---
title: "Finding the thumbscrew: a strategic plan of action"
description: "Six principles Greene gives for locating someone's psychological weak point."
canonical: https://tomsharman.com/bookshelf/48-laws-of-power/finding-the-thumbscrew-a-strategic-plan-of-action/
updated: 2026-11-03
---

# Finding the thumbscrew: a strategic plan of action

> Six principles Greene gives for locating someone's psychological weak point.

Robert Greene's framework, from 48 Laws of Power, pp. 401 to 418.

Framework 18 of 27 from [48 Laws of Power](https://tomsharman.com/bookshelf/48-laws-of-power/index.md) by Robert Greene. Category: Content and packaging.

## The steps

1. **Pay Attention to Gestures and Unconscious Signals.** Look for weakness in seemingly unimportant gestures, passing words and everyday conversation.
2. **Find the Helpless Child.** Identify childhood needs or indulgences and supply them, or their facsimile.
3. **Look for Contrasts.** Probe for weakness in the opposite of the quality a person displays.
4. **Find the Weak Link.** Win over the person behind the scenes who influences the one on top, or the member of a group who will bend.
5. **Fill the Void.** Meet insecurity and unhappiness with social validation or by addressing the root of the unhappiness.
6. **Feed on Uncontrollable Emotions.** Use fear, lust, greed, vanity or hatred that people cannot control to control them.

## Where it comes from

From chapter: LAW 33, pp. 401–418

Everyone has a weakness, usually an insecurity, an uncontrollable emotion or a small secret pleasure, and finding it lets you move them at will. Greene gives six principles: watch gestures and unconscious signals, find the helpless child, look for contrasts, find the weak link, fill the void, and feed on uncontrollable emotions. Richelieu rose by pleasing the insecure queen mother and then the childish king, Lustig read Herman Loller's need for validation and sold him a money machine for $25,000, Catherine de' Medicis used her flying squadron of young women to control court men, Duveen flattered Arabella Huntington's social insecurity, and Bismarck pushed a timid king toward war. The reversal is that exploiting weakness can unleash emotions you cannot control.

## The animation

24 seconds, 4:5, no sound.

- MP4: https://tomsharman-downloads-006143767029.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/downloads/bookshelf/48-laws-of-power/finding-the-thumbscrew-a-strategic-plan-of-action.mp4
- MP4, dark: https://tomsharman-downloads-006143767029.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/downloads/bookshelf/48-laws-of-power/finding-the-thumbscrew-a-strategic-plan-of-action-dark.mp4
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- Still, dark: https://tomsharman-downloads-006143767029.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/downloads/bookshelf/48-laws-of-power/finding-the-thumbscrew-a-strategic-plan-of-action-dark.png