The Invisible Mentor

Posts Tagged ‘History’

I read and reviewed The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli which was written over five hundred years ago. And, it always amazes me how some books that are timeless classics are still relevant today. The Prince is one such book. I firmly believe we can use some of yesterday’s ideas to solve today’s problems if we step back in time a take and look at some of those classics. For those who like videos, I’ve found some YouTube Videos created by AntiGroupThink, which I have included.

After you have read The Prince for yourself, or at the very least watch the five short YouTube videos, ask and answer the following  three questions:

1. Does the end ever justify the means? And if yes, in what situations?
2. How do you get power and how do you keep it?
3. Is power the end all and be all?

Niccolo Machiavelli worked in politics from 1498 to 1512, but his political career ended in shame, with him being arrested and imprisoned for 22 days. Machiavelli refers to Lorenzo Medici as the Prince. In his forced absence from politics, Machiavelli wrote The Prince hoping that given his republican credentials, he would be re-employed with the Medicis, thus returning to a position of power.

The Prince was written nearly 500 years ago, but some of the ideas are still relevant today. In The Prince, Machiavelli deals with the rise and fall of states, and the measures that a leader can take to ensure the states’ continued existence. The author’s focus is on how societies actually work. The book is very technical, and focuses on how to grasp and hold power, and offers advice on what worked and what did not work in advancing a political career.

For example, Machiavelli states “A man who is made prince by the favour of the people must work to retain their friendship; and this is easy for him because the people ask only not to be oppressed. But a man who has become prince against the will of the people and by the favour of the nobles should, before anything else, try to win the people over; this too is easy if he takes them under his protection… it is necessary for a prince to have the friendship of the people; otherwise he has no remedy in times of adversity.”

Machiavelli was nicknamed “Old Nick,” another name for Satan, and the Jesuits called him “the Devil’s partner in crime.” While reading The Prince, I was often very shocked because some sections are very dark. However, once you get past that, it is filled with many parallels and contrasts to today. If you dig beneath the surface of what he is saying, the information can be transported to our time and used. For example, “As for intellectual training, the prince must read history, studying the actions of eminent men to see how they conducted themselves during war and to discover the reasons for their victories or their defeats, so that he can avoid the latter and imitate the former. Above all, he must read history so that he can do what eminent men have done before him….” We could make this more relevant to us by interpreting it to mean that we must read history and study the actions of successful men and women to discover the reasons for their successes and failures to imitate their successes.

Machiavelli’s political thesis can be summed up as “I also believe that the man who adapts his policy to the times prospers, and likewise that the one whose policy clashes with the demands of the times does not.”

YouTube video of The Prince, Part One of Five. If you cannot view the video click here.

Five +2 Great Ideas

1. When trouble is sensed well in advance, it can easily be remedied; if you wait for it to show itself, any medicine will be too late because the disease will have become incurable
2. Men willingly change their ruler expecting to fare better
3. When states are acquired in a province differing in language, in customs, and in institutions, then difficulties arise; and to hold them one must be very fortunate and very assiduous. One of the best, most effective expedients would be for the conqueror to go live there in person. This course of action would make a new possession more secure and more permanent.
4. Whoever is responsible for another’s becoming powerful ruins himself, because this power is brought into being either by ingenuity or by force, and both of these are suspect to the one who has become powerful
5. Governments set up overnight, like everything in nature whose growth is forced, lack strong roots and ramifications. So they are destroyed in the first bad spell
6. A man who becomes a prince with the help of the nobles finds it more difficult to maintain his position than one who does so with the help of the people. As prince, he finds himself surrounded by many who believe they are his equals, and because of that he cannot command or manage them the way he wants
7. Prosperity is ephemeral; if a man behaves with patience and circumspection, and the time and circumstances are right, he will prosper, however, if circumstances change and he doesn’t adapt his policy to reflect the change, he will be ruined.

I recommend that you read The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli just to see how far and sometimes not so far that we’ve come. After you have read The Prince, what parallels can you make to events occurring in our world today? What are your great ideas? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right side) by email or RSS Feed.

Part Two of The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli YouTube Video

Part Three of The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli YouTube Video

Part Four of The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli YouTube Video

Part Five of The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli YouTube Video

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Genghis Khan, Founder and Emperor of the Mongol Empire, in his sixty five years (1162 – 1227) on earth committed a lot of atrocities. It’s believed that at the time of his death in 1227, “he had been responsible for the death of around 20 million people, around one-tenth of the population of the known world at the time.” In a life filled with savagery and brutality, there is much to learn from Khan, even if it is what not to do.

I hesitated before I purchased 100 Tyrants: History’s Most Evil Despots & Dictators (citations in this post are from this book) by Nigel Cawthorne because I didn’t want to pollute my mind. That was a bit arrogant on my part because life isn’t always rosy, and tyrants will always be around us. Books like this one gives us insights into the way tyrants think and behave, and if we stop to look, there are always lessons around us, even from a thirteenth century tyrant. Genghis Khan started his tyranny at an early age, killing his brother in a dispute over a fish at the age of 12. His tyranny continued throughout his life in his quest to expand his wealth and territory. His major goal was to conquer imperial China. Later in his life, he wanted to share his conquests with his people and he did so. He also had great foresight and kept a written record of his legacy.

Seven Lessons From Genghis Khan

1. Honor your words: In more than one instance after giving his word that a city would be spared and the inhabitants unmolested if they surrendered, Khan reneged on his promise and slaughtered the inhabitants.
2. Take the road less traveled: Khan often won the wars he waged because he didn’t do the expected.
3. Don’t be scared to take on the giants in your field, but be very strategic about it: Khan often defeated armies much larger than his because he was strategic and tactical.
4. Be compassionate when dealing with others: People begged for mercy, begged for their lives, but Khan seldom showed mercy
5. How you play the game is more important than winning: If cities opposed Khan, “As well as massacring the inhabitants, he would destroy the irrigation systems that had taken centuries to construct.”
6. Being weighed down by the tools of the trade can give your competitors and adversaries an unfair advantage: “The Russian knights wore steel armour and had shields, axes, swords and lances, but were heavy and slow compared to the Mongol.”
7. In what ways can you be innovative in the way you conduct your work? Back in the thirteenth century, people in Samarkand “Sent melons as far as Baghdad, packed with snow to keep them fresh.” Today this is nothing because we take refrigeration for granted, back then, that was a hugely innovative act. Also when Khan didn’t have any boulders for the catapults, he improvised and used the cut up trunks of the mulberry tree.

Who are some of the most notable tyrants who have walked this earth? What are five lessons that we can learn from?

Action Steps

Read about some of the most known tyrants and see what you can learn from them.

No one is inherently all bad or all good. Each of us possess both darkness and light. According to Wikipedia, “Beyond his great military accomplishments, Genghis Khan also advanced the Mongol Empire in other ways. He decreed the adoption of the Uyghur script as the Mongol Empire’s writing system. He also promoted religious tolerance in the Mongol Empire, and created a unified empire from the nomadic tribes of northeast Asia.”

BBC Genghis Khan YouTube Video Part One of Five

If you cannot view the BBC Genghis Khan YouTube Video Part One of Five, click here

Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

Further Reading

Genghis Khan (from Wikipedia)

BBC Genghis Khan Video Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

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Most people would like to make history and leave a legacy behind. So, how do you go about making history? Recently I interviewed Nathalie Lussier for this blog, and when I asked her what her favourite quote was, she responded, “Well behaved women never make history,” Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. I thought, what a great quote, what are your thoughts about the quote? Would you rather be well-behaved or make history? And what does it mean to be well-behaved?

I decided to research Laurel Thatcher Ulrich to see what I could learn about her. When did she say “Well behaved women never make history,” and in what context did she say it? Born in 1938, Thatcher Ulrich, a Pulitzer Prize winner for “A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard based on her diary, 1785–1812” is a “historian of early America and the history of women and a university professor at Harvard University,” according to Wikipedia.

Thatcher Ulrich wrote an article and included the phrase “well-behaved women seldom make history,” which resonated with many, and the phrase took off like wild fire. After the popularity of the phrase she wrote the book, Well Behaved Women, which looked at the ways women shaped history. Nowhere in the article is the phrase explained, but in the book, she looked at lives of Rosa Parks who refused to give up her seat to a white passenger, Christine de Pisan who challenged the hatred of women and girls and stereotypes in a male dominated world way back in the late 14th century, Harriet Tubman, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and many other notable women who practiced social activism. These women stood up for what they believed in.

This means to me that we have to take a stand and make a difference. How can you make a difference? What do you believe in? What is your moral compass? Would you stand up for what you believed in if necessary? These are tough questions. To make a difference, and to make history, is to take the path less traveled and be willing to stand up for what you believe in. You have to take a risk.

Keep the conversation flowing, please comment. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the left side) by email or RSS Feed. I created a Mini Learning Toolkit and you can grab a copy by clicking here.

For your research and writing needs, consider my firm Ambeck Enterprise for white papers, articles, fact sheets, anniversary booklets, you name it. Since I am the best kept secret you may not know this, but I have over 15 years research and writing experience. I KNOW content. And if you cannot figure out which books to read for professional development, I am your WOMAN. I can assist you with that too. Visit my sales page for resources such as The Invisible Mentor Toolkit to assist you in acquiring wisdom from a distance.

Homework: Review what the other women mentioned did to be considered not well-behaved.

Reference: Wikipedia

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