---
title: "Strategies for deflecting envy"
description: "Greene's list of ways to avoid or neutralise the envy your success provokes."
canonical: https://tomsharman.com/bookshelf/48-laws-of-power/strategies-for-deflecting-envy/
updated: 2026-11-03
---

# Strategies for deflecting envy

> Greene's list of ways to avoid or neutralise the envy your success provokes.

Robert Greene's framework, from 48 Laws of Power, pp. 600 to 617.

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

## The steps

1. **Use your own envy.** Turn envy outward into a push to equal or surpass those you envy.
2. **Expect envy from below.** Read between the lines of criticisms, sarcasm and excessive praise for signs of it.
3. **Dampen your brilliance.** Reveal a weakness, credit luck, or find new friends instead of flaunting your gifts.
4. **Seem unambitious.** Refuse power several times, as Godunov and Washington did, so it appears given to you.
5. **Disguise your power as self-sacrifice.** Emphasise your burdens to turn potential envy into pity.
6. **Give to deflect.** Spend or share your gains so others benefit from your good fortune.
7. **Display a harmless defect.** Give the envious something to feed on that distracts from your more important sins.

## Where it comes from

From chapter: LAW 46, pp. 600–617

Appearing better than others stirs envy, and appearing to have no faults is most dangerous of all. Kenneth Halliwell bludgeoned his lover Joe Orton to death in 1967 out of envy at his success, while Cosimo de' Medici controlled Florence for thirty years by dressing modestly, riding a mule and letting initiatives seem to come from others. Greene says envy goes underground and disguises itself as criticism or excessive praise. His remedies include dampening your brilliance, crediting luck, seeming unambitious, disguising power as a burden, giving to the community, and showing a harmless defect. The reversal is that once envy is entrenched, open disdain and visible triumph can be the sweetest revenge, as Michelangelo showed against Bramante.

## The animation

24 seconds, 4:5, no sound.

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- Still, dark: https://tomsharman-downloads-006143767029.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/downloads/bookshelf/48-laws-of-power/strategies-for-deflecting-envy-dark.png