What can be learned from Genghis Khan?

Question

What can you learn from Genghis Khan? How can you take his actions and incorporate them into your daily life?

Answer 1

Management techniques.  How to take an uneducated, unmotivated population and get them to work together.

Answer 2

That unfortunataly often vioplence pay off.

Answer 3

his motto was basically "Either be cuthroat or have your throat cut"

-he was a vicious war leader, who is famous for his insane war tactics.

Answer 4

Actually, quite a bit.

You may not believe it, given the popular image of Genghis Khan that's come down to us over the ages, but compared to most of his contemporaries, he was somewhat of an enlightened ruler.  Sure, his "submit or die" doctrine might seem pretty harsh by our standards, but keep in mind that most of the places he conquered were strictly of the "you could submit but we're gonna torture you and kill you either way" school of warfare.  Genghis, on the other hand, never tortured anyone, and was very merciful to those who submitted to him peacefully.  He never forced his culture or beliefs on anyone, just his sovereignty.  He also promoted a merit-based system of advancement (rather than a blood-based one), and he was a proponent of freedom of religion, enacting laws to protect free religious practice throughout his empire.

Just page through the first part of Jack Weatherford's "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World" if you don't believe me.

As for how we can each personally learn from Genghis Khan's actions, I think the message is clear: even if you're a kid growing up eating rats at the ***-end of the crust at the edge of civilization, you could still grow up to rule the largest land empire in history -- as long as you're enough of a badass and don't take c**p from anybody.

Answer 5

How to rape and pillage.