You must learn to balance presence and absence. If you are too present and familiar, always available and visible, you seem too banal. You give people no room to idealize you. But if you are too aloof

From The Laws of Human Nature, The Law of Fickleness.

This quote from The Laws of Human Nature, Chapter 15: Make Them Want to Follow You—The Law of Fickleness, is about how to cultivate influence, respect and administration by mastering the art of presence and absence. To inspire loyalty and admiration, you must carefully manage your visibility and availability. Being too present makes you seem ordinary and predictable, while being too absent makes you seem distant and unapproachable. The key is to lean slightly toward absence, creating a sense of anticipation and excitement when you do appear. This keeps people engaged and ensures they value your presence.

The Law of Fickleness explains that people are naturally inconsistent and changeable in their emotions and loyalties. They crave excitement, novelty, and inspiration but can quickly lose interest if something becomes too familiar or predictable. To make people want to follow you, you must, create an ideal to follow, maintain mystery and balance authority and approachability.

When you’re always around and overly accessible, you lose your sense of uniqueness. People start to take you for granted, and your presence becomes mundane. People are drawn to those who embody qualities they admire or aspire to. If you’re too familiar, there’s no room for this projection, you become just another person, not someone to look up to. On the other hand, if you’re too distant or unapproachable, people struggle to connect with you emotionally. They may admire you from afar but won’t feel a personal bond, which is essential for loyalty and followership. Strategic absence creates anticipation. When you do appear, your presence feels special and impactful. To keeps people engaged and ensures they value your time and attention. The ultimate goal is to stay on people’s minds even when you’re not physically present. This is important that your influence persists and that people remain invested in you.