Have you noticed that people in power tend to be a little bit… weird? In today’s video, we take a look at why. Is it the power that makes the weird, or is it the weird that makes them powerful? And how can you use the same principles to get what you want in life? Today we find out.
TRANSCRIPT:
Some of you are already mad! I get it. I do. Just… give me a minute. Let me explain what this is about, and I promise you…
You’ll be madder.
But that’s okay because the people you disagree with will be mad as well. Yeah, I’m gonna get it from both sides today, this was a great idea.
So look I’m going to talk about Donald Trump for a minute, but not like TRUMP just, you know, Trump. The guy. The person. The human being.
And that person… Well, he’s weird, right?
He wears long-ass ties, he’s got those specific mannerisms, that weird dance…
Do you know anybody else with hair like that?
He doesn’t drink, he refuses to exercise, he says crazy things that you couldn’t get away with, he buried his ex-wife on his golf club…
You don’t do those things. You don’t know anybody who does those things.
Merriam Webster defines the word “Weird” as being “Of strange or extraordinary character” (beat)
I mean regardless of how you feel about the guy, the word applies.
But that weirdness is something that Trump shares with a lot of world leaders. They’ve all got these little quirks and obsessions that are just a little more out there, you know?
I mean there’s a reason people act like “the elites” are like another species or something.
And yet, they have massive followings; millions of people who vote for them and evangelize for them and put them in these positions of power, and I guess what I’m interested in finding out is why. Why these guys? Why do weirdos rise to power?
Or to put it another way, is it the power that makes them weird, or the weird that makes them powerful?
I find that to be a very interesting question that touches on a lot of psychology and social science, and about, attraction, what we are attracted to.
So we’re going to look at some of the weirdest world leaders and ask the question of how they weirded their way to the top.
Kim Jong Il
In the musical movie Love, Love, My Love, a poor woman falls in love with an upper-class man. This man is sent away to become a government official, but while he’s away, a corrupt governor puts the woman in jail. The man returns just before the woman is to be executed, saves her, and they proclaim their love.
You know, just another meet-cute movie.
It was a smashing success when it was released. And you’ve probably never heard of it.
That’s because it was released in North Korea, made by a director who had been kidnapped to make it.
Love, Love, My Love was one of seven movies made by filmmakers Shin Sang-ok (Sheen-sang-oak) and his wife Choi Eun-hee (choy-un hee) while living in North Korea in the 1980s.
But they didn’t go there of their own free will.
Kim Jong Il, at the time, was the head of North Korea’s Propaganda and Agitation Department, and he was obsessed with movies.
Can we just sit with the fact that they actually called it the “Propaganda and Agitation Department?” Just putting it right out there huh.
Like, it’s been reported that he owned up to 20,000 films in his collection. THAT kind of obsession.
But he didn’t like the type of movies his own country was making, he wanted something more like the Hollywood movies he loved, so he did the obvious thing… he kidnapped a South Korean director duo and forced them to make movies for him.
And this went on for 10 years until 1986 when they managed to escape their handlers at the Venice Film Festival.
Even though his dad was still the ruler, Kim Jong Il was already a powerful figure in North Korea. He wanted to use these movies to help create a positive view of his country.
Obviously Kim-Jong Il eventually became the leader of North Korea and his experience in “Propaganda and Agitation” came in handy.
According to some of the propaganda that came out from his regime:
A new star appeared in the sky on the day he was born, along with a double rainbow… somehow.
That apparently while he was at college, he wrote 1500 books and six operas.
That he’s a fashion icon. That his suit, which he designed, is the most popular suit in human history.
That the first time he ever played golf, he hit a 38 under par with 11 holes in one.
And of course that he doesn’t defecate. Because he has no anus. He’s just that good at digesting things.
Now those things… I think… are not true.
The movie thing was true, he literally had over 20,000 DVDs and VHS tapes.
But that wasn’t the only weird thing about him, for one thing he refused to fly. He had a luxury rail car that he traveled everywhere in.
In fact, he actually died on that train while on a trip.
He even took that train all the way to Moscow for a meeting in 2001, and the Russian envoy that traveled with him had some interesting stories to report.
Like apparently he ate donkey meat. That was just his thing.
Yeah supposedly he had roast donkey and lobsters flown to his train car every day. (He wouldn’t fly but he’d have his food flown to him). And he insisted on using the same silver chopsticks at every meal.
And he washed every meal down with Hennessey cognac. A lot of it. Apparently he was one of the world’s biggest buyers of Hennessey.
A very weird, very drunk, very small man.
Idi Amin
Idi Amin, this guy was a piece of work.
Idi Amin ruled Uganda from 1971 to 79 and earned the name The Butcher of Uganda, for his popular cuts of fine choice sirloin, served with down home goodness from his neighborhood boucherie—
No, it was people. He was butchering people. You know, like a psychopath
His reign was marked by purges of non-native citizens and political violence against any of his perceived opponents. He created a torture industry that led to the deaths of 100 to 300 thousand people.
One of the torture palaces actually had an electrified moat around it that some prisoners would jump into just to escape the torture.
There was a line in an article I read that I just have to read out loud, it said, “His rule became so synonymous with killing that when the capital’s lights went dark, the outages were rumored to be the result of corpses discarded in its waterways blocking the hydropower plant.”
Damn.
He famously claimed to be the rightful heir to the Scottish throne, somehow, and declared himself the last King of Scotland, there was a movie about him with that title.
Back home in Uganda, the official title he gave himself was His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea
He would mock the Queen of England and request she send him her knickers and once challenged the president of Tanzania to a boxing match, which he said he would do with one hand tied behind his back.
He had 6 different wives, some of them at the same time – a couple of which died mysterious deaths.
And between those six wives and who knows how many mistresses, he sired up to 60 kids. Some have put it as high as 60, he listed 46 in his will.
If you’re wondering how he had enough stamina for all that… siring… apparently it was oranges. He thought that oranges were an aphrodisiac so he ate like 40 of them a day.
But to his credit, one thing he didn’t eat was human flesh, he said it was “too salty”
These are not things normal people do. Certified weirdo.
Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro was obsessed with milk.
After he took over Cuba, he was all about “the revolution” and he never really stopped “revolutioning” for the next 50 years, that’s why he always wore that military outfit.
And a big part of the revolution was milk…for some reason.
He seemed to think that, like, milk was a sign of a country’s strength. if a country was producing a lot of milk, that country was healthy and prosperous, so it was important for “the revolution” for Cuba to have the best dairy industry in the world. Thus proving that Communism was the superior political system. Logic.
So the first thing he did was reform their agriculture and dairy production and one of his pet projects was to make the world’s best Camembert cheese.
There’s a story in the biography about him by Robert Quirk where Castro met with a French diplomat in 1964, and he offered him some Cuban Camembert and asked what he thought.
And the French guy was nice about it, said it was good, said it was like the French cheese, which is pretty high praise, but Castro wanted to hear him say that the Cuban cheese was better. And the French guy didn’t want to say that, so he kept dancing around it like, “eeh, it’s good, it’s good.”
But Castro kept prodding until finally the diplomat slammed his hands on the table and said, “NEVER!”
Then, according to Quirk:
”he reached over and pulled a cigar from Castro’s pocket. “Will you agree that there is a better cigar in the world than this?” Voisin asked. “You can’t beat tradition. My cheese and your cigars have centuries of experience behind them.”
He then ended the meeting by saying…
He once said he wanted Cuba to make enough milk to fill Havana Harbor with it. Thankfully this never happened, that would have been very salty milk.
The problem was that most Cuban cows were raised for beef production, and not dairy, and dairy cows, Holstein cows, don’t do very well in the tropical heat. So he started a program to breed a supercow, a hybrid that could take the heat while making more milk than any other cow in the world.
And 15 years later, they finally succeeded. With one cow.
Yeah they did manage to breed one cow that made insane amounts of milk. It actually broke the world record by making 110 liters of milk in one day and over 24,000 liters in one year.
The cow was named Ubre Blanca and was kind-of a national celebrity while she was alive. Unfortunately this talent of hers did not pass to her offspring so it seems to have been a fluke. There is a statue of her that’s still standing to this day.
Ice cream was a big thing for him, he was known to eat up to 20 scoops after some meals.
He allegedly would have every flavor of ice cream shipped to him from a Howard Johnson’s in Canada and made it a point of national pride to come up with more ice cream flavors than the United States.
The CIA knew that and even tried to assassinate him by putting a poison pill in his milkshake. But, since the pill was hidden in a freezer until it was needed, it got stuck in an ice tray.
It broke up when someone tried to pry it free. Whomp whomp.
Adolf Hitler
Hitler farted. A lot.
Yes, amongst his many other endearing qualities, Hitler could clear a room like no one’s business. They were loud, they stank, and they happened constantly.
Apparently he had a messed up stomach going back to when he was a kid, which gave him stomach cramps and an insane amount of gas.
He was known for sometimes just getting up in the middle of meetings with foreign dignitaries and walking out of the room so he could fart in private. Of course they didn’t know why, they just thought it was like a power move or something.
But in front of his own staff, he’d just let ‘em rip. It was so bad that people on his staff started calling him Der Furzer behind his back instead of Der Fürher. Der Furzer means “The Farter”
Having a messed up stomach isn’t that strange and it certainly wasn’t his worst quality but the way he treated it was pretty strange. Because he would only listen to one guy, this quack doctor named Theodor Morell.
And Morell’s suggestion was a high-fiber vegetarian diet. Which, I don’t know if you’ve ever been on a high fiber supplement but… that does not reduce gas.
He also gave him something called Dr. Koester’s Anti-Gas Pills that were later found to contain Belladonna, strychnine, and atropine, all of which are poisonous, and can cause confusion and hallucinations if taken in high quantities. Which, Hitler was taking up to 20 of these a day.
But that was just the start. By the early 1940s, Morell had him taking up to 63 different types of pills every day, and even worse, he was giving him injections up to 10 times a day, and nobody in Hitler’s inner circle knew what was in these injections. Including Hitler.
He completely trusted this guy with his life and Morell just ran him into the ground. It’s thought today that those injections were amphetamines, which by the end of the war, Hitler was hopelessly addicted to and was reduced to a literal shambles both physically and mentally.
In fact, it deteriorated his decision making so much that many people think it actually brought an end to the war sooner than it would have if he had been thinking clearly. Some people, including in his inner circle, began to think that Morell was a spy for the Allies who was deliberately poisoning him – but this was never proven.
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein wrote romance novels.
He’s a lover… AND a fighter!
Yes, on top of being known as the Butcher of Baghdad – Idi Amin just entered the chat – Saddam had some weird quirks and features of his own.
For example, on his 60th birthday, he commissioned a copy of the Qur’an written in his own blood.
This was super forbidden in Islam by the way but (shrug)
The calligrapher supposedly used 50 pints of his blood to write this thing. Which… that sounds like a LOT.
He also apparently hated Froot Loops.
After he was captured by the US Forces, he was looked after by an Army Spc named Sean O’Shea, and he later reported that one day they ran out of Raisin Bran, and he served Saddam Froot Loops, and according to O’Shea, that was “the only time he ever looked defeated”
But just a few years before that in the year 2000, Saddam published a book called Zabiba and the King, a romance novel about a relationship between a king and a commoner who is married to a cruel husband.
It was published anonymously under the name “He Who Wrote It.”
This story was a bit of an allegory. Zabiba represented the Iraqi people and the cruel husband represented toxic western influences. And the king was… well, you can guess who the king was.
He wrote a few other books titled, Walled Fortress in 2001, Men and the City, in 2002, and Get Out, You Damned One that was published in 2005.
Maybe having a side hustle as an author isn’t that weird. People do it all the time. I mean…
Now at this point you might be thinking, “Well of course these guys are weird, they’re all genocidal lunatics.” But weirdness isn’t just for dictators and authoritarians.
Billionaires and titans of industry also have their fair share of bizarre habits.
The famous Nintendo video game designer, Shigeru Miyamoto has a bit of a measuring obsession. He measures everything he sees. He’ll carry a tape measure, make a guess, and then check the length of everyday objects.
The tycoon Howard Hughes was famously a huge germaphobe. He would often wear tissue boxes on his feet so they wouldn’t touch the floor. Maybe he didn’t know about shoes?
Richard Branson is said to drink 20 cups of tea a day to stay energized. That would do it.
Steve Jobs would soak his feet in company toilets to help relieve stress. And of course tried to treat his pancreatic cancer with a special diet.
And Elon Musk… well he’s perfectly normal in every way.
If you’re one the type of person who considers billionaires to be as bad as dictators, many famous scientists and engineers also have weird preferences. Nikola Tesla would sleep in six 20-minute intervals so he could have more hours of productivity every day.
Albert Einstein didn’t like wearing socks. He thought they were unnecessary because shoes already protected the feet.
Many celebrities rate high on the weird-o-meter.
Tom Cruise. Super intense guy obviously, big into scientology – also apparently likes a facial treatment that involves mixing nightingale excrement with water and rice bran.
Bird poop. He likes a bird poop facial.
Victoria Beckham has supposedly eaten the same meal of grilled fish with steamed vegetables every day for 25 years. At least that is what her husband says.
Gwyneth Paltrow started that Goop website and became controversial for some of her claims, like she did goats milk cleanses, bee sting facials, and burned a candle that was made to smell like her… vaheena.
Goop, indeed.
And then there’s Mr. Rogers…
I’m not going to ruin Mr. Rogers, but he was a serial killer.
I’m kidding, but he was obsessed with the number 143, because 1-4-3 are the number of letters in the words, “I love you.”
To that end, he kept a strict vegetarian diet and swam every morning in order to keep his weight at a perfect 143-pounds.
What a weirdo.
Another super wholesome celebrity was Bob Ross, who was known for his happy little trees but also, that hair.
That was not his real hair by the way. He had it permed like that and apparently he hated it. It just happened to be the style at the time he got big and then he felt like he couldn’t get rid of it, it was his brand at that point.
Same with Gene Shalit, the film critic. He got famous in the 70s when big fros and mustaches were a thing. Throw in glasses and the bow tie and the dude was a living muppet and he kept that ish going for 50 years.
Dude’s still alive by the way, 99 years old and still fro-ing out.
This is a video about weird rulers and now I’m talking about Gene Shalit. I… may be off topic a little bit.
Actually, no I’m not off topic, you know why? Weird hair.
For authoritarians and personality cults, weird hair and weird fashion isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.
It’s personal branding. It makes them stand out, says to the world that they are different from you. That they don’t play by the same rules as the rest of society. The rules don’t apply to them.
It also makes them easily recognizable. To the point that you know who they are just by their silhouette. And, by the way, mockable. It’s easy to make jokes about, you can make a Halloween costume out of it. It gives people a reason to talk about them.
And it’s not just about hair and fashion, it’s also speech patterns and mannerisms, these people are easy to imitate, they’re memeable.
This combination of easy imitation, instant recognizability, and the message that the rules don’t apply to them is very powerful. And… very attractive to a lot of people.
So to go back to that question from the beginning of does the power make them weird or does the weird make them powerful, being weird does help to gain power – when used along with some other traits that we’ll get into.
But as the old adage goes, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And there absolutely is something to that.
Dacher Keltner (docker keltner), a psychology professor at UC Berkeley, defines power as:
“… one’s capacity to alter another person’s condition or state of mind by providing or withholding resources—such as food, money, knowledge, and affection—or administering punishments, such as physical harm, job termination, or social ostracism.”
All these dictators we’ve talked about have altered people’s conditions. And their power often goes unchecked.
That’s where the weirdness starts to either seep in or manifest itself if it’s already there.
Power can create a sense of freedom from society’s rules. This may lead to impulsive behavior and big risks.
Power can also lead to exception-making. That’s the belief that rules don’t apply to you. This may cause those in power to be greedy or exhibit self-interested behavior.
Keltner proposes a paradox about power. He says that when people rise into power through behaviors like collaboration, empathy, and generosity, the moment they gain power, their brain chemistry starts to shift.
They become less socially aware and more focused on personal needs. It appears that power allows people to freely act on their own desires and impulses.
Keltner’s research found that people with power acted like patients who had damage to their brain’s orbitofrontal lobes.
When those lobes get damaged, people may become overly impulsive or exhibit insensitive behavior.
It’s almost like power can literally change your brain chemistry.
Not almost like. It does.
Our brains seek pleasure through dopamine hits. Dopamine activates our brain’s reward center and gives us a sense of pleasure.
That’s why many of us pursue hobbies that make us happy.
Power leads to a higher level of dopamine and supersizes the reward centers.
This high level of dopamine gets associated with a sense of personal destiny, extreme risk-taking, and emotional detachment.
That can lead to an obsession with achieving goals, conquests, and ruthlessness.
And since power activates the brain’s reward system and is addictive, people who have unchecked power usually lack the self-awareness needed to act with restraint.
Withdrawing power is like withdrawing drugs from an addict. It produces uncontrollable cravings.
It makes sense that those in power don’t want to give it up willingly or smoothly.
A lot of people in power are psychopaths. In fact, psychopathy is one of the three traits of the “Dark Triad.”
The other two are Machiavellianism and narcissism.
And while psychopathy can stand on its own in a person, it’s usually paired with one of the other two traits.
According to Oxford University’s Dr. Kevin Dutton, psychopathic leaders share eight traits:
- Social Influence: They love the spotlight and handle themselves well in public, with many people seeing them as charismatic.
- Fearlessness: Says and does what the average citizen won’t.
- Immune to Stress: They love chaos and thrive on difficulties and disputes.
- Machiavellian Egocentrism: They’re looking to make their mark on history, regardless of cost.
- Rebellious Nonconformity: They have a lack of concern about the results of their actions.
- Coldness: They’re disconnected from sensitivity toward the suffering of others.
Good and bad leaders score higher than the general population on the Psychopathic Personality Inventory – Revised survey.
And it’s a mix of these traits that will determine how successful someone will be in power.
Dutton is also the author of The Wisdom of Psychopaths and says:
“Someone who scores highly for being influential, fearless and cold hearted could be a decisive leader who can make dispassionate decisions. If those traits are accompanied by a high score on blaming others, they might be a genocidal demagogue.”
7 Rules of Power
Despite the talk about the negatives of power, there are equally valid ways it can be a positive.
That’s according to Stanford professor Jeffrey Pfeffer, author of the book 7 Rules of Power which offers seven ways that the average person can use power to their advantage.
Just because more bad people use it doesn’t mean that it’s evil.
He offers seven ways you can use power to your advantage in his book, 7 Rules of Power: Surprising—but True—Advice on How to Get Things Done and Advance Your Career.
The seven rules are:
- Get out of your own way: Overcome self-doubt and be confident.
- Break the rules: Challenge rules and norms to stand out from others.
- Show up in powerful fashion: Appearances matter. Be aware of how you show up to others.
- Create a powerful brand: Build a strong reputation, and surround yourself with successful people.
- Network relentlessly: Build and nurture a network of contacts.
- Use your power. Act quickly on your goals once you have power. Don’t hesitate.
- Understand that once you have acquired power, what you did to get it will be forgiven, forgotten, or both: Success almost always justifies past actions.
Now I’ll be the first to say, I don’t want that to be true. Take that up with Jeffrey Pfeffer if you don’t like it.
But I do think it’s important to understand how power works. Which was kind-of the point of this video.
Back to the original idea: Did dictators and those in power arise because of their weird traits, or did their power make them weird?
It’s likely a bit of both.
Now, growing up I always liked being a little weird, I reveled in being different, I didn’t want to be like everyone else. So a part of me loves the idea that being a little weird and unconventional can kind-of be your superpower.
We spend so much time worrying about fitting in and what other people think of us, we stress over that so much when really… you should just let your freak flag fly.
Just… you know… don’t let it go to your head.
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