All Eyes On Me

As I was browsing through my book collection I picked up a familiar title that I've read time and time again. In fact I often refer to this book and use it as a manual and a reference guide to life, reading chapters that apply in the moment rather than reading it cover to cover. This book is the 48 Laws Of Power By Robert Greene. This may be on of the few times that I disagree with Scarface because you don't necessarily need to get the money first to be powerful, studying and applying these rules can make you a very powerful. As the saying goes a fool and his money are soon parted. On this occasion I opened to book to the chapter on Law #6: Court attention at all costs.

The book stresses that there is no such thing as bad attention. Its better to be called a fool then to not be called at all. One must stick out in a crowd and be on the minds of other people if he truly wishes to become powerful. I personally find that Kanye west is extremely good at this. Upon losing at an award show Kanye becomes very vocal to the point that you completely forget who actually won, and only remember that Kanye was the robbed. I mean he spent a million, he had Pamela Anderson in his video, he was jumping across canyons and shit, it took a month to film, and he was standing on a mountain! The show loses credibility if Kanye doesn't win the award. Even U2 knew that Kanye had the album of the year at the Grammys and George Bush really doesn't care about black people. Kayne's outspoken tongue draws attention, not to mention that he dresses extremely different then the typical rapper does. Kanye stands out in a crowd and that's what makes him powerful.

Another master of courting attention at all cost is Bill O'Reilly. We all love to hate Bill but I'm sure he enjoys being the bad guy, although he would argue that he's the righteous one and we are the corrupt individuals that plague society. An example would by Bill O'Reilly's attempt to stop Nas from preforming at Virgina Tech because of his violent lyrics and criminal past. Now the hip hop world is all thinking the same thing "What the F&$% you talking about? Nas? Violent lyrics?" But the more Bill makes a case out of it the more it is talked about and Bill's ratings go up. At the end of the day its all business and you can't knock the hustle.

In order to be powerful you have to shine brighter than those around you. You must do this at all cost not discriminating on the type of attention that you get. The more people hate you the more you are on their mind which is just as good as being loved. Haters are often better than fans because they will go the extra mile to hate you, people used to buy tickets to Muhammad Ali fights just because they wanted to be there when he got knocked out. There is no such thing as bad attention.