The 50th Law

The greatest fear people have is that of being themselves. They want to be 50 Cent or someone else. They do what everyone else does even if it doesn’t fit where and who they are. But you get nowhere that way; your energy is weak and no one pays attention to you. You’re running away from the one thing that you own – what makes you different. I lost that fear. And once I felt the power that I had by showing the world I didn’t care about being like other people, I could never go back

–50 Cent, The 50th Law

Robert Greene’s book with 50 Cent was … different. Unlike his previous books I’ve read (33 Strategies, 48 Laws, Mastery, and The Art of Seduction), this book isn’t really written by him – and it’s not a Joost Elffers book. The copy I borrowed from my local library looks like a weird cross of a notebook and a Bible.

Should you read the book? I don’t think so. The whole of it is summed in the opening quote above – the rest of the several score pages just elaborate and/or ramble on the theme.

It’s marketed as a sequel to The 48 Laws of Power – it’s not. It ‘s a performance artist’s attempt to write-off his critics and push himself up in everyone’s estimation because hey: he wrote a book.