The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)

Fearlessness:
We are bold creatures by nature. As children, we were
not afraid to ask for more or assert our will. We were remarkably
resilient and fearless in so many ways. Timidity is a quality we
generally acquire. It is a function of our mounting fears as we get older
and a loss of confidence in our powers to get what we want. We
become overly concerned with how people perceive us and worry what
they will think if we stand up for ourselves. We internalize their
doubts. We become afraid of any kind of conflict or confrontation,
which will churn up emotions and lead to consequences we cannot
predict or control. We develop the habit of backing down. We don’t say
what we feel even when it would be appropriate, and we fail to set
boundaries to people’s harmful behavior. We find it hard to ask for a
raise or a promotion or the respect due to us. Losing our bold spirit, a
positive form of aggression, is losing a deep part of our self, and it is
inevitably painful.
You must try to recover the fearlessness you once possessed,
through incremental steps. The key is to first convince yourself that
you deserve good and better things in life. Once you feel that, you can
start by training yourself to speak up or even talk back to people in
everyday situations, if they are proving to be insensitive. You are
learning to defend yourself. You might call people on their passive-
aggressive behavior, or not be so timid in expressing an opinion that
they may not share or in telling them what you really think of their bad
ideas. You will often come to realize that you have less to fear in doing
this than you had imagined. You might even gain some respect. You try
this out in small ways every day.
Once you lose your fear in these less dramatic encounters, you can
start to ramp it up. You can make greater demands on people that they
treat you well, or honor the quality work that you do. You do this
without a complaining or defensive tone. You make it clear to bullies

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that you are not as meek as you seem, or as easily manipulated as
others. You can be as relentless as they are in defending your interests.
In negotiations, you can train yourself not to settle for less but to make
bolder demands and see how far you can push the other side.
You can apply this growing boldness to your work. You will not be
so afraid to create something that is unique, or to face criticism and
failure. You will take reasonable risks and test yourself out. All of this
must be built up slowly, like a muscle that has atrophied, so that you
don’t risk a large-scale battle or aggressive reaction before you have
toughened yourself up. But once you develop this muscle, you will gain
the confidence that you can meet any adversity in life with a fearless
attitude.
Anger:
It is natural and healthy for you to feel anger at certain types
of people—those who unfairly block your advancement, the many fools
who have power but are lazy and incompetent, the sanctimonious
critics who espouse their clichés with so much conviction and attack
you without understanding your views. The list could go on forever.
Feeling such anger can be a powerful motivating device to take some
kind of action. It can fill you with valuable energy. You should embrace
it and use it throughout your life for such a purpose. What might make
you hold back or tamp down your anger is that it can seem to be such a
toxic and ugly emotion, as it often is in our culture.
What makes anger toxic is the degree to which it is disconnected
from reality. People channel their natural frustrations into anger at
some vague enemy or scapegoat, conjured up and spread by
demagogues. They imagine grand conspiracies behind simple
inescapable realities, such as taxes or globalism or the changes that are