Excerpt from – Robert Greene’s – ’48 Laws Of Power’

“Most of us are timid. We want to avoid tension and conflict and we want to be liked by all. We may contemplate a bold action but we rarely bring it to life. We are terrified of the consequences, of what others may think of us, of the hostility we may incur, if we go beyond our usual place.

Although we may diguise our timidity as concern for others, a desire not to hurt or offend them, in fact it is the opposite – we are really self-absorbed, worried about ourselves and how others perceive us. Boldness on the other hand, is outer-directed, and often makes people feel more at ease, since it is less self-conscious and less repressed. It never induces awkwardness or embarrassment. And so we admire the bold, and prefer to be arond them, because their self-confidence infects us and draws us outside our own realm of inwardness and reflection.

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