9. STEP 3—Seize the Leverage Point: Use the Map to Navigate and Locate Leverage, Concentrating on the Point Where Power Multiplies. Catherine the Great’s Brilliant, Bloodless Coup

3 Ceiling

Step 3: Seize the Leverage Point.

Every capability has a ceiling—except one: Frame mobility is the only capability that lets strategic leverage compound indefinitely.  

Summer

Races

Jolt

It’s the summer of 1762, just after dawn in St. Petersburg. An ally races through the halls of Peterhof Palace to Catherine’s room. She’s jolted awake to alarming news: Her husband Peter, the Emperor of Russia, just had a member of HER inner circle arrested. Catherine is next. 

Mind races

As her mind races through her options, she dresses quickly and simply—there’s no time for jewels.

Dark Day

Camera

[It was a dark day in history because this was the last time ANY real diva said, “No time for jewels”].

[But then she looks into the camera and whispers, “Just joking, REAL divas ALWAYS make time for jewels”].

Carriage

Eyes

Heart

Within minutes, she’s in a carriage, her eyes fixed as she rides straight into the heart of the danger: the barracks of the Ismailovsky Regiment of the Imperial Guard—the very soldiers sworn to protect her husband, Peter, but also where several officers had grown sympathetic to her cause. 

Surviving UUU

Peter is Tired

Surviving in a court where foreign wives were disposable and favor turned overnight, Catherine is tired of living in constant danger of her unpredictable, unpopular, and unstable husband.  

[Meanwhile, Peter is tired of living in constant danger of what he also called, “Catherine’s unstable husband”]. 

SAS Son.

Struck.

Church, Army, Elite—Pillars

She wants safety and security for her SON (who was likely fathered by her lover). But she was also struck by her husband’s inability to lead. For years, she watched as he alienated the church, insulted the army, and created policies that hurt the interests of the elite—the very pillars of power upon which all Russian rulers ultimately rely.

[1st Women “Wait”]

[This led Catherine to become one of the first women in history to DECIDE, “Wait, I can do better than HIM”]. 

reigning map

The problem was that Russia’s reigning map of reality left little room for hope. She has no crown, no troops, and no legal claim to the throne. 

[Poison.]

[Dancing Tsars.]

[On the other hand, she does have a lot of poison].  [Which is how she scored season box seats for “Dancing with the Tsars”].