by 50 Cent
What was needed was a new skill set, a different mentality for handling the chaos. And Curtis would be the hustler to develop these skills to the maximum. For this purpose, he let go of any desire to dominate an area with one large operation. Instead he started experimenting with four or five hustles at the same time; inevitably one of the angles would work and pay for all the others. He made sure he always had options, room to move in case the police pushed in and cut off one of his access routes. He interacted with the fiends, looking for any changes in their tastes and ways he could appeal to them with some new marketing scheme. He let those who worked for him do things on their own time, as long as they produced results—he wanted as little friction as possible. He never stayed tied to one venture, one partner, or one way of doing things for very long. He kept moving.
The chaos of the streets was part of his flow, something he learned to exploit by working from within it. Operating this way, he slowly accumulated the kind of hustling empire that could surpass what even Jermaine had attempted.
In 2003, Curtis (now known as 50 Cent) found himself thrust into corporate America, working within Interscope Records and dealing with the growing number of businesses that wanted to ally themselves with him. Coming from the streets, with no formal business background, it was natural for him to feel intimidated in this new environment. But within a few months he saw things differently—the new skills he had developed in the hood were more than adequate.
What he noticed about the business executives he dealt with was rather shocking: they operated by these conventions that seemed to have little to do with the incredible changes going on in the business environment. The record industry, for instance, was being destroyed by digital piracy, but the executives could only think of somehow maintaining their monopoly on ownership and distribution; they were incapable of adapting to the changes. They interacted only with themselves—not with their customer base—so their ideas never evolved. They were living in the past, when all of the business models were simple, and control was easy to come by. They had the Jermaine mentality through and through, and in Fifty’s mind they would some day suffer a similar fate.
Fifty would stay true to his street strategies—he would opt for fluid positions and room to move. This meant branching out into ventures that were not at all traditional for a rapper—Vitamin Water, a line of books, an alliance with General Motors and Pontiac. These associations seemed disorderly and random, but it was all tied to his compelling image that he continued to shape. He worked five different angles at the same time; if one venture failed, he learned and moved on. The business world was like a laboratory that he would use for constant experimentation and discovery. He would mix and mingle with his employees, up and down the line, and with his audience, allowing them to alter his ideas. The centerpiece of this flow strategy would be the Internet, a chaotic space with endless opportunity for a hustler like himself.
Without knowing exactly where it would lead, he began putting together his own website. At first it was a place to showcase new videos and get feedback from the public. Soon it began to morph into a social network, bringing together his fans from all over the world. This gave him endless space to market his brand and track the changing moods of his audience. His website would continue to evolve like a living organism—he placed no limits on what it could become.
Years later, having moved beyond music into as many varied realms as possible, Fifty could look back on all the people he had left far behind—the record executives, fellow rappers, and business leaders who had gone astray amid all the rapid fluctuations in the early part of the century, a whole gallery of Jermaine types who had no flow. No matter the changes to come, he would continue to thrive in this new Wild West environment, just as he had on the streets.
The Fearless Approach
50 CENT IS A PERSON I CREATED. SOON IT WILL BE TIME TO DESTROY HIM AND BECOME SOMEBODY ELSE.
—50 Cent
As infants we were surrounded by many things that were unfamiliar and unpredictable—people acting in ways that did not make sense, events that were hard to figure out. This was the source of great anxiety. We wanted the world around us to be more familiar. What was not so predictable became associated in our minds with darkness and chaos, something to dread. Out of this fear, a desire was born deep inside of us to somehow gain greater control over the people and events that eluded our grasp. The only way we knew how to do this was to grab and hold, to push and pull, exerting our will in as direct a manner as possible to get people to do what we wanted. Over the years, this can become a lifelong pattern of behavior—more subtle as an adult, but infantile at heart.
Every individual we come across in life is unique, with his or her own energy, desires, and history. But wanting more control over people, our first impulse is generally to try to push them into conforming to our moods and ideas, into acting in ways that are familiar and comfortable to us. Every circumstance in life is different, but this elicits that old fear of chaos and the unknown. We cannot physically make events more predictable, but we can internally create a feeling of greater control by holding on to certain ideas and beliefs that give us a sense of consistency and order.
This hunger for control, common to all of us, is the root of so many problems in life. Staying true to the same ideas and ways of doing things makes it that much harder for us to adapt to the inevitable changes in life. If we try to dominate a situation with some kind of aggressive action, this becomes our only option. We cannot give in, or adapt, or bide our time—that would mean letting go of our grip, and we fear that. Having such narrow options makes it hard to solve problems. Forcing people to do what we want makes them resentful—inevitably they sabotage us or assert themselves against our will. What we find is that our desire to micromanage the world around us comes with a paradoxical effect—the harder we try to control things in our immediate environment, the more likely we are to lose control in the long run.
Most people tend to think of these forms of direct control as power itself—something that shows strength, consistency, or character. But in fact the opposite is the case. They are forms of power that are infantile and weak, stemming from that deep-rooted fear of change and chaos. Before it is too late you need to convert to a more sophisticated, fearless concept of power—one that emphasizes fluidity.
Life has a particular pace and rhythm, an endless stream of changes that can move slowly or quickly. When you try to stop this flow mentally or physically by holding on to things or people, you fall behind. Your actions become awkward because they are not in relation to present circumstances. It is like moving against a current as opposed to using it to propel you forward.
The first and most important step is to let go of this need to control in such a direct manner. This means that you no longer see change and chaotic moments in life as something to fear, but rather as a source of excitement and opportunity. In a social situation in which you want the ability to influence people, your first move is to bend to their different energies. You see what they bring and you adapt to this, then find a way to divert their energy in your direction. You let go of the past way of doing things and adapt your strategies to the ever-flowing present.
Often what seems like chaos to us is merely a series of events that are new and hard to figure out. You cannot make sense of this apparent disorder if you are reactive and fearful, trying to make everything conform to patterns that exist only in your mind. By absorbing more of these chaotic moments with an open spirit, you can glimpse a pattern, a reason why they are occurring, and how you can exploit them.
As part of this new concept, you are replacing the old stalwart symbols of power—the rock, the oak tree, etc.—with that of water, the element that has the greatest potential force in all of nature. Water can adapt to whatever comes its way, moving around or over any obstacle. It wears away rock over time. This form of power does not mean you simply give in to what life brings you and drift. It means that you channel the flow of events in you
r direction, letting this add to the force of your actions and giving you powerful momentum.
In places like the hood, the concept of flow is more developed than elsewhere. In such an environment, obstacles are everywhere. Those who live there cannot move and make a good living beyond the confines of the hood. If they try to control too many things and become aggressive, they tend to make their lives harder and shorter. The violence they initiate only comes back at them with equal force.
With so many physical limitations, hustlers have learned to develop mental freedom. They cannot let their minds be bothered by all these hindrances. Their thoughts have to keep moving—creating new ventures, new hustles, new directions in music and clothes. That is why trends change so quickly in the hood, which often serves as the engine for new styles in the culture at large. With people, hustlers have to adapt to all of their differences, wearing the mask that is appropriate for each situation, deflecting people’s suspicions. (Hustlers are consummate chameleons.) If they can maintain this mental and social fluidity, they can feel a degree of freedom beyond all the physical confinements of the hood.
You too face a world full of obstacles and limitations—a new environment where the competition is more global, complicated, and intense than ever before. Like the hustler, you must find your freedom through the fluidity of your thoughts and your constant inventiveness. This means having a greater willingness to experiment, trying several ventures without fear of failing here or there. It also means constantly looking to develop new styles, new directions you can take, freeing yourself up from any inertia that comes with age. In a world full of people who are too conventional in their thinking, who respect the past far too much, such flow will inevitably translate into power and more room to move.
The fearless types in history all reveal a greater capacity to handle chaos and to use it for their purposes. No greater example of this can be found than Mao Zedong. China in the 1920s was a country on the verge of radical change. The old imperial order that had suffocated China for centuries had finally fallen apart. But fearing the disorder that could be unleashed in such a vast country, the two parties vying for control—the Nationalists and the Communists—opted to try to contain the situation as best they could.
The Nationalists offered the old-style imperial order with a new face. The Communists decided to impose on China the Lenin model—waging a proletariat revolution, centered in urban areas, controlling key cities in the country and enforcing strict adherence to party dogma among its followers. This had worked well in the Soviet Union, creating order in a short period of time, but it had no relevance to China; by the end of the decade this strategy was failing miserably. On the verge of annihilation, the Communists turned to Mao, who had a totally different concept of what to do.
Mao had been raised in a small village, among the country’s vast peasant population. As part of his upbringing, he was immersed in the ancient belief systems of Taoism, which saw change as the essence of nature, and conforming to these changes as the source of all power. In the end, according to Taoism, you are stronger by having a softness that allows you to bend and adapt. Mao was not afraid of the vast size and population of China. The chaos this could represent would simply become part of his strategy. His idea was to enlist the help of the peasantry, so that Communist soldiers could blend in to the countryside like fish in water.
He would not attack city centers or try to occupy any single position in the country. Instead he would move the army around, like a vaporous force that would attack and then disappear, the enemy never knowing where it was coming from or what it was up to. This guerrilla force would stay in constant motion, allowing the enemy no breathing space and giving them a sense of chaos.
The Nationalists epitomized the opposite school of fighting, conventional to the core. When Mao finally unleashed on them his new brand of warfare, they could not adapt. They held on to key positions, while the Communists encircled them in the vast spaces of China. The Nationalists’ control narrowed to the point of a few cities, and soon they crumbled completely in one of the most remarkably swift turnarounds in military history.
Understand: it is not only what you do that must have flow, but also how you do things. It is your strategies, your methods of attacking problems, that must constantly be adapted to circumstances. Strategy is the essence of human action—the bridge between an idea and its realization in the world. Too often these strategies become frozen into conventions, as people mindlessly imitate what worked before. By keeping your strategies attuned to the moment, you can be an agent of change, the one who breaks up these dead ways of acting, gaining tremendous power in the process. Most people in life are rigid and predictable; that makes them easy targets. Your fluid, unpredictable strategies will drive them insane. They cannot foresee your next move or figure you out. That is often enough to make them give way or fall apart.
Keys to Fearlessness
THUS ONE’S VICTORIES IN BATTLE CANNOT BE REPEATED—THEY TAKE THEIR FORM IN RESPONSE TO INEXHAUSTIBLY CHANGING CIRCUMSTANCES…. IT CAN BE LIKENED TO WATER, AS WATER VARIES ITS FLOW ACCORDING TO THE FALL OF THE LAND.
—Sun Tzu
All of us have experienced at some point in our lives a feeling of momentum. Perhaps we do something that strikes a chord and we get recognized for it. This positive attention fills us with unusual confidence, which in turn attracts people to us. Now brimming with self-belief, we are able to pull off another good action. Even if it is not so perfect, people will now tend to overlook the rough patches. We have the aura of success about us. So many times in life, one good thing seems to follow another.
This will go on until inevitably we disrupt the flow. Perhaps we overreach with an action that breaks the spell, or we keep repeating the same things and people grow tired of us and move on to someone else. Just as quickly the opposite momentum can afflict us. Our own insecurities start to get in the way; the little imperfections that people overlooked before now seem glaring. We enter a run of bad fortune and feelings of depression render us more and more immobile.
On either end of the spectrum we recognize the phenomenon but we treat it as if it were something mystical, beyond conscious control and explanation. But it is not as mysterious as we might think. In the midst of any run of momentum, we generally feel more open; we allow ourselves to be carried along. The confidence we have when things are going well makes people get out of our way or join our side, giving our actions added force. Sometimes a feeling of urgency—we have to get something done—pushes us to act in a particularly energetic manner, and this starts a good run. This is often accompanied with a feeling that we have little to lose by trying something bold. Perhaps feeling somewhat desperate, we loosen up and experiment.
What ties this all together is that something inside of us opens up and we allow a greater range of motion. Our style becomes freer and bolder, and we move with the current. On the other hand, when a run of momentum ends, it is usually from something we do, a kind of unconscious self-sabotage. We react against this loosening up, out of some fear of where it could lead us. We become conservative and the flow of energy stops, slowly reversing itself into stasis and depression. In many ways, we are the ones in control of this phenomenon, but it does not operate on a conscious enough level.
Understand: momentum in life comes from increased fluidity, a willingness to try more, to move in a less constricted fashion. On many levels it remains something hard to put into words, but by understanding the process, becoming more conscious of the elements involved, you can place your mind in a readied position, better able to exploit any positive movement in your life. Call this calculated momentum. For this purpose you must practice and master the following four types of flow.
MENTAL FLOW
In the time of Leonardo da Vinci’s youth (mid-fifteenth century), knowledge had hardened into rigid compartments. In one slot, there was philosophy and scholasticism; in another, the arts, which were considered more like simple crafts; in yet another, science,
which was not yet very empirical. On the margins stood all forms of dark knowledge—the arts of the occult.
Da Vinci was the illegitimate son of a notary, and because of this murky social position, he was denied the usual formal education, all of which became a great blessing in disguise. His mind was freed from all the prejudices and rigid categories of thinking that prevailed at the time. He went to serve an apprenticeship in the studio of the great artist Verrocchio. And once he began to learn there the craft of drawing and painting, a process was set in motion that led to the forming of one of the most original minds in the history of mankind.
Knowledge in one field simply opened up in da Vinci an insatiable hunger to learn something else in a related field. The study of painting led to that of design in general, which led to an interest in architecture—from there he flowed to studying engineering; making war machines and strategy; observing animals and the mechanics of motion that could be applied to technology; studying birds and aerodynamics, the anatomy of animals and humans, the relationship between emotions and physiology; and on and on. This incredible stream of ideas even overflowed into areas of the occult. His mind would recognize no boundaries; he sought the connections between all natural phenomena. In this sense, he was ahead of his time and the first real Renaissance man. His discoveries in various fields had a momentum—the intensity of one leading to another. Many could not understand him and thought he was eccentric, even erratic. But great patrons such as King François I of France, and even Cesare Borgia, recognized his genius and sought to exploit it.