The 50th Law - 50 Cent [33]
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