Law 1: Never Outshine The Master — Reflections

It’s a part of my mission to be greater, to be even better than the above average dudes. Reading this I thought “why on earth would I ever have a master above me? I’m doing everything on my own”. That’s when I realized I’m going to have someone above me a lot in the next few years. Teachers for example. They have authority over me, even if they’re all clueless. And I have no way of getting out of this master-apprentice relationship until the end of the year, so I may as well ride it out the best I can.

Thoughts:

• People are insecure by nature. If you outshine them and they have authority over you, most will be unrelenting in knocking you down.
• Even if you do something as a tribute to your master, they are not going to be happy if it makes you look better than them. Instead, attribute what you do to your master. Say things like “this was not possible with out ‘insert name of master here’”. Galileo did this, by literally saying that the Medici family was responsible for the discovery of Jupiter’s 4 moons. By saying that the 4 Medici brothers were the reason for their appearance, he made the Medici’s look good and won their favour.
• If the master is firm in their power, don’t outshine them. Their power will eventually fade. If the master is weak and falling, outshine them at key moments to show that you can replace them when they eventually fall. If the master is very weak and has practically already fallen, leave them be. It would look cruel to outshine them when they’re on the way out.

Even though I’ve learned a lot from this book already, I know that I’m going to have to put this into practice as well as re-read it to take it all in.