The moment people feel they know what to expect from you, your spell on them is broken. More: You have ceded them power.
Interpretation
When people think they can predict your behavior, they gain control over you.
This quote highlights the importance of maintaining an element of surprise in our interactions with others. When individuals believe they can easily anticipate how we will respond or behave, they effectively gain a degree of power over us, diminishing our influence and the impact we have on them. To keep our 'spell' or allure intact, we must avoid becoming overly predictable.
In practice
In a leadership seminar discussing strategies for influence.
In a society where the roles everyone plays are obvious, the refusal to conform to any standard will excite interest. Be both masculine and feminine, impudent and charming, subtle and outrageous. Let other people worry about being socially acceptable; those types are a dime a dozen, and you are after a power greater than they can imagine.
When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinxlike.
The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways.
The Nihilistic Troll might pretend to be acting in the service of some cause or leader, but don't be fooled. The cause and their supposedly strong convictions are simply a way to justify and provide cover for their abusive behavior.
Only create associations with positive affinities. Make this a rule of life and you will benefit more than from all the therapy in the world.
Remember that the essence of authority is that people willingly follow your lead.
Maybe the fear is that we are less than we think we are, when the actuality of it is that we are much much more.
May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.
When the New Testament speaks about the fullness of grace which we find in Christ, it does not mean only forgiveness, pardon and justification. Christ has done much more for us. He died for us, but he also lived for us. Now he has sent his own Spirit to us so that we might draw on his strength. He grew in grace, and when we draw on his power we shall likewise grow in grace.
My own way of thinking is to ponder long and I hope deeply on problems and for a long time which I keep away for years and years and I never really let them go.
The man who truly and disinterestedly enjoys any one thing in the world, for its own sake, and without caring two-pence what other people say about it, is by that very fact forewarmed against some of our subtlest modes of attack.
Experience is a truer guide than the words of others.
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