Always Have An Opinion

Good day peoples,

I recently had the "pleasure" of having a brief lunchtime "discussion" with one of the boys in the building. It went a little something like this:


Me: Hey, Paulo, did you watch the football game last night?

Paulo: Yeah, did you?

Me: Of course, you idiot, why else would I bring it up? Who do you think's the toughest team dispite the score?

Paulo: I don't know.

Me: What do you mean you don't know, who do you think plays better?

Paulo: I don't know.

Me: I think England are looking weak this time round, don't you agree?

Paulo: I don't know, whatever you say I guess.

Me: I know what I think, you thick head, I'm asking for your opinion.

Paulo: I don't have an opinion, whoever wins is fine by me.

Me: Forget about it! Hey, Daudi, mind if I join you for lunch...

No opinion means no brains

I know Paulo isn't exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I wasn't asking him what he thought about the theory of relativity. I just wanted to know which team, in his opinion, is superior. Whether what he says makes any sense is besides the point; the point is that he did not have an opinion on such a simple thing.

When I ask someone what their opinion is on a given topic, I expect to get an answer. Something, anything is usually better than "I don't know." I assume that if someone has an opinion about some topic it's because they've taken some time to reflect and have come to at least a preliminary conclusion regarding the subject at hand.

If they have an opinion, it shows me that they are thinking. If they don't have one, then I have to question if the light bulb in their head is on or not. Everyone needs to surround themselves with the right people and the right people always have an opinion.

No Need To Advertise Everything
Don't get me wrong, just because you have an opinion about something doesn't mean you need to open your megaphone and broadcast it to the world. Some things should be kept to yourself. But if you are having a discussion and someone asks for your opinion, it's usually safe to share your thoughts on the subject. Unless, of course, your boss asks you if his new girlfriend Babette is hot. In this case, simply say you never looked at her in that way (sometimes safety is the best policy).

Anyhow, what I'm getting at with all this is that you can keep your opinion to yourself if you prefer. If you are in a room full of people don't shoot your mouth off. Be smart about what you say and when you say it. The important thing to remember is that you should always have an opinion on the subject, however misguided and there's no need to break a sweat over it.

Opinions count for a lot more than you might think in business. Bill Gates started Microsoft because it was his opinion that computers would be everywhere someday soon, and that his software would run on most of them. Look at him today.

Good Business Opinion
In life and business, our minds focus on solutions to problems. Each time we tackle a dilemma successfully, we become stronger and more experienced for it, and hopefully we learn a lesson about success.

In the business world, opinion plays a larger part than most people think. When a company hires managers and executives, it will often ask for professional and character references. The interviewers have your resume in front of their eyes while they're holding your MBA from some elite university in their hands, yet they usually need one more thing to make their decision, other people's opinion of you.

Sure, they don't say it outright, but they will call your former boss and ask what kind of worker you were. They will ask subtle questions that help them figure out what kind of person you are. When do you get a job the fastest? When someone sets you and the employer up.

Suppose your next-door neighbor tells his friend at Citibank (who happens to be looking to fill an important position and who trusts his friend, your neighbor, very much) that he's got the perfect candidate for him. What will happen? He'll gloss over your credentials and base his decision on what his friend told him about you.

You are already way ahead of the competition. When you go in for the interview, he is already seeing you in a positive light. All he needs to figure out is whether he really likes you. If so, you've got the job. Short and sweet. So you see, opinion counts for something, which is why Paulo's work tools consist of a mop, pail and toilet brush. 

Decisions Require An Opinion
You will have to make decisions every day of your life. Whether that means buying the Armani or Valentino suit, or which Enterprise Resource Planning software to implement company-wide, you will always have to make choices.

Making decisions means you will have to learn about what you need to decide. You will go through the quantitative and qualitative aspects and will have to come up with an answer to which course of action to follow.

What if your counterparts come up with a different answer? This is where opinion counts, you must be able to boil it down to why you think this is the best thing to do. If you don't have an opinion, you'll never move up the ladder and you can get stuck holding the mop and pail. One more thing, it helps if you have a reputation of being "on-the-ball."

the audacious truth

Why Do You Have The Friends You Do?

Good day peoples,

Everything Is About Choices
Think about everything you own or have in your life, whether it's the people in your life, your car, your job, etc. Did all those things just end up on your lap? Of course not. Everything you have in your life came to you because you decided it should be there. Anyone with half a brain knows that there are certain things in life you must choose carefully, such as your barber, your tailor, your mistress, and others you don't have to spend too much time on like your car, your bank, or your wife. Actually, this isn't true; you should take your time when selecting your car or bank.

The point here is that one of the most important things in life is your friends, so you should be equally picky about selecting them, the way you'd be selecting tomatoes for your wife's pasta dishes. Friends are your backbone, and they are usually the ones you let your guard down with and to whom you expose your weaknesses, even though I think you should never expose your weaknesses to nobody (trust me I know what this can do to you).

Do You Really Know The Guy
Case in point, you meet a guy, you get to know him, you start doing things together, you know, guy things , like going to the local bar, chasing tail, making a deal and there, the usual. You think you know the guy, so you start telling him more intimate things, like how you are screwing the government out of taxes, how you are cheating on your wife, how you gamble daily. But what do you really know about this guy that you should be telling him your secrets?

You had a couple of beers together, you shared some laughs, ...so what? Does a little male bonding mean you should automatically open up, and give him your trust? Come on, I should hit you across the head now if you even have to think about it.

A Friend is A Commodity
What is a friend? A friend is such like anything else, a commodity to be used when the need arises. We have friends because when we need something, they are available to provide a service, whether it's to talk about how your wife's friends are screwing you over, because you want reservation at some chic joint, or because you don't like playing golf alone (and what is with golf, do you know how many soccer fields you can build with all that wasted green space?). Friends are there because we are selfish, self-absorbed people, who don't like to do things ourselves.

Don't even bother telling me that friends are people we care for, blah, blah, blah. You care for your friends because they know everything about you or because they owe you money. Without those two things, your caring level drops fast. In life, we don't make friends, we make contacts. The minute you realize this is the minute you start making it in life.


Now, I may come off as a wise guy but I'm also human, and despite everything I've said, nobody can do anything alone. At a certain point in our lives, we all need friends, check this, close friends, because friends can be very valuable. With that in mind, you have to realize that you must be very careful about choosing the select few (and privileged in my case), people that you can say are your good friends .

Suffering Leads to Closeness
I once heard a man say that there is no better way for two men to become closer than by pulling-off a crime together, because after this moment you rely on each other not to rat out the other. I've also heard of someone saying  that the only way you can get close to someone is by suffering together. I don't think that getting my leg chopped off with some guy named Protus, no matter how much we suffer, will bring us close together.

For some reason we do come together when we suffer together. The only time you will ever know who your friends are are when you need them the most. It's a conditional match unless you get in serious trouble (O.J. Simpson kind of trouble), you won't really know who will stand by you and who will desert you. If you go through life without ever getting in this kind of trouble, you will never know who were your real friends.

A friend of a frined of mine just got convicted for something he could have avoided. I can guarantee you that if he had read my articles, he wouldn't be in jail, but in my mind, he will always be a close friend to my friend. This is not because he cares about him, but because when he was a stupid 24 year-old, they did some things that let's just say the law would frown upon.

I can't be there to tell you which morons don't deserve your friendship and which do, but I can tell you to be very careful before you let your guard down and trust another, because trust is a very powerful thing.

the audacious truth

Careful What You Wish For

Good day peoples,

We all want to be rich, we all want to be famous, and we all want to be powerful. Most of you spend your entire lives striving to be those things. Sounds like a great life, doesn't it? Who wouldn't want to be adored, have a seven figure bank account, drive a Ferrari, and have a penthouse and a summer home in Monaco, while banging Halle Berry?


It sounds wonderful, but it isn't. Sure, being rich and powerful isn't exactly scrubbing toilets, but it doesn't come without its downside. Because when you're on top, you become a bigger target for all those who want to see you fall. More money, more problems? Absolutely. So the next time you wish to be in the other guy's shoes, don't just look at the nice leather and wish his shoes were yours, look inside his shoes to see what's making his feet stink so bad.

After all, we always want what we can't have. This is not to say you shouldn't be ambitious. Quite the opposite. What I want to warn you about is the fact that having money and power isn't all roses. People don't know what to do with large amounts of money and power (though your local Mercedes car salesman will be more than happy to tell you what to do with that disposable income of yours).

The Good Part About Being Made
So before I highlight some of the pitfalls of getting everything you wish for, let's go over the positives of being rich and powerful:

1- You can buy whatever you want.

2- You can buy whoever you want, except those with a bigger yacht than yours.

3- You can walk around with "inflated" balls . This is a great thing for most men because most men lack balls (both in the board room and in the bedroom).

4- Mistresses are easier to come by. Women love powerful men, it's like a drug for them. The women you meet will still be call girls, only you don't pay them at the beginning of the night, but rather every month when their rent is due and house payments need to be made.

5- Doors open and opportunities arise, whether you're looking for them or not. The richer you are, the more you get for free, and the more others want to make you richer.

The Pitfalls of Money & Power
Okay, that's great and dandy. Who wouldn't want these perks? We all love having the ability to do what I want, when I want, without blinking at the price. But nothing comes without a cost. In fact, like most others in positions of power, you'll always sleep with one eye open.

Here's why:

1. You Worry About Money
Those who say, "I want to make enough money never to have to think about it again," obviously have no cash flow. The more money you have, the more you worry about it because, after you've stuffed every pillow in your house, you still need to find places to stash your cash. It becomes unmanageable, you can't keep track of all your money, and you worry about which dude in your inner circle has his eyes on your children's meal ticket. Having a lot of money doesn't stop you from stressing about the bills, your bills just have a few extra zeros.

2. With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility
Who wouldn't enjoy having power over others' lives, to decide their destiny, their happiness, their financial future? You might feel like a king over there, having the ability to fire, hire, promote, demote, break, make, or even jail a guy, but that's not how it goes.

Sure some sick f*cks treat the ability to toy with other men's lives as an aphrodisiac, one should treat it with incredible responsibility. When you are calling the shots, the buck stops with you. When you have the power to make major decisions, decisions that not only affect your power base but affect those around you, you can't take it lightly.

When I was out on my own, when I had no one to think about but myself, I was a selfish prick looking out for my interests, I didn't give a damn what happened to the dude next to me. But as I grow more and more people depend on me, and decisions I make now must be carefully weighed to make sure I protect myself, as well as those around me.

Some people handle that kind of pressure well, others don't. Worse, some don't even realize the responsibility and act as if they have their own little kingdom, without rules. Politicians, needless to say, top that list, but I hate discussing politics so I'll stop there.

You have to make the tough (and sometimes unpopular) decisions, whether it's selling out your best friend or firing a long time employee. You want to be Boss, you are going to have to take the crap that comes with being Boss. And the stress and venom that comes your way.

3. You Are A Big, Fat, Beached Whale of A Target
People love having a target, an enemy, or even a scapegoat they can point their fingers at, to blame for their own miserable lives, for their stupidities, and for every mistake they ever made.

When you are rich and powerful, you become a target. Not just for the money seekers at every charity under the sun who bother you relentlessly, but for those around you who are jealous of your success, for your competitors, and for people who want to use you as an example.

Get used to it, not everyone is going to love you. Be grateful if your enemies are known to you, there is nothing scarier than being surrounded by people who smile at you and then stab you in the back. People need inspiration, they need a Goliath for their David, and you've just earned the lead role. People will want your job, your money and your power, and even if they can't bring you down, they'll take pleasure in trying.

Building Back Trust

Good day peoples,

Trust, to me, is a simple matter. It boils down to a pure essence, one that smells nothing like a rat. Trust is being where you’re supposed to be, when you're supposed to be, doing what you said you would do. In that respect, trust is just a series of repeat visits that coincide with the expectations of the truster, such that the truster doesn't have to be breathing down the other guy's neck eight days a week.

Trust is difficult to gain, but much more easily lost and almost impossible to win back. It can be lost through no fault of your own, such as by miscommunication or by bad timing. Another way to lose it is by getting sloppy and letting the quality of your work slide. Then there's losing trust by intentional deceit.

A breach of trust is so difficult to forgive because trust is so vital to daily operations, and lifelong partnerships rely on it. But winning back trust is possible with the following methods.

Act Early
Once you realize that you have betrayed someone's trust, tell the person yourself before someone else does. Put your hat in your hand, step onto the carpet and pipe up. Put some sugar on it and act humble. If the person you betrayed gets angry, take the tirade with style and make it known that you are taking off the cloak and dagger out of loyalty. In other words, grovel with dignity.


Be Persistent
At first, you will probably be rebuffed by the person you let down. Even if someone says, "You're dead to me now," don't give up right away. Put that guilt to work by acting penitent. Don't let the last word be spoken in the heat of the moment. Go away for a while, and then come back once the initial anger has worn down, the edge will be smoother a few days later.

Don't Make Excuses

This is especially important when the problem arose from something beyond your control. Most people have to gamble at times and operate in what bankers call "the float." The float is when your account doesn't quite have the money you need just yet, but a check is on its way, and you go ahead and make another deal as if you were solvent. You lie because business sometimes requires it.

The same thing happens with deliveries and timing. Let's say the bagman arrives much too late with the dough. In the interim, you have to cover the vacuum of missing money using your mouth. Promise confidently to fulfill your original promise. Deals fall through from time to time, it's a part of life, but when you have to tell someone that you lied, at least do it with clarity and dignity.

Learn From Your Mistakes
One reason Al Capone lasted as long as he did is that he surrounded himself with ironclad people who understood the meaning of silence. If you are cast out to the east of your Eden, don't plunge into self-reflection, rather, learn from your mistake. Let your pride down for a moment so that the lesson gets tattooed in your brain.

Parents tell their kids to learn from others’ mistakes, not from their own. But anyone who has lived beyond the age of 40 can assure you of one thing, mistakes will be made no matter what your intentions, just like history will repeat itself. Therefore, knowing that life will never be perfect, you should swallow the lesson of what it feels like to lose someone's trust and don't do it again.

Change Your Behavior
The person you betrayed has no compelling reason to believe your plea unless you show that you have changed. If the problem started because you weren’t paying attention to detail, then become a stickler. Perhaps you were spending more time chasing the girls around than working, so get back on the job every day until your feet hurt.

After a certain age, it becomes difficult to change, but a dire situation requires a new way of thinking. Plenty of guys have gone to Alcoholics Anonymous because they have lost trust. If booze or drugs are the stumbling blocks impeding your progress, figure out how to get out of that cycle.

Fix The Process
Policies, traditions and routines are often flawed and prone to failure. If the system you are working in doesn't have the harmony of the planets, take measures to rectify the irregular parts of your business. Make suggestions to your boss about how to avoid having the same thing happen again. Sometimes it's only one employee who is late, sometimes it's a whole department in the company. Cut the contract, trim the fat or do whatever you must to restore confidence in your end of the business. Rather than passing the buck and finding a cause for your misfortune, rethink the process so that it doesn't happen again.

Start Climbing Again

Keep your nose to the grindstone and your feet moving. Falling down a few ranks doesn't have to break your mind. A demotion is not the end of the world unless you want to roll over. Wake up in the morning and start setting the world on fire.

Get Back Up There
Regardless of how much remorse you feel or how willing you are to change, once people know about your temporary downfall, you will endure a period of sneers and jeers. So be it. In life, you might wash 10,000 windows, but people will only remember the one that you fell through. Self-doubt may eat at you, but if you work hard to prove yourself, the wise d***heads will eventually stop. The betrayal will be forgotten by those fools, and the person you betrayed will begin to notice that you aren't such a deadbeat after all.


the audacious truth

Developing Killer Instincts

Good day peoples,

Everybody from your senile grandmother to your stupid dog has instincts. Everyone has that intuitive thing that gets them out of trouble and tells them what to do when their brains are telling them otherwise.


The difference between gut instincts and killer instincts is that you are born with one; the other is sharpened and perfected with time.

Guess which one is which.

Killer Instincts: Beyond Gut
So what are killer instincts? How do you know if you have them or not? Killer instincts don't refer to the ability to predict that Brazil will win the World Cup or that every Thursday fuel prices go up; it's the ability to correctly predict, through careful study of a situation and experience, the correct outcome of each and every scenario you face.

It can be predicting a guy's first move when you're in a fight, coming up with a product that sells more than water, bluffing the other guy just right in negotiations to maximize your end of the bargain, or knowing exactly which words will get you a free pass when your wife finds out about your mistress.

It's about rarely being wrong when interpreting and calculating the consequences of a situation. It's the innate ability some people have to always be on top of things. In business, it's often the difference between those who make it and those who don't. Killer instincts are your way of saying to Lady Luck, "Screw you, I don't need your help."

It's above and beyond the gut feelings we were all born with. It's much more than listening to the nervous feeling in your stomach. Those instincts, everyone has. A person with killer instincts sees an enemy where others don't see anything, a hotel and casino empire (Bugsy Siegel) where others see desert, and so on and so forth.

It's not only about getting out of a jam. It's about having vision, knowing when it's the right time to finish off an enemy, knowing when to freeze a  a stand-up guy because he's about to lose it all, anticipating what the other guy is going to do before he even gives it any thought, etc.

Killer instincts allow you to make the first move, think big and feel confident in your decisions even if you're going against a trend.

All right, you're convinced that you need to "refine" your gut feeling. Now what do you do?

Are you born with killer instincts?


No one comes out of their mother's womb with the instinctive ability to beat the stock market year after year. You are a product of your environment. Absolutely. But just like some people get all the women without even trying while the rest of us have to grow testicles the size of a walrus to even make a move, some guys have killer instincts even if they didn't spend a second of their lives "on the street."

Learning From The School of Life

Good day peoples,

Hope ya'll good and you've got your thing on lock. Been tied for a while but I'm back and this time round on a more serious tip. If you turn on the TV these days (local or international), you'll see all of your favorite windbags talking about education reform. They tell us we need to give the schools more money for textbooks and that we need to improve our focus on certain subjects. If you ask me, this is all a load of bull. Growing up, I wanted the best education in the area I really wanted to achieve in -- my life. Life is a bi**h, but it can teach you things no one else can. Any fool can go through life hoping for a chance to be on top, but it takes a real professional to know what he wants and take it. Most won't ever learn how. Luckily for you, school is in session, and I'll be your teacher. Pay attention and you just might make it through what I call the school of life, understood?

Use Your Head
Like most things, you use it or lose it. I’ve seen plenty of my crew who jumped before they looked and ended up in the piss pot. You’ve got to have smarts to survive in this world. Anytime you need to make a move, stop and think. This small space of time will save you and your crew a huge headache down the road. Obviously there will be times when you need to act fast, but if you’ve been taking the time to plan, you’ll almost always make the right call. Fail to plan, plan to fail. No dude ever stops learning. We would still be wiping our backsides with leaves if we did. If someone in your group is bringing down the operation with their incompetence, well, you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do.

Act Like You’ve Got a Pair
The shy get stomped. When you enter a room, you have to command it. You are the best, so know it and act like it. I’m not talking about being a cocky dude. I’m saying you need to exude confidence and have some real balls. Make decisions and stand by them. Don’t piddle around trying to make up your mind. Be firm and decisive. Fear is what kills half of the people around there enivironment. To be victorious, you have to completely eliminate fear. Fear is why you make excuses for not doing what you have to. Anytime I feel that sickening sensation of fear crawling up my back, I do what I need to do anyway. It pays off, too. See, the funny thing about fear is, on the other side of it lies a life of bliss and success. So have some balls and walk with your chin up. It’s the only way to get respect.

Finish The Job
In my job, you finish the job or they finish you. Procrastination and half-assed work is unacceptable. How can you reach the top of a table with two legs? Your focus should be on building a foundation of solid and complete work. Figure out a list of what you have to do and start with the biggest and most difficult task. Knocking out the big guns gives you a snowball effect, making it easier to finish everything else. The key here, class, is focus. You can get anything done if you just focus on it. Be sure to get the whole crew in on it and the rewards will be more than enough to go around. Those who refuse to be team players won’t last long, in or out of the unit.

Respect Your Superiors
Your boss is in his position for a reason, despite what you might think about him. If he’s not following protocol or if he’s a big fesso, be patient and he’ll be out of there soon. In the meantime, you have to be the bigger man and respect him as your superior. That means following orders and biting your tongue. Don’t take anything too personally. You’ll look better in the eyes of your fellow subordinates for keeping your cool. Remember that the way of the world is that everything comes back to you. If you don’t respect your boss, how are you to expect the people under you to do the same? Just keep in mind that true leaders aren’t pompous blowhards. The great ones are down there in the mud with the rest of their men. Your time will come.

Keep Your Cool
You should never let your emotions get the better of you. Sure, sometimes the s*** hits the fan, but you have to keep your cool. Don’t get me wrong; I have lost my temper a couple of times here and there, but there is a time and place. Never lose your cool when dealing in business. It gives the whole thing a bad vibe and will rebound onto the other guys involved. That’s not something you want. When dealing with your lady, you have to be the calm one, too. A true capo uses his brain and gets things back in working order rationally. The key to keeping your cool goes back to confidence. If you’re confident in yourself and what you have to say, what’s to get all hot for? Not everyone is going to agree with you. Just worry about yourself.

School Is Now In Session
I hope you took notes and learned something today class. The school of life can be hard, but if you’re smart and play your cards right, you can come out with an A+. Always be willing to educate yourself. Treat every situation as a learning experience. Isn’t that all this life really is? It’s ultimately up to you. You can go out and take it by the horns or you can sit, hope and wonder. Whatever the case, life is what you make it. And that’s the ultimate test. I hope you’ve studied.

the audacious truth

Stay Ahead of Your Enemy

Good day peoples,

It’s one thing to know your enemy, but it’s another thing altogether to stay ahead of him. In order to do so, you must have a game plan that you stick to like lint on a cheap suit.

Successful men are decisive. But decisions aren’t made in a vacuum. Any boss who’s worth his weight in gold makes good decisions because he has a clear code that he and his crew abide by. Because the real world has a black-and-white moral code, the easiest way to let your enemy get the upper hand is by sitting on the fence, wondering what to do. As the Irish say when it comes to decisions; Shit, or get off the pot.

In the business world, things are not so clear-cut, but you still need a code, which means you have to develop your own. To stay ahead of your enemy, your personal code will allow you to be bold and decisive, rather than meek and awkward.

Work on Your Poker Face
A few weeks back, I told you dudes how a stern poker face can even any playing field. In the business world, the appearance of strength is at least as important as proven competence. It is for this reason that most of your upper management team is tall, slim, calm, and well-dressed. And if you have a choice, it is always better to be these things than short, fat, bald, and messy. Unlike the underground where a fat slob can rule, in the corporate realm, power follows the dashing.

But let’s return to square one. To maintain a good poker face, you might want to start by laying off the corporate crack that goes by the name of coffee. Drink a strong coffee or two in the morning, then keep your addictive need under wraps. After the coffee experience, on the other hand, you may feel like you’re firing on all cylinders, but there’s nothing as pitiful as a man in the throws of a caffeine fix, all jittery, eyes dilating, and limbs twitching like a junkie, holding his crotch as he speedwalks to the can.
So then, assuming you can cut out the coffee junk, you’re actually well on your way, since no poker face can survive a heart rate that doubles without any exercise beyond riding the elevator. In addition to this, chain smokers now have trouble convincing people they’re not nervous. And the last thing you want is to find yourself nicotine fitting in a meeting, nervously fidgeting, biting your nails, yawning for lack of oxygen, and looking wildly around like a guilty shoplifter.

Know Your Enemy’s Crew
If you have a workplace nemesis, you need to infiltrate his crew. Any enemy that’s worth plotting against has some kind of loyal group of associates who do his field work, report to him and take his orders. Although the demarcations between boss and his mafiosi is less clear in an office setting, power always seduces men who want to be king of the hill.

And because power is structured, it is crucial to have a clearer picture of your enemy’s structure than he has of yours. No matter how “Mickey Mouse” your respective operations are, the upper hand will always go to the man who veils his structure, who keeps his enemy off balance, and who hides his hand because he knows when the enemy is watching.

Check Your Blind Spot
If you’ve ever been cut off in traffic by some jackass with tunnel vision, you understand the importance of the blind spot. Without being paranoid, it is important to keep an eye on what’s happening behind the scenes. Figure out who’s spying on your habits. And for the love of the Godfather (Movie), if you get called in by your enemy, don’t go.

Stick To Business
Having mastered your poker face while building mental files of his comings and goings, keep your interest on the down low. The less he knows about your plotting mind, the longer you can fly under the radar. Meet him head on as a business associate and keep your language neutral and your behavior stealth.

the audacious truth

Be a Leader

Good day peoples,

Guys who like to be told what to do might make mama happy, but they will never be leaders. If you want to lead, you have to live like a shark, always be moving and making things happen. To be a leader, you have to think faster than the followers so that they don't get bored or disgruntled, because when they don't have enough to do, they get whiny. Followers are like children and can be controlled by anyone who tells a good story. Followers are also necessary, because without them you would have to do all the work yourself. There's no need for taking out the trash when you have plenty of fools with two hands to do it for you.

Leaders naturally rise in an organization. It's true that idiot sons often get vaulted into top positions, but real leaders don't get places because of daddy's pockets and daddy's buddies. A real leader takes offense to this kind of bum-squatting on unearned power. Frankly, it's appalling. A guy should rise on his own merits, he should be recognized for being talented, raking in cash, and making deals happen whether the cash comes in from busting heads or basic handshakes.

Still, anyone who wants to be a leader can't just sit back and imagine that hard work alone is going to get the job done. The same thing goes for women, you might be the star football player, but that doesn't mean you get to nail the hottest chick in school unless you pursue that goal. The meek will inherit nothing. The game of life requires more than dice, it takes balls. You have to go after what you want, you have to get up and go without hitting snooze six times and luck will find you. When luck becomes success, let everyone know that you made it happen. Don't be shy, because if you don't take credit, assholes will. In fact, taking credit is a time-honored principle of leadership. If you took someone else's idea and made it happen, then it's yours. Uncle Ben didn't build the building, but he got his name on it.

It's much simpler to think about being a leader than it is to actually be one. But if you want it, then follow these rules:

Wear Blinders
If you want to lead a group, I don't care if it's the Girl Scouts or the Russian Mafia, you’d better commit to the ideas of that group and believe them in your core. You should at least start out with this mindset, because it will help you get to where you're aiming. Along the way, you might find out that the Girl Scouts are more corrupt than the Russian Mafia, but once you are inside the power structure, you can deal with that like a professional. If you are a cynic or can't get behind an idea without weighing all of the nuances, you're too slow to lead. Doubters don't inspire people to make money.

Be Stable
Show up each day with the same face and the same demeanor. Don't be a mess in your personal life and let it spill into onto the job. The more stable you are, the more likely others will trust you. Whatever your vice is, limit it to a degree that doesn't affect your work ethic. Get a wife at some point and act like a grown-up. You can still chase girls, but guys who don't have a status quo life at home generally don't move up the ladder as fast as married guys. That's a fact. They make more money, they get more done and I suspect it's partially because they've gotta feed the monkey at home.

Reward Others
Nobody wants to work for a glory hog. The best way to get people to work for you is to give kickbacks. Money. Promotions. Gold stars. Whatever. Anything that makes a guy's head swell, that's what generates loyalty. The best leaders bask in the glory and then give rewards to the underlings that make them feel like winners. But this doesn't mean you should dole out rewards for the slightest thing if you do that, the rewards will have no meaning. If the cash flow is slow, nobody gets a reward until someone takes the initiative and creates some dough. Likewise, it helps to give a rat's ass about another guy's home life. God knows that everyone loves to talk about himself. Just ask a guy about his kid's sports talemts and he'll tell you more than you ever wanted to know about Junior and walk away thinking you cared.

Get In The Right Group
On your way to the top, you will meet a lot of people, some on their way up and others on their way down. The important thing is to get in the clique with momentum. Don't close down sniffer's row with the fools who stumble home broke and blitzed. Instead, be with the brass on the golf course for the 7 a.m. tee time. When you make contacts that can help you go places, pay them visits so that your name stays fresh in their minds. Don't look at the guys above you as enemies, but rather, see them as tools you can use. Once you are in the right club, don't screw it up.

Be On The Offense
In conversations, be the one with all the good ideas. Follow your instinct and you'll be a faster thinker than the cows who chew it over for an hour. You have to live in the moment while looking 10 years down the road. Whatever is going on that day, that's your job. You can hold grudges, but not if it slows business. Get a thick skin and don't become gun-shy when you get rebuked. Always be ready for the next thing.

The last thing any group needs is a slow-witted pacifist taking charge. If you want to lead, learn how to be scrappy and know what you want. Nobody is perfect and the followers don't have to love you. They just have to do what you tell them.

the audacious truth