How To Become a Leader: What Hitler Taught The World

“Everyone should be respected as an individual, but no one idolized.” – Albert Einstein

Today I briefly want to discuss what Hitler taught the world on how you can become a leader to the masses. We all know Hitler was a horrible human being, so there is no need to discuss it here.

The purpose of this post is to raise some awareness among people who would like to be a leader of some sort, to make you aware of the responsibility you will have, and to question what your true motives are and the consequences of your message.

To possibly re-think what it means to be a leader. Do you even need to be a leader?

Because once you begin to shout loudly, people will start to hear, you will begin to convince others, and in doing so will convince yourself as well.

Hitler’s Three Principles To Become a Leader To The Masses

1. Say anything with enough conviction, does not matter if it is true, if said with enough conviction it will become true. In his autobiography Hitler basically says that people are in search of conviction; they are not interested in the truth. Many intelligent people who were able to think sanely and rationally became dumbfounded by the conviction of Hitler’s message.

2. Repetition: Pick a message you want to spread and keep on saying it everywhere and all the time with the utmost conviction.

3. Stay only two feet ahead of your followers: Your followers tell you what they want, just listen to them, and give it to them with enough emphasis so they will continue to follow you. Don’t get too far ahead though, because then they will not be able to understand you.

Just be watchful of where the crowd is going, the mood of the people, and be a little ahead of it, then the crowd will get the sense that you are leading. Just be a little alert, the crowd is always shouting what it wants.

What do our politicians do? They simply hear what the crowd wants, and then shout it back loudly with promises that they will give them what they want. The people really don’t expect the promises to be fulfilled, just that the politician goes on promising, goes on listening to their problems. Politics after all is not about change but about keeping things the same.

People are very forgetful; just a few years and they forget what they even asked for. What happens when the crowd becomes a little agitated and calls out their leaders? The politicians just simply then make bigger promises, and on we go with the madness…is this beginning to sound a little familiar?

Here are a few recent examples….

President Obama during his campaign:

1. His message with conviction: Change.
2. Repetition: “Change you can believe in”, what a beautiful slogan, the people have no choice.

The Bank Bailouts:

1. The Message: The world will end as we know it if we don’t save the banksters.
2. Repetition: They emphasize that it was the people’s fault and not the greedy banks and a handful of groups who engineered the whole mess In the first place.

Why Do These Principles Work?

1. People need certainty: People don’t know what life (insert any problem a leader says he can fulfill) is all about, and you come along and say “hey I know…follow me”. So if you don’t know, you think, well at least I can follow this person, then maybe one day I will know too. You are relieved of a great psychological burden. Now when you belong to a huge group, with anyone you encounter outside of the group, you will then become suspicious of them. If you’re not in our group, well that just means you don’t know, you’re not one of us.
2. People are lost: We all know that life can be extremely hard, and most leaders deep down are just as lost, they have just learned to hide it better.
3. People need hope: People desperately want to believe, and a leader is always there to provide it.
4. People have doubts about everything: If you can be part of the crowd you will be protected from your doubts, at least it gives that appearance, but if you just do a little digging, you will see they are still there.

The Potential Pitfalls of Being a Leader….

You have such a big crowd that follows you that naturally, you feel that whatever you are doing is right, you may never again question where you are headed. If you are right and you have a huge following, if you are not careful, you will begin to feel that you are superior to your followers.

It will then become a vicious circle, the leader needs his followers, and the followers need their leader. Both are lost without the other.

Pitfalls of Being a Follower….

You never take full responsibility for your life, because you will always have someone you can blame. You will always see some outside entity as the authority in your life. You become dull and uncreative.

Don’t Be a Leader or a Follower: Stand on Your Own Two Feet

“The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual’s own reason and critical analysis.” – Dalai Lama

1. You don’t need to be part of a crowd: People in the past needed a crowd because it was part of survival, society started because of it. All the old religions became powerful because of this. The whole family structure was built because of the basic need to survive.

2. You can now choose to be an individual if you want. You need to accept total responsibility for your life; you need to embrace the uncertainty of life.

This means that you will need to go through an inner transformation and make a sincere effort in really finding out what it means for you to be an individual, to break free from all the traditions of the past.

If you can live a life built from your own understandings, a life of authenticity, you don’t need to be a leader and you don’t need to have any followers.

Sure you can be part of groups to work, share, and contribute with people but you don’t need to be fanatically committed to any type of organization or nation. You don’t need to manipulate others.

Hopefully one day we have a world where everyone is accepted for being themselves, with no need to conform to the group. Remember you don’t need to wait for the crowd to change, just start living how you want to live, enough said.

Then we will have a world that is richer in every way possible because we embrace the uniqueness of everyone, people’s talents and creativity are allowed to flourish.

This is my wish, I hope I am still alive to see a whole world like this, but in the meantime, I am not waiting for it to happen. You shouldn’t either, make the decision today that you will live your life to the fullest and to the best of your ability.

With that said, don’t take me seriously. I am not trying to be a leader. I don’t know what I am talking about. I am just having a great time living my life.

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