The 3 Emotions Maquiavelli Warned You Should NEVER Show (Most People Do It Every Day)

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In this sanctuary of phi

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Power isn't always taken with violence. Sometimes it's stolen in silence,
through a glance, a hesitation, a pause too long. And
Machiavelli knew this long before psychology had a name for it.
Most people give themselves away, not with actions, but with emotion,
not with betrayal, but with the tiniest leaks in their mask.

(00:23):
And once you leak, you lose. But the dangerous thing
is you don't realize your leaking. And the emotions that
expose you aren't loud, not happiness, not anger, not fear.
They're smaller, quieter, slipping out in casual words, micro expressions,
delayed pauses, the things that make you predictable, easy to read,

(00:46):
easy to manipulate. Machiavelli never hid his surface. He buried
his core, because once someone understands what shakes you, they
own you, not with force, but with insight. If you
want an impenetrable mind one no one can play, bend
or break, you must erase three emotions from your visible self.

(01:09):
The first one is eagerness. Eagerness is not enthusiasm, it's
not motivation. It's the desperate signal that you want something. Attention, approval, status,
opportunity more than you're willing to admit, and in that
signal is your weakness. Because the moment you appear eager,

(01:30):
you've created a power imbalance. You've told the other person
you have something I want, and that gives them leverage.
This shows up in job interviews, relationships, negotiations, even casual conversations.
You lean forward too much, you agree too quickly, you
answer before the question's finished. You praise excessively. You try

(01:53):
to prove your worth choosing, and in doing so, you
prove your not Machiavelli would say, the one who chases
is already beneath the one who withholds. Eagerness makes you readable,
and readability kills mystery, and mystery is half of power.
When you walk into a room with eagerness in your eyes,

(02:14):
people instinctively devalue you. They may not say it, they
may not even consciously realize it, but they feel it.
Your need creates their confidence, and in reverse, your detachment
makes them uncertain. That's where control begins. To neutralize eagerness,
you must train yourself to slow down, not your thoughts,

(02:35):
your expression of them. Speak after a pause, nod sparingly,
let silence fill the spaces where others rush to affirm,
give the impression that you are observing, calculating, not proving,
because in every environment, the person who seems least eager
always feels most in control, not because they have more,

(02:57):
but because they need less. Now, think about how often
you've revealed this in texts sent too quickly, in messages
double sent when someone didn't reply, in compliments that feel
more like begging, in showing up too early, in saying
yes too fast. That's not confidence, that's exposure, and Machiavelli

(03:18):
would warn you expose nothing unless it is to your advantage.
The second emotion is even more dangerous because it wears
the mask of being real, but it's a trap. It's
conflicted admiration. This is the subtle look you give when
you respect someone but resent that they have what you want.
It shows up as backhanded praise, as complimenting someone while

(03:41):
comparing yourself, as aligning with people slightly more successful than you,
but never fully accepting their position. And the moment someone
detects this in you, two things happen. They realize you
want their position, they realize you'll never truly support them,
and from that moment you are seen not as an

(04:01):
ally but as a threat with a fake smile. This
emotion is poison because it's rooted in insecurity but covered
in admiration, and even the most casual observer can feel
the tension. Your eyes say one thing, your tone says another.
That's all it takes to lose respect. Machiavelli would have

(04:22):
annihilated this habit from anyone in his court because he
knew to admire what you envy is to announce your
submission to it, and at the same time, to resist
it is to reveal your fracture. True power requires that
you either admire fully or not at all, never both.
If you study someone, do it silently without praise, or

(04:45):
do it openly with total grace and no bitterness. But
this in between state, this emotional limbo of respect and resentment,
is how you let people see inside your battle, and
once they do, you're not impenetrable your glass. To kill
this emotion, you must study your comparisons. Who are you

(05:06):
secretly watching, Who do you praise but feel tense around,
Who makes you feel small even if you pretend otherwise.
That's the feeling to erase, not because it's bad, but
because it's visible, and visibility is vulnerability. There's a third emotion,
still hidden, even more dangerous, even more common, and you'll

(05:28):
see it soon. The third emotion, the one almost every
one reveals without knowing, and the one Macchiavelli would have
considered the most fatal, is anticipatory doubt. It's not fear.
Fear is reactive. Fear comes after a threat. But anticipatory
doubt that's the emotion that leaks out before anything bad happens.

(05:51):
It's the subtle drop in your voice before asking a question,
the hesitation before making a decision, the small disclaimer before
you speak, I might be wrong but or this probably
won't work, but I'll try. You don't notice your doing it,
but everyone else does, especially those who want to challenge you.

(06:11):
Anticipatory doubt is the emotion of someone who has already
prepared for failure, not publicly but internally, and it shows
in posture, in energy, in how you look at someone
when you offer your idea as if you're asking for permission.
It shows in the way you pre reject yourself before
others get the chance. Machiavelli would have seen this as suicidal,

(06:35):
not because it makes you weak, but because it invites attack,
it tells everyone around you, I don't fully believe in myself.
So if you want to challenge me, now's your chance.
And whether it's in politics, power, relationships, or simple daily life,
that is enough to trigger predators because confidence is not

(06:56):
about always being right. It's about never flinching. And when
your presence begins to show signs of internal doubt, you
trigger the instinct in others to test your authority, not
always maliciously, sometimes subconsciously, but the result is the same,
you lose control. This is why people who speak slower,

(07:18):
pause longer, and project conviction even without being more intelligent,
are seen as leaders, not because they have better answers,
but because they reveal less internal conflict. That's what people
respond to. To eliminate anticipatory doubt, you have to stop
narrating your insecurities. You have to kill the reflex that

(07:38):
seeks approval before action. When you have a thought, you
state it. When you are uncertain, you act with calm. Anyway,
when someone questions you, you don't rush to defend. You
let them sit in the discomfort of your silence. Power
isn't found in answers. It's found in the lack of
anxiety behind them. And here's the deeper truth. Machiavelli knew

(08:02):
when you do feel eagerness, conflicted admiration, or anticipatory doubt,
that's human. You can't always stop the emotion from existing,
but you can stop it from leaking. That's the game,
not to be emotionless, but to be unreadable. Because people
aren't mind readers. They're body readers, energy readers. They watch

(08:24):
how you breathe, how you pause, how your tone changes
when a subject shifts, how often you say I don't know,
how you look when someone challenges you, and every tiny
shift sends a message about how breakable you are. Your job,
if you want an impenetrable mind, is to stop broadcasting

(08:44):
that code, shut off the signal, mute the leak, not
through force, not through fake toughness, but through deliberate presence.
Every word you say must feel chosen, Every expression must
feel intentional. Every silence must be a statement. Because the
more unpredictable you become, the more powerful you feel. The

(09:08):
less they know what affects you, the more they have
to guess, and guessing is exhausting. That's your edge. You
become the person no one can quite read, and therefore
no one can confidently control. And here's what happens next.
Once these three emotions are erased from your visible behavior,

(09:29):
you don't just feel stronger, You become stronger. People start
respecting your space, more, interrupting you, less, asking your opinion
more carefully, because they don't know where you stand. And
mystery creates gravity. It pulls people in, not with volume,
but with silence. Macchiavelli would have called this the art

(09:51):
of concealment, not hiding your whole self, just the parts
that can be used against you. He knew that every
empire falls when king becomes too familiar, too visible, too emotional,
so he taught rulers to build walls not of stone
but of behavior. Walls made of pause, posture, patience, walls

(10:14):
built not to push people out, but to control what
they see when they come in. You don't smile too often,
you don't laugh at everything. You don't jump to explain
when someone misunderstands you. You let people sit in the tension,
and in that tension you become dominant, not through aggression
but through stillness. You become untouchable, not because you fight harder,

(10:38):
but because you leave nothing to strike. And that's the
mark of someone truly dangerous, not the one who hides
in shadows, but the one who stands in plain sight
and reveals nothing. Once you strip away these three emotional
leaks eagerness, conflicted admiration, and anticipatory doubt, something strange begins

(10:59):
to happen. The world treats you differently, not because you've
become louder, not because you become more aggressive, but because
you've become unreadable. And unreadability is terrifying to the weak,
seductive to the powerful. You walk into a room and
no one can quite place you. Are you impressed, Are

(11:20):
you threatened? Are you even interested? They don't know. So
they adjust, They try harder, they reveal more, just to
get a reaction from you, and in that dynamic reversal,
you go from being the one on trial to the
one in control. That's what Machiavelli wanted, a mind that
could not be cracked, even under pressure, a presence that

(11:44):
could not be manipulated even by those with leverage. Because
in a world full of emotionally transparent people desperate to connect,
to explain, to be understood, the one who withholds becomes
a fortress, not cold, not heartless, but undecipherable. That's what
makes people uneasy. That's what makes them respect you without

(12:07):
fully understanding why. Now. This doesn't mean you become a robot.
It doesn't mean you kill your empathy or your ability
to connect. What it means is that you choose when
to reveal and when to withhold. You move from automatic
expression to strategic revelation. Everything becomes a decision, a signal,

(12:29):
a power play. Someone praises you. You nod once, not because
you're dismissive, but because you don't need external validation. Someone
insults you. You don't defend you. Let them fill the silence,
let them explain themselves. The more they speak, the more
insecure they become. Someone brags in your presence, You remain still.

(12:51):
That stillness punctures their performance more deeply than any comment
ever could. Because the moment you remove the reflex to
prove or the act, you become immune to manipulation, and
that immunity radiates. People sense it. They can't pull you
into their frame, they can't bait you, they can't pin

(13:11):
you down. So instead they orbit you, not out of fear,
but because silence forces them to reflect Machiavelli would tell
you this is where power becomes self sustaining. You no
longer chase control, you attract it. You no longer need
to expose your strength, Your restraint becomes the proof, and

(13:33):
most importantly, you no longer give others the blueprint to
break you. That's what these three emotions are. Blueprints. Eagerness
tells them where you're desperate. Conflicted admiration tells them where
you're insecure. Anticipatory doubt tells them where to apply pressure.
But if you remove those signals, there's no crack to enter,

(13:55):
no seam to pull at. You're still human, still feeling,
but no one watching you can tell what direction to
push because nothing leaks, and that makes you unnerving. Unnerving
is good. It means people tread carefully, they plan more,
they choose their words with you, And in that cautious space,
you gain time. Time to observe, time to assess, time

(14:19):
to decide who deserves access and who doesn't. Because once
your mind is impenetrable, you start to see clearly who
is trying to enter it, not physically, not overtly, but
psychologically through flattery, competition, emotional baiting, passive aggression. All the
tactics people use to shift you, but they don't work

(14:42):
because there's nothing for them to latch onto. You are
still focused dry. You don't explain your ambition. You don't
justify your detachment. You don't share your opinions until you've
read the room completely. And when you do speak, it's sharp, final, measured.
You don't speak to explore, you speak to direct. Machiavelli

(15:06):
would say, he who reveals his mind too easily becomes
ruled by those who understand it better than he does.
And that's the tragedy of most people. They think sharing
everything makes them honest, noble, transparent, but it only makes
them vulnerable to interpretation. The more you give away emotionally,

(15:26):
the more room others have to define your value, your motive,
your limits. But when you give them nothing, they're forced
to rely on your actions, and actions, unlike emotions, can
be shaped. This is why people with true power don't
explain their emotional state. They don't say I'm feeling off today.
They don't announce I'm nervous. They don't sigh loudly hoping

(15:49):
someone will notice. That's low level exposure. That's emotional charity
and it always costs more than it gives. Instead, they
operate under tension like it oxygen. Their face doesn't change,
their pace doesn't slow, their posture doesn't fold. That kind
of consistency is intimidating because it's rare, and rarity creates status.

(16:12):
You want to rise, become rare, You want to dominate,
become unreadable, you want an impenetrable mind. Then start with this.
Stop leaking signals to people who haven't earned the right
to read you. Once you've silenced the leaks and weaponized
your restraint, something deeper sets in, not just power over others,

(16:35):
but power over yourself. And this is the level Machiavelli
aimed for, not external dominance alone, but internal sovereignty. Because
the truth is, most people are enslaved by their own
emotional reflexes, not by force, not by threat, but by habit.
They feel so, they express, they want so, they pursue,

(16:57):
They doubt so, they hesitate, and in every instance they
broadcast the exact pattern that can be used against them.
But you you're no longer that person. Now, before your mouth opens,
your mind calculates, before your face reacts, your discipline steps in.
You don't speak from impulse. You speak from position, and

(17:20):
when people notice that, when they realize they can't predict
what will move you, impress you, or provoke you, they
instinctively elevate you in their own minds because unpredictability triggers hierarchy.
The less someone can read you, the more powerful they
assume you are. And here's the catch. They're right because

(17:42):
when you stop bleeding emotions into every interaction, you start
conserving power. And power when conserved compounds, your words gain weight,
your presence gains sharpness. People start preparing more before they
speak to you, not because you or cruel, but because
you've trained them to respect the silence. You've trained them

(18:04):
to approach with intent, not noise. This is how influence works,
not by being the loudest, but by being the hardest
to move. And it's here where Machiavelli's true genius reveals itself.
He didn't advocate for coldness. He advocated for strategy. He
knew the emotionally transparent are easier to control. So the

(18:28):
goal wasn't to kill emotion. It was to contain it,
refine it, delay it long enough to weaponize it. When
it actually matters, you still feel eagerness, but you don't
show it. You still feel admiration, but you don't let
it warp into comparison. You still feel doubt, but you
don't project it before it's tested. This is the core

(18:51):
of the impenetrable mind. You feel deeply, but you leak nothing,
And now the world can't calculate you. Let them try.
Let them analyze every pause you take, every glance you withhold,
every nod you delay. The more they try to decode you,
the more uncertain they become, and uncertainty breeds hesitation. That's

(19:14):
your advantage. While they hesitate, you decide, while they guess
you act, while they try to figure you out, you're
already three steps ahead, making moves they didn't even see coming.
That's how power is built, quietly in the void between
your emotion and your expression. You begin to realize that

(19:35):
your silence is louder than most people's noise, that your
refusal to be provoked is more intimidating than any display
of strength, and that the most dangerous person in the
room is never the one shouting. It's the one who
can stand in fire and not blink. This is the
behavior of rulers of tacticians of those who don't just

(19:56):
survive the game, they bend it. But let's be brutally clear,
this way of being has a cost. You'll lose people.
People who want instant access to your thoughts, people who
demand emotional confirmation, constant reassurance, easy connection. They'll call you distant, cold,

(20:17):
maybe even arrogant. Let them, let them label what they
can't reach, because connection built on your exposure isn't connection,
it's consumption. And people who only understand you when you
bleed are not allies. They are addicts. You don't exist
to feed other people's emotional appetites. You exist to build something,

(20:40):
and building takes energy, Building takes focus, Building takes silence.
So you build without explaining. You ascend without performing. You
eliminate emotional signals, not to become empty, but to become precise.
And soon those who once demanded your openness will either
fall away or evolve. They'll learn to respect your containment,

(21:04):
or they'll get replaced by people who do. Because this
kind of mind doesn't attract everyone, it repels most. And
that's the point. An impenetrable mind isn't loved by many,
it's respected by few, and respect unlike attention endures. There's
a moment after you've mastered the silence, when people begin

(21:26):
to look at you differently, not just with curiosity, but
with caution. They can't place you, they can't map your
inner world, and that uncertainty turns you into a mirror,
a reflection that shows them their own insecurities. You haven't
said anything, you haven't challenged them, but your unreadability forces

(21:47):
them to confront what they are leaking, and they hate it.
This is where true psychological gravity is born, because now
your presence no longer demands attention. It commands it not
through noise, not through charisma, but through the absence of
emotional permission. You don't invite people into your inner world.

(22:09):
You make them earn entry, and in doing so, you
flip the dynamic completely. They want your approval, they want
your reaction, they want access, and that desire bends them.
It makes them cautious, selective, careful. That's power, and Machiavelli
would tell you power doesn't come from being liked. It

(22:31):
comes from being considered dangerous. Dangerous doesn't mean aggressive, it
doesn't mean cruel. It means unreadable, calculated, unflinching, and when
someone tries to gauge you, provoke you, guilt you, and
nothing lands. They start recalibrating around your presence. You've become
a force, not a person, and forces aren't argued with.

(22:55):
They are adapted to the three emotions you've cut off. Eagerness,
con admiration, and anticipatory doubt were never the problem themselves.
The problem was in their timing, in their transparency. You
handed people the keys to manipulate you, and now now
you don't even show them the door. And this shift,

(23:17):
this transformation, doesn't just change how others treat you, It
changes how you treat yourself. You start to see how
often you used to betray your own strength by over explaining, overapologizing, overreacting,
by trying to be relatable instead of untouchable, by trying
to be included instead of remembered. That version of you

(23:40):
is gone. Now now you move with deliberate restraint. You
understand that your presence is your leverage, and every word,
every expression, every signal is either sharpening that leverage or
dulling it. So you choose to sharpen. You don't rush
to fill silences anymore. You don't soften your intensity to

(24:02):
be digestible. You don't dilute your discipline to make others comfortable.
You embody the stillness of a man who does not
need to be understood, only respected. That's the edge, and
it makes people nervous. They'll search your face for clues.
They'll push just to see if you'll flinch. They'll talk

(24:22):
more when you say less. Why because they're trying to
gain the upper hand, and every second you remain still,
they realize they don't have it. This is where you
become dangerous because you're not playing the emotional game anymore.
You're playing the energy game, and your energy is no
longer a faucet they can turn on with praise or

(24:44):
shut off with rejection. It's fixed, unchanging. It moves on
your terms. That's what makes you impenetrable. But make no mistake.
People will test you, especially when they can't read you.
They'll throw bait, hoping you'll chase it. They'll pretend to
open up, hoping you'll mirror their vulnerability. They'll try to

(25:05):
guilt you, flatter you, provoke you, not to connect, but
to break your frame. Don't give them what they're looking for.
Let the bait rot, let the silence stretch, let the
tension grow until it breaks them, not you, Because when
someone tries to test your edge and finds none, they
begin to believe you have no limit. That is power,

(25:29):
not brute strength, not loud declarations, but the quiet slow
erosion of their confidence in controlling you. And once they
lose that belief, they obey not out of fear, but
out of respect, because now they know you don't need them.
You don't need their approval, their applause, or their understanding.

(25:50):
You've built something stronger than charm. You've built presence. When
the last piece clicks into place, when your emotions are
no longer visible, when your energy cannot be swayed and
your silence becomes sharper than any response, you cross a threshold.
You stop being perceived as just another person in the room.

(26:11):
You become a presence, something people feel before you speak,
something they can't quite define, but instinctively respect or fear
or both. This is the final level of Machiavelli's game,
not just to understand power, but to embody it. Because
an impenetrable mind doesn't need to declare itself, it doesn't

(26:33):
demand respect. It creates an atmosphere where disrespect simply doesn't occur.
People don't even think to challenge you, not because you're threatening,
but because you're unreadable. And what can't be read can't
be predicted. What can't be predicted can't be controlled. This
is where true dominance begins. You become the one who

(26:55):
others adjust for, the one whose opinion is sought, but
never bear, the one whose validation is valued, precisely because
it's never given away. People talk carefully around you, They
phrase things with more thought, they ask questions more precisely,
not because you intimidate them, but because your calm forces

(27:16):
them into awareness. And awareness is a kind of submission.
Macchiavelli knew that most rulers fall not by the sword,
but by the mirror. They expose too much, they speak
too freely, they react too quickly, and in doing so
they arm their enemies with the very weapons that will
undo them. But you you give nothing, not your doubt,

(27:40):
not your desperation, not your hidden envy. You've sealed those doors,
and what remains is a stillness that cannot be pierced.