The 50th Law - 50 Cent [92]
In the back of his mind he knew that it was that moment near death that had changed him for good. He could still feel the original sensation in his body, the light and the shadow, and it filled him with a sense of urgency he had never experienced before, as if death were on his heels. In the months before the shooting, everything had been falling apart; now it was all falling into place, like destiny.
Years later, as he amassed his business empire, Fifty began to encounter more and more people playing strange power games. A company that had partnered with him would suddenly want to renegotiate their contract or act skittish and consider pulling out—acting as if they had just found out about his notorious past. Perhaps it was just a ruse to squeeze out better terms. Then there were those at his record label who treated him with increasing disrespect and offered him meager publicity or marketing money, in a take-it-or-leave-it ploy. Finally there were those who had worked for him from the beginning, but now, smelling money from his success, began to make unreasonable demands.
Certain things mattered to him more than anything else—maintaining his long-term mobility, working with those who were excited and not mercenary, controlling his image and not muddying it for the sake of quick money. What this translated into was simple: he would exercise his power to walk away from any situation or person that compromised these values. He would tell the company trying to renegotiate terms that he was no longer interested in working with them. With the record label, he would ignore the ploy and pour his own money into the marketing of his album, with the idea of leaving them soon and striking out on his own. He would cut loose the former friends, without a second thought.
In his experience, whenever he felt as if he had too much to lose and he held on to others or to deals out of fear of the alternative, he ended up losing a lot more. He realized that the key in life is to always be willing to walk away. He was often surprised that in doing so, or even feeling that way, people would come back to him on his terms, now fearing what they might lose in the process. And if they didn’t return, then good riddance.
If he had thought about it at the time, he would have realized that turning his back in this way was an attitude and philosophy that had crystallized in his mind that afternoon of the shooting, when death had brushed against him. Clinging to people or situations out of fear is like desperately holding on to life on even the worst terms, and he had now moved far beyond such a point. He was not afraid of death, so how could he be afraid of anything anymore?
The Fearless Approach
PEOPLE TALK ABOUT MY GETTING SHOT LIKE IT REPRESENTED SOMETHING SPECIAL. THEY ACT LIKE THEY’RE NOT FACING THE SAME THING. BUT SOME DAY EVERYBODY HAS TO FACE A BULLET WITH HIS OR HER NAME ON IT.
—50 Cent
With the language skills that our primitive ancestors developed, we humans became rational creatures, gaining the ability to look into the future and dominate the environment. But with this good came a bad that has caused us endless suffering—unlike any other animal, we are conscious of our mortality. This is the source of all our fears. This consciousness of death is nothing more than a thought of the future that awaits us, but this thought is associated with intense pain and separation. It comes with an attendant thought that occasionally haunts us—what good is it to work so hard,