Niccolò Machiavelli here. You might know me from my famous quote, "the end justifies the means" (spoiler alert: I never actually said that). But you've been missing out on some good stuff because no one offers better career, leadership, and life advice than me (I lived through some crazy times). So here I give you my unvarnished counsel in a conversational format that gets down to the nitty-gritty.

There's something useful and unexpected here for everyone from ambitious corporate executives and frustrated middle managers to ordinary citizens who could use some honest, no-nonsense advice on dealing with colleagues, friends, and family. I'll walk you through my core principles related to management and leadership, including ways to resolve conflicts: when to bluff, how to burnish your reputation-even how to pull off a conspiracy. And what is life, if not navigating one damn conflict after another?

Not to brag, but I've been told I have a keen wit and a droll sense of humor. And I'm pulling no punches here. I think you'll find these blunt and brutally frank life lessons a bracing antidote to the vapid happy talk that passes for modern management advice these days.

Carol C. Darr served as general counsel to the Democratic National Committee, as counsel to two presidential campaigns, and as a senior political appointee in both the Clinton and Obama Administrations during her four-decades-long career in law, government, and politics in Washington, DC. Midway through, she returned to academia, earning a masters in literature from Cambridge University, where she studied Niccolò Machiavelli's philosophy and political advice, a subject that has fascinated her ever since she first read The Prince as an undergraduate. Later, she led George Washington University's Institute for Politics, Democracy, and the Internet, and taught graduate-level courses on new media and on Machiavelli. She later taught politics and new Media at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.