For a man with so much to hate, Mandela did not show it. One of the things that really struck from the video and the article was Mandela’s level of control over his anger when he came out of prison. Mandela’s Fifth Rule speaks of keeping your rivals closer than your friends, as to control them more. Nelson Mandela recognized that he would have more dangerous individuals running about if they were not under his sphere of control, so that is why he kept them within his “circle of trust”. In fact, for his first cabinet, Mandela chose jailers and those who put him into jail in the first place. This fits in with the video’s quote, “He was plenty bitter. He had enormous anger against the system”. This anger was something he transformed into something intelligent—he would keep those who he despised close, as to manipulate them. This very cerebral idea is something I believe to be something important for people to follow in general. It is one level of thinking to conform and comply. It is another to protest vigorously against the opposition. But it is at the highest level of intelligence that one can hold in all the anger, and manipulate their grand design through the opposition. I have followed similar concepts in my life; keeping those I disagree with close, as to open more doors and to fulfill my own grand design. I do not simply agree or disagree with an individual. Instead, I gain their trust and then instill my own ideas unto them, swaying them into different avenues of thought. In this fashion, the individuals are both more likely to comply, and you are more likely to propagate your ideas. The ingenuity of Mandela’s thinking comes from two things – cerebral decision-making, and an unbreakable focus on your goal. With these two, one could achieve truly anything, just like Mandela.
