches.  I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading CM over this weekend. Pattern recognition is important part of level two thinking and thus decision making / judgement.  Also learning from past experiences, not accepting that they were random occurrences but instead part of patterns rooted in human psychology.  A few of my friends don’t care for this stuff (too complicated), but they also spend their mental energies on hedonistic pursuits on the weekends whereas I’m curious about this stuff in my free time. 
I have kids and although I’m not going to teach them Machiavelli, some of their innate behaviors are Machiavellian and others they will learn.  I hope sooner than I did. 

Do you know why IM has not been posting on his blog for 3+ years? 

He's still very active on Twitter, and I used to love reading his blog posts every week. 

What is this?

CM (Bob) has passed away per his Twitter.  I don’t know how long ago.

I don’t think he was appreciated here

But I found many of the off-topic posts on WSO to have meaning and connection to his work.

I’ve observed things CM wrote that could have led to different outcomes in my life, or contributed to where I ended up.  And where I can go.

- feelings of depression due to loss of work, purpose.

- toxic work environments

- lack of ability to get a girl friend, or feelings of hopelessness 

- target vs non-target mindset

You have these mental constructs, but are unaware that human nature, society pushes you to very predictable behavior.  I feel like by recognizing these patterns (zooming out), you will be better at overcoming challenges.

Google: Corporate Machiavelli  

Philosophy can be seen as a way to view the world and your relation to it. Philosophers spent great lengths understanding their place in it from a multi-faceted approach. Stoic philosophers believed that to be right meant to utilize the reasoned choice, the only thing in your control whereas everything else, including your very body and breath, your position in society, your wealth and material posessions, you can merely influence. Buddist teachings focus heavily on restraint from evils or toxins that may cloud judgement. Despite which religion or school of thought hailed for philosophy, there was an underlying understanding for the profound and complex nature of humanity. Whether it was in reference to the need for belonging or self-actualization or toward the cautionary note of trying to chase happiness, perfection, or pleasure. In essence, all of these philosophical teachings speak on seperating the perception of good from the cultivation of value. Whether it's stoicism's teachings of temperance and self-restraint or otherwise.

In your pieces, you speak from a one-dimensional, single faucet perspective. You consider external traits as the sole reason for an existance. All in all, the tone derived from the articles I've read are devoid of empathy, compassion or nuance. For instance, in your peice, "The Battle of Credibility", you didn't highlight the intrinsic values of what it means to be credible; to be credible, is a factual statemnet, the credibility of an individual falls or rises with how well he sticks to his own words are performs to the expectations set by himself or those around him seperate of externalities. You positioned the claim as a subjective statement that can be questioned which seems boarderline illogical. For instance, you've entitled a few sections on "Appear Calm" and "Don't Appear Bitter/Angry" which tell me that you yourself are not calm nor without anger and instead of teaching or studying how to alleviate anger or remain centered in high-pressured arguemnts, you've simply supressed your emotions for the outward appearance of serenity.

I could go on and pick apart each article and it's tinted perception, but the gist can be summarized by this statement: your articles almost purely focus on your perception of value to others; the perception others hold you in high regard, the perception that you are credible or the perception that you are desirable. However, none of them speak to the effort or systems in place to actually cultivate value. 

Just wanted to say, thank you.  These concepts helped me through some tough times.  

I read through your blog and found it interesting.

I’m super intrigued because I had some free time today and really thought about your takes and what’s funny is I already employ them naturally.
 

1) For example, be associated with positivity; only engaging with my “superiors” when they’re in a great mood or something nice is going on and never being associated with bad news.

2) Also the under promise and over deliver, I have certain material I’ve put together for our team and they think it takes days/multiple hours when it takes me an hour, I just never surface that. Or if I’ve automated something through excel that took me a minute I just wait a couple days to send it.

3) only be associated with good people. Pretty self explanatory, some team members have a bad rep (ie anti social, whatever) and I always stay away. But I’ve always developed closer relationships with the rainmakers on our team and make sure to do quality work for them even if it’s menial work because they usually bring my name up to my boss. Even when I was new I’d always notice a certain 1-2 people on the email chain first always and naturally heard my boss slowly talking a lot about how good they are so I did my best to integrate with them more.

4) “Cold reading is the ability to make accurate deductions regarding an individual’s psychological makeup from nothing more than looking at them.”

this one popped out to me too - I mean, you wouldn’t talk/express certain things to Person A who wears Patagonia and looks phenotypically higher class (controversial) versus person B who is and has an unconventional hairstyle and wears tight clothing

Again,  interesting reads