So I read 50 Cent’s book over the weekend .. “wait what? 50 Cent wrote a book?” you might ask yourself. Yes, 50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, teamed up with Robert Greene (author of 48 laws of power) and wrote the book 50th Law.

The book itself is wrapped in a nice black hard cover with golden (p.i.m.p.?) framed pages. Multiple people told me they thought it was the bible lying on my coffee table.

The theme of the book is fear and how to overcome it to be a better self — in business and life in general. It contains 10 chapters but no table of contents for some reason. The basic idea of each of the chapters is to describe a part of Curtis’ life as drug dealer in a dangerous area in New York and how he managed to beat the odds of this almost inevitable drug and violence downwards spiral. Then, the authors generalise the gangster-attitude of Curtis as hustler to a life lesson.

Every chapter follows the structure: the hustler’s perspective (story about drugs and the ghetto), the fearless approach (how Curtis handled the fear he faced), keys to fearlessness (generalised fear lessons), reversal of perspective (how to look at this fear from a positive perspective). Actually, it follows that structure so consistently that it gets annoying and tiring. I would have wished for some change between chapters.
That might seem a bit harsh, but I could have gone without the drug stories from 50 Cent and just read the thoughts about fear and fearlessness — because in general that’s quite a nice topic.

Because the book itself does not have a table of contents I list all chapters here:

See things for what they are - intense realism
Make everything your own - self-reliance
Turn shit into sugar - opportunism
Keep mobbing - calculated momentum
Know when to be bad - aggression
Lead from the front - authority
Know your environment from the inside out - connection
Respect the process - mastery
Push beyond your limits - self-belief
Confront your mortality - the sublime

At least one thing 50 Cent gets right, and that’s his view on the music business and piracy. He writes:

“Record sales were falling because people were pirating music or buying it in different forms. Anyone with two eyes could see that. That old business model had to go. But these very same executives who seemed so sharp were afraid to confront this reality. They held on tightly to the past and would bring everyone down with them.”

Curtis, in case you read this: I may not pay for your music, however I bought your book only because of your clear attitude on piracy!

In general, a nice book to have, partly because 50 cent wrote it and partly because it contains some nice thoughts on how useless and restricting fear is in our current society.


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