The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)

particularly with our careers and global trends. The idea that we will
die and be quickly forgotten, swallowed up in eternity, is quite
intolerable. We want to feel significant in some way, to protest against
our natural smallness, to expand our sense of self. What we
experienced at the age of three or four unconsciously haunts us our
entire lives. We alternate between moments of sensing our smallness
and trying to deny it. This makes us prone to finding ways to imagine
our superiority.
Some children do not go through that second phase in early
childhood in which they must confront their relative smallness, and
these children are more vulnerable to deeper forms of grandiosity later
in life. They are the pampered, spoiled ones. The mother and the father
continue to make such children feel like they are the center of the

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universe, shielding them from the pain of confronting the reality. Their
every wish becomes a command. If ever attempts are made to instill
the slightest amount of discipline, the parents are met with a tantrum.
Furthermore, such children come to disdain any form of authority.
Compared with themselves and what they can get, the father figure
seems rather weak.
This early pampering marks them for life. They need to be adored.
They become masters at manipulating others to pamper them and
shower them with attention. They naturally feel greater than anyone
above them. If they have any talent, they might rise quite far, as their
sense of being born with a crown on their head becomes a self-fulfilling
prophecy. Unlike others, they never really alternate between feelings of
smallness and greatness; they know only the latter. Certainly Eisner
came from such a background, as he had a mother who met his every
need, completed his homework for him, and sheltered him from his
cold and sometimes cruel father.
In the past, we humans were able to channel our grandiose needs
into religion. In ancient times, our sense of smallness was not just
something bred into us by the many years we spent dependent on our
parents; it also came from our weakness in relation to the hostile
powers in nature. Gods and spirits represented these elemental powers
of nature that dwarfed our own. By worshipping them we could gain
their protection. Connected to something much larger than ourselves,
we felt enlarged. After all, the gods or God cared about the fate of our
tribe or city; they cared about our individual soul, a sign of our own
significance. We did not merely die and disappear. Many centuries
later, in a similar manner, we channeled this energy into worshipping
leaders who represented a great cause and promoted a future utopia,
such as Napoleon Bonaparte and the French Revolution, or Mao
Zedong and communism.
Today, in the Western world, religions and great causes have lost
their binding power; we find it hard to believe in them and to satisfy
our grandiose energy through identification with a greater power. The
need to feel larger and significant, however, does not simply disappear;
it is stronger than ever. And absent any other channels, people will
tend to direct this energy toward themselves. They will find a way to
expand their sense of self, to feel great and superior. Although rarely
conscious of this, what they are choosing to idealize and worship is the

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self. Because of this, we find more and more grandiose individuals
among us.
Other factors have also contributed to increases in grandiosity.
First, we find more people who experienced pampering attention in
their childhood than ever in the past. Feeling like they were once the
center of the universe becomes a hard thing to shake. They come to
believe that anything they do or produce should be seen as precious
and worthy of attention. Second, we find increasing numbers of people
who have little or no respect for authority or experts of any kind, no
matter the experts’ level of training and experience, which they
themselves lack. “Why should their opinion be any more valid than my
own?” they might tell themselves. “Nobody’s really that great; people
with power are just more privileged.” “My writing and music are just as
legitimate and worthy as anyone else’s.” Without a sense of anyone
rightly being above them and deserving authority, they can position
themselves among the highest.
Third, technology gives us the impression that everything in life can
be as fast and simple as the information we can glean online. It instills
the belief that we no longer have to spend years learning a skill;
instead, through a few tricks and with a few hours a week of practice
we can become proficient at anything. Similarly, people believe that
their skills can easily be transferred: “My ability to write means I can
also direct a film.” But more than anything it is social media that
spreads the grandiosity virus. Through social media we have almost
limitless powers to expand our presence, to create the illusion that we
have the attention and even adoration of thousands or millions of
people. We can possess the fame and ubiquity of the kings and queens
in the past, or even of the gods themselves.
With all of these elements combined, it is harder than ever for any
of us to maintain a realistic attitude and a proportionate sense of self.
In looking at the people around you, you must realize that their
grandiosity (and yours) can come in many different forms. Most
commonly people will try to satisfy the need by gaining social prestige.
People may claim they are interested in the work itself or in
contributing to humanity, but often deep down what is really
motivating them is the desire to have attention, to have their high self-
opinion confirmed by others who admire them, to feel powerful and
inflated. If they are talented, such types can get the attention they need

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for several years or longer, but inevitably, as in the story of Eisner,
their need for accolades will lure them into overreaching.
If people are disappointed in their careers yet still believe they are
great and unrecognized, they may turn to various compensations—
drugs, alcohol, sex with as many partners as possible, shopping, a
superior, mocking attitude, et cetera. Those with unsatisfied
grandiosity will often become filled with manic energy—one moment
telling everyone about the great screenplays they will write or the many
women they will seduce, and the next moment falling into depression
as reality intrudes.
People still tend to idealize leaders and worship them, and you must
see this as a form of grandiosity. By believing someone else will make
everything great, followers can feel something of this greatness. Their
minds can soar along with the rhetoric of the leader. They can feel
superior to those who are not believers. On a more personal level,
people will often idealize those they love, elevating them to god or
goddess status and by extension feeling some of this power reflected
back on them.
In the world today, you will also notice the prevalence of negative
forms of grandiosity. Many people feel the need to disguise their
grandiose urges not only from others but also from themselves. They
will frequently make a show of their humility—they are not interested
in power or feeling important, or so they say. They are happy with their
small lot in life. They do not want a lot of possessions, do not own a
car, and disdain status. But you will notice they have a need to display
this humility in a public manner. It is grandiose humility—their way to
get attention and to feel morally superior.
A variation on this is the grandiose victim—they have suffered a lot
and been the victim numerous times. Although they may like to frame
it as being simply unlucky and unfortunate, you will notice that they
often have a tendency to fall for the worst types in intimate
relationships, or put themselves in circumstances in which they are
certain to fail and suffer. In essence, they are compelled to create the
drama that will turn them into a victim. As it turns out, any
relationship with them will have to revolve around their needs; they
have suffered too much in the past to attend to your needs. They are
the center of the universe. Feeling and expressing their misfortune
gives them their sense of importance, of being superior in suffering.

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You can measure the levels of grandiosity in people in several
simple ways. For instance, notice how people respond to criticism of
them or their work. It’s normal for any of us to feel defensive and a bit
upset when criticized. But some people become enraged and hysterical,
because we have called into doubt their sense of greatness. You can be
sure that such a person has high levels of grandiosity. Similarly, such
types might conceal their rage behind a martyred, pained expression
meant to make you feel guilty. The emphasis is not on the criticism
itself and what they need to learn but on their sense of grievance.
If people are successful, notice how they act in more private
moments. Are they able to relax and laugh at themselves, letting go of
their public mask, or have they so overidentified with their powerful
public image that it carries over into their private life? In the latter
case, they have come to believe in their own myth and are in the grip of
powerful grandiosity.
Grandiose people are generally big talkers. They take credit for
anything that is even tangential to their work; they invent past
successes. They talk of their prescience, how they foresaw certain
trends or predicted certain events, none of which can be verified. All
such talk should make you doubly dubious. If people in the public eye
suddenly say something that gets them into trouble for being
insensitive, you can ascribe that to their potent grandiosity. They are
so attuned to their own great opinions that they assume everyone else
will interpret them in the right spirit and agree with them.
Higher grandiose types generally display low levels of empathy.
They are not good listeners. When the attention is not on them, they
have a faraway look in their eyes and their fingers twitch with
impatience. Only when the spotlight is on them do they become
animated. They tend to see people as extensions of themselves—tools
to be used in their schemes, sources of attention. Finally, they exhibit
nonverbal behavior that can only be described as grandiose. Their
gestures are big and dramatic. At a meeting, they take up a lot of
personal space. Their voice tends to be louder than others, and they
speak at a fast pace, giving no one else time to interrupt.
With those who exhibit moderate amounts of grandiosity, you
should be indulgent. Almost all of us alternate between periods in
which we feel superior and great and others in which we come back
down to earth. Look for such moments of realism in people as signs of

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normalcy. But with those whose self-opinion is so high they cannot
allow for any doubts, it is best to avoid relationships or entanglements.
In intimate relationships, they will tend to demand adoring one-sided
attention. If they are employees, business partners, or bosses, they will
oversell their skills. Their levels of confidence will distract you from the
deficiencies in their ideas, work habits, and character. If you cannot
avoid such a relationship, be aware of their tendency to feel certain
about the success of their ideas, and maintain your skepticism. Look at
the ideas themselves and don’t get caught up in their seductive self-
belief. Don’t entertain the illusion that you can confront them and try
to bring them down to earth; you may trigger a rage response.
If such types happen to be your rivals, consider yourself lucky. They
are easy to taunt and bait into overreactions. Casting doubts on their
greatness will make them apoplectic and doubly irrational.
Finally, you will need to manage your own grandiose tendencies.
Grandiosity has some positive and productive uses. The exuberance
and high self-belief that come from it can be channeled into your work
and help inspire you. (See “Practical Grandiosity,” on
this page
, for
more on this.) But in general it would be best for you to accept your
limitations and work with what you have, rather than fantasize about
godlike powers you can never attain. The greatest protection you can
have against grandiosity is to maintain a realistic attitude. You know
what subjects and activities you are naturally attracted to. You cannot
be skilled at everything. You need to play to your strengths and not
imagine you can be great at whatever you put your mind to. You must
have a thorough understanding of your energy levels, of how far you
can reasonably push yourself, and of how this changes with age. And
you must have a solid grasp on your social position—your allies, the
people with whom you have the greatest rapport, the natural audience
for your work. You cannot please everyone.
This self-awareness has a physical component to it that you must be
sensitive to. When you are doing activities that mesh with your natural
inclinations, you feel ease in the effort. You learn faster. You have more
energy and you can withstand the tedium that comes with learning
anything important. When you take on too much, more than you can
handle, you feel not only exhausted but also irritable and nervous. You
are prone to headaches. When you have success in life, you will
naturally feel a touch of fear, as if the good fortune could disappear.
You sense with this fear the dangers that can come from rising too high

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(almost like vertigo) and feeling too superior. Your anxiety is telling
you to come back down to earth. You want to listen to your body as it
signals to you when you are working against your strengths.
In knowing yourself, you accept your limits. You are simply one
person among many in the world, and not naturally superior to
anyone. You are not a god or an angel but a flawed human like the rest
of us. You accept the fact that you cannot control the people around
you and no strategy is ever foolproof. Human nature is too
unpredictable. With this self-knowledge and acceptance of limits you
will have a sense of proportion. You will search for greatness in your
work. And when you feel the pull to think more highly of yourself than
is reasonable, this self-knowledge will serve as a gravity mechanism,
pulling you back down and directing you toward the actions and
decisions that will best serve your particular nature.
Being realistic and pragmatic is what makes us humans so
powerful. It is how we overcame our physical weakness in a hostile
environment so many thousands of years ago, and learned to work
with others and form powerful communities and tools for survival.
Although we have veered away from this pragmatism, as we no longer
have to rely on our wits to survive, it is in fact our true nature as the
preeminent social animal on the planet. In becoming more realistic,
you are simply becoming more human.