Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You've been told to be open, to share your truth,
to speak from the heart, to be transparent, because honesty
builds connection. But that's a lie, a lie told by
people who benefit from your vulnerability, by manipulators who smile
while they collect ammunition from your words, by the world,
which rewards the illusion of authenticity, then punishes you the
(00:24):
moment you reveal too much. Machiavelli knew better. The promise
given was a necessity of the past. The word broken
is a necessity of the present. He didn't teach connection,
he taught control. And if you want to survive, not
as a victim, but as a strategist, you must follow
his darkest rules, starting with this, never reveal these seven
(00:48):
things to anyone. Number one, never reveal your true intentions.
People say, just be honest about what you want. But
here's what Machiavelli would say. Everyone sees what you appear
to be. Few experience what you really are. Because the
moment they know your destination, they start placing obstacles, They
(01:11):
start calculating how to use your ambition. They start testing
whether you're a threat. They will project fear, they will
build alliances, they will gossip and sabotage all before you've
taken your first step. Your ambition threatens them, and your
transparency feeds them. So conceal it. Let them guess, let
(01:32):
them underestimate, let them believe your passive while you quietly
build the empire they didn't see coming. You don't say
I want to be promoted. You say I'm just here
to learn. You don't say I'm not interested anymore. You
say we'll see. You don't declare war. You make them
think peace is permanent until it's too late. Because when
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your goals are invisible, your enemies don't know where to strike.
Number two, never reveal your emotional weakness. They say, be real,
be vulnerable. What they mean is show me where to stab.
Every time you admit how much something hurts, how often
you overthink, how lonely you are, how insecure you feel,
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they don't hear honesty, They hear opportunity. People collect your
emotional wounds the same way an assassin collects poison, quietly, patiently, methodically,
to use when it counts. They'll smile when you open up,
they'll nod like they understand, But the moment the connection breaks,
that's what they'll weaponize. They won't attack your strengths, they'll
(02:42):
attack your confessions. Macchiavelli wasn't heartless. He was strategic. He
understood that the appearance of vulnerability can be used, but
true vulnerability must be protected at all costs. You want
to cry, do it alone, You want to do it
in silence. You want to scream, Swallow it because the
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more emotion you reveal, the more emotional leverage you hand over.
Control your expression, even if you can't control your feeling.
That's not deception, that's defense number three. Never reveal your
real alliances. You think loyalty is obvious, that you should
make it known who you trust, that people feel safer
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when you choose a side. But in a world ruled
by power, loyalty is a liability and visibility is suicide.
Machiavelli said, it is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.
People who know your allies know how to corner you.
They know who to pressure, who to threaten, who to corrupt.
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They'll use your connections to triangulate your behavior, to cut
your influence, to poison your inner circle. That's how kingdoms fall,
not from outside invasion, but from exposed alliances. Your real loyalty,
keep it off stage in public. Be unpredictable, Be courteous
to your rivals, Be skeptical of your friends. Be neutral
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with everyone. Let them wonder who you answer to, Let
them guess who truly holds your ear. Let them waste
time chasing rumors while you operate in shadow. In war,
the greatest weapon is not strength, it's uncertainty. And there's
no greater uncertainty than the man who smiles with everyone
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and reveals nothing. Number four. Never reveal what truly motivates you.
They'll ask what drives you, what's your why, what gets
you out of bed? And if you answer honestly, you
just exposed your control panel. You said I want to
prove myself. They hear you crave validation, and I can
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control you with silence. You said, I just want to
feel loved. They hear you're emotionally hungry, and I can
starve you into obedience. You said, I want to make
my family proud. They hear you can be guilt tripped.
You thought you were being deep, you thought you were bonding.
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But in the game of power, your motivation is not
a story. It's a lever And once they know which
lever moves you, they will pull it on their terms.
Macchiavelli didn't admire noble intentions, he admired results. The ends
justify the means, because people will manipulate your why to
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derail your how. They'll appeal to your heart to stop
your progress. They'll offer you recognition just to distract you
from legacy. They'll dangle false rewards to keep you playing
their game instead of building your own. So what do
you do? You give them surface motives. I'm just exploring,
I'm curious, I'm figuring things out. Make your mission sound harmless,
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even forgettable. Meanwhile, behind closed doors, you're building something they'll
only see once it's too late to stop your real motivation.
Let them discover it from your results, not your mouth.
Number five, never reveal what or who you despise. In
a perfect world, being open about what offends or disgusts
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you would make people respect your values. But this isn't
a perfect world. This is a world full of people
who target your triggers. You say, I hate people who ghost,
and now they'll ghost you just to watch you unravel.
You say I can't stand being ignored. Now every silence
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becomes a calculated punishment. You say I hate being lied to,
and now you'll be lied to with plausible deniability. Why
Because the more you hate something, the more emotional power
it holds over you. Machiavelli warned, a prince should learn
to act as both beast and man, which means you
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must appear civil while internally you are untouchable. You don't flinch,
you don't WinCE, you don't react. The moment someone knows
what disgusts you, they'll test you, not all at once, subtly, slowly, surgically,
to see if they can control you through disgust, to
see if you're weak through hatred. So what do you do?
(07:24):
You train for emotional neutrality, not to become passive, but
to become unpredictable. Don't let them know which insults land.
Don't let them know which people you fear. Don't let
them know who gets under your skin. Pretend you've got
no skin at all, because the moment they know who
you hate, they can make you chase justice instead of power.
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Number six, Never reveal what you're willing to sacrifice. People
think boundaries are respected by stating them clearly, but in power,
the opposite is true. The more they know you won't
wank walk away, the more they will push you to
your edge and past it. You say I'd never leave
this job. Now they underpay you and smile doing it.
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You say I'd never hurt them no matter what. Now
they cheat on you emotionally, just under the radar. You say,
this is the most important relationship in my life. Now
they know they can slack off, show up late, half
love you, and you'll still stay. Congratulations, you've declared yourself
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non threatening. Machiavelli taught rulers to always appear replaceable, but
never be replaceable, and always let others believe they can
be replaced even when they can't. This is how you
flip the script. Instead of saying I'll never leave, you
say I like it here for now. Instead of saying
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I'll do anything for this, you say I'll do what
I must as long as it makes sense. This doesn't
make you cold, It makes you calculating, because what you're
willing to sacrifice is the final weapon in any negotiation,
and when they know what that is, they won't ask
for it directly. They'll just take everything around it until
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the sacrifice becomes inevitable, and you make it yourself. In
this world, clarity can be a trap. People say, just
be clear, say exactly what you want, speak openly. But
Machiavelli would say, he who is the cause of another's
greatness is himself undone translation, when you give them the
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full blueprint of your mind, you give them the power
to destroy it. Number seven, Never reveal what you truly
think of yourself. This is the most dangerous revelation of all.
Not what you think of others, but what you believe
about yourself, Because if they know your internal valuation, they'll
know how to control your reality. Say you doubt yourself,
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even quietly, and they'll reinforce that doubt until it becomes permanent.
Say you think you're not attractive, not talented, not worthy,
and they'll reflect it back to you in subtle, cruel ways,
jokes wrapped in smiles, back handed compliments, intentional neglect. They'll
teach you to hate yourself, not through aggression, but through agreement.
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Even worse, if you say you think you're powerful, that
you're worth more, that you're going places, they'll mark you
for destruction. Because most people don't want to hear the
quiet voice of someone rising. They want confessions. They want cracks.
They want insecurity so they can feel safe in your presence.
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Machiavelli would have told you men are so simple and
so obedient to present necessities that he who deceives will
always find someone who will let himself be deceived. And
your biggest deception letting people think they know what you
really are are. So what should you do? Let them wonder,
play the role they can digest, humble, curious, non threatening.
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Don't tell them you're building something massive. Let them mock
you and feel comfortable, because comfort makes people lazy, and
their laziness becomes your camouflage. You want to become unstoppable.
Let them think you're stagnant. Let them laugh while you
prepare the next move they'll never see coming. Now you
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know what not to reveal. But Machiavelli's genius wasn't just
in concealment. It was in weaponizing silence. Silence is not emptiness,
its tension. It makes people nervous, It makes people project,
It makes people talk too much, revealing what you never
had to ask. Your silence becomes a mirror. They fill
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in your blanks with their fears. They imagine you know
more than you do. They assign meaning to every word
you don't say, and that's where your power begins. Because
as the one who speaks the least controls the emotional frame,
the world is addicted to explanation. People feel guilty for
being misunderstood. They overcorrect, they clarify, they vent post confess.
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But you, you are machiavellian. Now you've deleted the need
to be understood because you understand the secret. Once they
know how you work, they'll start working you. Silence is control,
restraint is dominance, Mystery is protection. If they can't read you,
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they can't prepare for you, they can't trap you, they
can't recruit others against you. Because when someone is fully known,
they become navigable, predictable, controllable. But the person who reveals nothing,
he becomes a myth. You don't have to be rich yet.
You don't have to be powerful yet. You don't have
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to be the best in the room. But you do
have to be hard to because unreadable people are unshakable.
You don't know what they want, you don't know what
they fear. You don't know what would break them because
they never showed you. You walk into the room and
people sit straighter, speak slower, second guess themselves. Not because
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you threatened anyone, but because you revealed nothing. This is
what Machiavelli meant when he spoke of the appearance of
virtue without the obligation to practice it. It's not about
being fake, It's about being strategic. Because if you live
in a world where people look for weakness, why would
you ever broadcast yours now that you know what never
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to reveal. Here's how you operate in the real world,
visible to all, known by none. Because Machiavelli's strategy wasn't isolation,
it was infiltration. He didn't say hide in the shadows.
He said, become the shadow inside the room. To win,
you must move silently inside the system, learn the rules,
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smile in meetings, laugh at their jokes, gad when they
share their plans, but reveal nothing real. You're not faking agreement,
you're withholding allegiance. Here's how this plays out. They ask
what do you think about this person? You say interesting,
I haven't seen enough yet. They ask what's your next step?
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You say still figuring it out. They ask what are
you really after? You say peace? Mostly give them dust,
give them kegue, give them answers that sound like truth
but contain no leverage. Why because power decays when it
becomes predictable, and you are now unpredictable. By design. Power
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doesn't always look like dominance. Sometimes it's the quiet hand
that adjusts a system without ever being seen doing it.
Let others rage, Let others correct publicly, let others show
their ego. You you correct in silence. If someone disrespects you,
you don't argue, You don't react. You reposition, You remove access,
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You slow down responses, You redirect outcomes behind closed doors.
That is the Machiavelli in correction. No explosion, just erosion.
They won't even know you did it, but they'll feel
the shift. They'll feel the coldness, they'll feel the weight
of a power they can't explain, and it will haunt them.
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People think you must dominate every battle, but Machiavelli knew
every visible battle costs something reputation, energy, time. So how
do you win without noise? You outlast, you outthink, You
plant doubt in your enemy's mind without ever touching them.
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Let's say someone challenges you, tries to discredit you, spreads rumor.
You don't confront, you don't panic. You don't defend. You
just tighten your circle. You stop sharing, you work quietly,
and then one day they wake up and you've taken
the seat they thought was theirs. You didn't fight, You
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replaced them with silence as your sword. Remember this, The
person who must destroy others to rise is weak. The
person who rises in silence becomes a legend because no
one sees it coming, and what people don't see coming,
they cannot stop. People always reveal themselves when they speak
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too much. That's why your words must do one of
two things. Create an illusion, conceal an intention. Every sentence
must serve the fog. You're not lying, you're distorting the lens.
Someone asks, are you trying to lead this? You smile,
I just want to contribute where I can. Someone says
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you're different lately. You nod, just focusing inward. These aren't lies,
they're decoys. Because the more others try to interpret your language,
the less energy they spend attacking your actions. You're not
a ghost, you're not a wall. You're a mirror. And
when people can't read you, they see themselves instead. That's
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why they fear you, and that's why they respect you,
because you are now impossible to decode and dangerous to underestimate.
Now that you've erased what weakens you, what do you
replace it with? Nothing? Not more information, not a better
version of your story, not a new narrative. You replace
it with emptiness. Why because emptiness makes people fill in
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the blanks, and they always fill it with fear, desire,
or admiration. The person who says nothing after betrayal terrifying
because you don't know what they'll do next. The person
who doesn't explain their an ambition unstoppable because they could
be playing five levels deeper than you realize. The person
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who remains neutral in drama feared because they're not swayed
by chaos, which means they're swayed by nothing. This is
what Machiavelli mastered. Men judge generally more by the eye
than by the hand. Everyone sees what you appear to be,
few experience what you really are. He understood that perception
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is power, and perception is shaped not by what you reveal,
but what you withhold. That's what makes rulers. Not charisma,
not honesty, not likability, but the discipline to stay unreadable
in a world addicted to disclosure. When people leave your life,
you don't owe them closure. When people betray you, you
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don't owe them explanation. When people doubt you, you don't
owe them evidence. Let your silence be the punishment. Let
your distance be the answer. Let your glow up be
the obituary. People who violate your boundaries should not be taught.
They should be denied access. This is what Machiavelli would
have wanted you to understand. Never let someone dissect your
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soul after they've proven they can't protect it. Now you
walk differently. You no longer speak to be heard. You
speak to direct. You no longer reveal what you feel.
You reveal what's useful. You no longer justify your absence.
Your absence is the message. People may not say it
to your face, but they feel it in their chest.
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I don't know what they're thinking, but I know not
to play with them. That's what silence buys you. That's
what secrecy earns. That's what hiding your deepest truths creates.
A psychological climate of fear and fascination. You are no
longer a person they can casually define. You are now
a presence they must adapt to. You don't need to
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be a manipulator. You don't need to be cold, You
don't need to control others. You only need to control
the access point. What people know, what people see, what
people feel entitled to, And when you close the gates,
the kingdom becomes yours again. Machiavelli's darkest rule wasn't about cruelty.
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It was about containment. He who conquers himself is greater
than he who conquers a city. And now you've conquered
the urge to explain, to vent, to be known by everyone,
You've left behind the version of yourself that bled every
time someone asked what's going on inside your head? Now
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they'll never know, because now you don't reveal. You observe,
you move, you act, And when they finally understand what
you are, it will be long after it's too late
to stop you. Because the loud ones are seen, the
reckless ones are feared, but the quiet ones, they are
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remembered as legends.