“It is only the fool who always rushes to take sides. Do not commit to any side or cause but yourself “

“If you allow people to feel they possess you to any degree, you lose all power on them. Stay aloof and you gain the power that comes from their attention and frustrated desire. Play the Virgin Queen: Give them hope but never satisfaction.”

Since success and power depends greatly on appearances, you have to learn to enhance your image and consistently maintain and enhance it. Refusing to commit to a person or group is one way to do it. When you hold yourself back, you incur some kind of respect. You instantly seem powerful because you make yourself ungraspable. This aura of power only grows with time. As your reputation for independence grows, more and more people will come to desire you, wanting to be the one who gets you to commit. Desire is like a virus: If we see that someone is desired by people, we tend to find this person desirable. The moment you commit, the magic is gone; you become like everyone else. Encourage the attention, stimulate people’s interest, but never commit. Never allow yourself to inadvertently allow yourself to feel obligated to anyone.

The goal is not to put people off, or to make it seem that you are incapable of commitment. The goal is to lure people with the possibility of having you. Stir the pot, excite interest, but never go to far. If you aspire to success, power and influence, put yourself in the middle between competing powers. Lure one side with the promise of your help and, the other side, always wanting to outdo its opponents, adversaries and enemies, will pursue you as well. As each side vies for your attention, you will immediately seem a person of great influence and desirability. To perfect this strategy, you need yourself inwardly free from emotional entanglements, and to view all those around you as your pawns in your rise to the top. Never allow yourself to become the lackey for any cause. People who rush to the support of others tend to gain little respect in the process, for their help is so easily obtained. Those who stand back find themselves besieged with supplicants. Their aloofness is powerful, and everyone wants them on their side.

“Do not commit yourself to anybody or anything, for that is to be a slave to every man.”

Once you step into a fight, that is not one of your choosing, you lose all initiative. The combatants’ interests become your interests and you become their tools. Control yourself, restrain your natural tendency to take sides and join the fight. Be friendly and charming to each of the combatants, then, step back as they collide. With every battle, they will only grow weaker while you will be growing stronger with every battle you avoid and will have avoided.

To succeed in the game of life, in the infinite game of life, in the infinite game of success, power and influence, you have to master your emotions. But even with such self-control, you can never control the temperamental dispositions of those around you. Most people operate in a whirlpool of emotions, constantly reacting, churning up squabbles and conflicts. Your self-control and autonomy only bother and infuriate them. They try to draw you into their whirlpool of emotions, begging you to take sides in their endless battles, or to make peace for them. If you succumb to their emotional entreaties, little by little, you will find your mind and time occupied by their problems. Never allow whatever compassion and pity you may have to suck you in in such situations. You would never win at this game; the conflicts can only multiply.

On the other hand, you cannot completely stand aside, for what would cause needless offense. To play the game of life, the infinite game of life, the infinite game of success power and influence properly, you must seem interested in other’s people problems and conflicts, even sometimes, depending and according to circumstances, appear to take their side. In such situations, while making outward gestures of support, you must make sure to maintain your inner energy and sanity by keeping your emotions disengaged. No matter how hard people try to pull you in, never let your interest in their affairs and petty squabbles go beyond the surface. By refusing to commit and thus maintaining your autonomy, you retain the initiative of the game. Your moves stay matters of your own choosing, not defensive reactions to the push-and-pull of those around you. Slowness to pick up your weapons can be a weapon itself, especially if you let other people exhaust themselves fighting and then, take advantage of their exhaustion.

Holding back from the fray allows you time to position yourself to take advantage of the situation once one side stars to lose. You can also take the game a step further, by promising your support to both sides in a conflict while maneuvering so that the one to cone out ahead in the struggle is you. Preserving your autonomy gives you option when people comes to blow; you can play the mediator, broker the peace, while really securing your own interests. You can pledge support to one side and the other may have to court you with a higher bid. Or, you can appear to take both sides, then play the antagonists against each other.

Oftentimes, when a conflict breaks out, you are tempted to side with the stronger party, or the one who offers you apparent advantages in an alliance. This is risky business. First, it is often difficult to foresee which side will prevail in the long run. Even if you guess it right and ally yourself with the stronger party, you may find yourself swallowed up and lost, or conveniently forgotten, when they become victors. Side with the weaker, on the other hand, and you are doomed. Play a waiting game and you cannot lose. You will never lose.

Only fools rush into a situation. By committing too quickly, you lose your manoeuverability and also lose respect. Since you gave yourself so fast and so easily, thinking that tomorrow you may commit to another side or different cause, people distrust you and respect you less. Early commitment to one side or a cause deprives you of the advantage of time and the luxury of waiting. Let others fall for one group or that; for your part, do not rush in, do not lose your head, control yourself.

Also, there are occasions and circumstances when it is wisest to drop all pretence of appearing supportive and instead to trumpet your independence and self-reliance. This is particularly important when you need to gain respect. You have only so much energy and so much time. Every moment wasted on the affairs of others subtracts from your strength. You may be afraid that people will condemn you as heartless, but in the end, maintaining your independence and self-reliance will gain you more respect and place you in a position of power from which you can choose to help others on your own initiative.

The game, the non-commitment strategy proposed here shall never be pushed too far. It may turn against you if you take it too far. If you play too many parties against one another, they will see through your maneuver and gang up on you. If you keep your growing number of suitors waiting too long, you will end up inspiring distrust rather than desire. People will start to lose interest. Eventually, only for the sake of safeguarding appearances, you may find it worthwhile to commit to one side.

Even then, however, the key will be to maintain your inner independence, to keep yourself from getting emotionally involved. Preserve your unspoken option of being able to jump ship at any moment and reclaim your freedom if the side you are allied with starts to collapse. The friends you made while you where being courted will give you plenty of places to go once you jump ship.

Michel Ouellette JMD, ll.l., ll.m.
Systemic Strategic Planning / Regulatory Compliance / Crisis & Reputation Management

Skype: jmdlive

Phone: 1. 613.539.1793

Email: jmdlive@live.ca

Web: https://www.jmdlive.info/

Michel Ouellette / J. Michael Dennis is a Former Attorney, a Trial Scientist, a Crisis & Reputation Management Expert, a Public Affairs & Corporate Communications Specialist, a Warrior for Common Sense and Free Speech.

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Donald Trump’s town hall

Lies, ridicule and applause from a pliable audience, the ex-president gave the audience what they came for, much to the discredit of CNN.

On Wednesday night, Donald Trump demonstrated why he leads the 2024 Republican field. The audience was his from “hello”. The town hall was a prime-time infomercial. Kaitlan Collins, the moderator, was no match. For good measure, he called her a “nasty person” and questioned her intelligence.

Trump arrived amid a standing ovation and repeatedly tangled with CNN’s Collins. The 45th president repeated the lies that birthed the insurrection and repeatedly asserted the 2016 election was “rigged”.

Trump beatified Ashli Babbitt, the Capitol rioter shot dead and committed to pardoning most of the January 6 rioters. For Trump and his minions, law and order hinges on “who” and “whom”. As for E Jean Carroll, Trump ridiculed her and the $5m verdict. She was a “whack job”, he said.

The surprise from CNN’s town hall with Donald Trump wasn’t Trump. It was CNN. What could they have been thinking? Everything was wrong.

If you’re going to host Trump, have him face a dogged questioner. That wasn’t Kaitlan Collins. Trump talked over her, insulted her and simply ignored her, as CNN should have predicted.

And why hold a town hall composed mostly of Republicans? Instead of a structure that would challenge a candidate on the issues, CNN chose a format that favors an audience receptive and primed to all of Trump’s lies, insults and racism.

What was CNN thinking for launching the nightmare of the next presidential election so early. What’s the rush? What was behind it all? Definitely not journalistic excellence! Ratings? An attempt to fill in a Trump void that currently exists on Fox?

Whatever it was, it was the return of a bad memory illustrating that particular convergence of mass-media authoritarianism and populist entertainment that defines the so-called charm of Donald Trump.

Donald Trump’s town hall told us, on the one hand, that the 76-year-old hasn’t grown up much.

Michel Ouellette JMD, ll.l., ll.m.
Systemic Strategic Planning / Regulatory Compliance / Crisis & Reputation Management

Skype: jmdlive

Phone: 1. 613.539.1793

Email: jmdlive@live.ca

Web: https://www.jmichaeldennis.live/

Michel Ouellette / J. Michael Dennis is a Former Attorney, a Trial Scientist, a Crisis & Reputation Management Expert, a Public Affairs & Corporate Communications Specialist, a Warrior for Common Sense and Free Speech.

Follow JMDlive on:

Twitter,  LinkedIn, Facebook, Mastodon, Tumblr, JMDlive.com, Instagram and JMD Systemics,

Billionaire Lifestyle

Billionaires Are Actually Less Intelligent Than Lower-Paid People New Study Shows. New research has shattered the myth that the ultra-wealthy are the smartest people around. According to a recent study, being a billionaire doesn’t necessarily equate to having a superior intellect. In fact, the study reveals that those in the top 1% of earners, aka billionaires, scored lower on cognitive ability tests than those who earned just slightly less than they do.

A comprehensive study conducted by researchers from Linköping University in Sweden, the European University Institute in Italy, and the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, analyzed data from 59,400 Swedish men who took a military conscription test when they were young adults. The researchers then meticulously tracked their career trajectories, earnings, and job prestige for over a decade, from when they were 35 until they turned 45.

The results showed a strong relationship between intelligence and earning potential until the figure exceeded $64,000 a year. Beyond this point, the correlation became almost negligible. And at the highest pay scales, intelligence plateaued, suggesting that other factors, such as socioeconomic background, culture, personality traits and luck, became more significant.

The study also found that job prestige didn’t increase with cognitive ability at higher pay scales. In professions such as medicine, law and academia, more prestige didn’t seem directly related to more income. The findings challenge the idea that success and higher levels of income are earned by superior intellect and talent. Instead, the researchers suggest that small initial success differences between individuals can grow into extreme inequalities over time.

The study has limitations. It focused only on men, limiting its generalizability to the wider population. But it still provides a relatively large sample across a variety of pay levels and occupations.

In a world where the ultra-rich continue to get richer and have more influence over global political, social and economic landscapes, the study’s findings are significant. The argument that those taking home the most pay deserve it the most is one that needs to be challenged, the researchers point out, especially at the highest end of the scale. “Along an important dimension of merit, cognitive ability, we find no evidence that those with top jobs that pay extraordinary wages are more deserving than those who earn only half those wages,” they wrote. The research team wrote that “small initial success differences between individuals are not canceled out over time but instead grow into winner-take-all distributions characterized by extreme inequalities.”

This concept is not new, as Malcolm Gladwell’s bestseller “Outliers” explained how rare opportunities and sheer luck play a significant role in the success stories of the most accomplished people.

Michel Ouellette JMD, ll.l., ll.m.
Systemic Strategic Planning / Regulatory Compliance / Crisis & Reputation Management

Skype: jmdlive

Phone: 1. 613.539.1793

Email: jmdlive@live.ca

Web: https://www.jmichaeldennis.live/

Michel Ouellette / J. Michael Dennis is a Former Attorney, a Trial Scientist, a Crisis & Reputation Management Expert, a Public Affairs & Corporate Communications Specialist, a Warrior for Common Sense and Free Speech.

Follow JMDlive on:

Twitter,  LinkedIn, Facebook, Mastodon, Tumblr, JMDlive.com, Instagram and JMD Systemics,