Always Adopt the Religion of the Country You're In

Conquerors like Napoleon knew how to get people to like them, even while he was preparing to take everything away from them.

He knew how to get on people’s good sides, to ingratiate himself with them, and he did this not by ridiculing their beliefs or trying to impose his own, but by making people think that he shared them.

There’s genius in this approach, and it can help us get everything we ever wanted.

I’ll be completely honest with you: there are people out there who think that I think they’re the smartest people in the entire world.

They think that I agree with their asinine theories about how the world works and what they believe about human nature.

They think that their favorite book is my favorite book, or that I hate the same people they hate (hint: I don’t hate ANYONE).

Why do I let them believe this?

Because it’s easier for me, much easier than fighting all these ridiculous little battles all the time, trying to get people to come around to my way of thinking.

I literally don’t care.

What I need - in life and business - are friends, partners, and allies, people I get along with, people who can help me achieve my goals, and who I can help in turn.

I don’t need them to agree with everything I think, and I don’t need to spend any extra energy fighting them on their beliefs.

I have a business to run, books to read, money to make, memories to capture.

Turns out, you can achieve quite a lot when you stop caring about whether everyone else agrees with you or whether they see the world in the same way as you do.

Back to Napoleon for a moment…

In exactly the same way that Napoleon knew when to appear as an intellectual and when to appear as a commander, he also had an extraordinarily refined sense of when it was appropriate to make himself appear as similar as possible to those people he was trying to win over.

He was a brilliant strategist of life, and by displaying his love and appreciation of the local holy texts, he would win over populations that would have been much more hostile to him had he not been as familiar with what they had to say. 

I notice the same thing in my own life, and I go out of my way - without pretentiousness - to show an appreciation of the culture and practices of the people with whom I meet.

I used to live in India, and The Gita is one of my absolute favorite books of all time - truly, it is. I’m not just saying that. So when I mention that to people I meet who are from there, and/or who grew up with The Gita in their childhood home, it cuts through the illusion of being strangers and instantly connects me with whomever I'm talking to.

The key, of course, is to do this without sounding fake, and without assuming that just because someone is from China, they must be familiar with the writings of Confucius, or just because they're British, they must love Charles Dickens.

That can get annoying fast.  

But in the case of Napoleon, here you have a situation in which his superior education and wide reading prepared him to meet people of diverse backgrounds on the same footing and to win them over to the side of friendship (or at least, non-aggression for a time) simply by showing a genuine interest in them.

And when he didn't have that genuine interest, he basically lied to them anyway and pretended he did. Same result!

Nonetheless, he knew the power of sacred texts, the attachments people felt toward them, and the cohesiveness they offer to societies that have certain sacred texts in common.

When tactically useful, he used his superior erudition to his strategic advantage, even if he didn't necessarily share those same religious beliefs.

In fact, he often showed himself to be a perceptive critic of dogma and indoctrination, such as when he had this realization:

That's a good point! Napoleon was a critical thinker - a questioner - and not one to simply accept received wisdom without evaluating it for himself.

He asked questions about everything he read, and he realized that no one has a monopoly on the whole truth.

This worldview, and his political wisdom, allowed him to say:

So what’s the lesson in all this? What should you actually, you know, do when you run into people who believe differently than you do about the world?

Let them think what they want.

Let them think that you think in the same way as they do. It costs you nothing - it’s actually less effort than fighting all these pointless little battles with people for imaginary points that don’t mean anything - and it will even help you get ahead in life.

It’ll help you get ahead because you’ll be able to gather allies more easily.

You’ll be welcome wherever you go because you’re the agreeable one.

You’re the person everyone can confide in and you’re the person everyone feels seen by and listened to when you’re around.

This is a powerful position to take in life, and I’m not asking you to abandon your morals. Sometimes, you do have to stand up for what you believe is right…

But usually? In most situations?

Usually, you’re better off making people think that they’re the smartest person in the room.

I should mention here that I’ve written a complete breakdown of Andrew Roberts’ excellent biography of Napoleon that you can read for free right here.

There are so many leadership lessons littered throughout that book and I’ve gathered them all together in a single breakdown you can read in about 45 minutes (the book is 800 pages long!)

So here’s my breakdown of Napoleon: A Life, and here are 50 more breakdowns that can help you become the person you know you were meant to be.

All the best,

Matt Karamazov

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