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you need this skill if there's somebody in your life and you don't know whether they're a snake or they're genuinely
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your friend approach them from an angle and surprise them and for a second you detect what we call you should become
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aware of that Robert Green is one of the bestselling authors in history he's an internationally renowned expert on power
00:00:20
strategies he's been referenced in songs by Jay-Z Kanye West The Godfather of power seduction and Mastery we have this
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idea that if I apply myself really hard I should be successful but I kept noticing this blind spot that people had
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they were terrible in dealing with people and if you're not careful and constantly misreading people they could
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manipulate you they can wound you but if you follow the process that I lay out it will be the best defense you could ever
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have in your life you know all the tricks people are playing on you we have to learn to look behind people's masks
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being a human being means we lie but you know what doesn't lie body language eyes
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are hard lie the smile tells you a hundred different things if you know how to read it but the problem that you have
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is you think it's a natural skill I'm a human being I know how to read people you don't you're operating in darkness
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but I do believe everybody has that potential so the first thing you do
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is Frenemies do we all have Frenemies yes they sabotage you hurt you and you
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don't want them in your life and one common sign of a friend ofy is there
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it's absolutely crazy to me that so many of you have decided to watch our show um and so many of you have decided to
00:01:37
subscribe to our show we now have five million subscribers on YouTube which is a number that I just can't comprehend
00:01:43
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00:01:49
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00:01:56
many of you have chosen to tune into these conversations every week um and spend some time with us so thank you and
00:02:03
I made a deal with you I made a deal that if you subscribe to the show that we would continue to raise the bar and
00:02:09
in 2024 we're going to raise the bar like never before I've been working for the last nine months on a surprise for all
00:02:16
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00:02:28
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00:02:34
the [Music]
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episode Robert you wrote a book about human nature in 2018 called the laws of
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human nature why did you write that book well it's the fruit of a lot of
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experiences that I've had um so I wrote the 48 Laws of Power and prior of that
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book I was somebody who never had any power in life I was sort of a failure you know um I had gone through so many
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different jobs and then all of a sudden I write this one book and people are coming to me for advice it's kind of
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shocking right and I started noticing a trend and the trend is we live in this
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intense technological age where we have so much power at our finger tips right
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and we it's so easy to get attention and on and on and on and we have this idea
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that everything in life should be easy it's all about just well if I apply
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myself really hard I should be successful but I kept noticing this blind spot that people had they were
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terrible in dealing with people they were making all of these mistakes
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everybody wears a mask you wear a mask I wear a mask when we're out in the public realm we don't exactly say what we think
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right we we're all a bit strategic and if you're not careful you're constantly
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saying the wrong things you're constantly misreading people you're doing things at your job that you think
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are going to impress but they have the opposite effect and then something bad happens and you're confused and you're
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emotional it was like this circle atmosphere of pain around the globe of
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people suffering because they don't know how to handle the people in their lives
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and because we're so virtual and we're so locked in our phones that we're becoming worse and worse at Reading
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other people at understanding them you know when I sitting across from you I can see your body language I can see
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your nonverbals I can see all sorts of things I can deal with you as a human but when I spend 95% of my time behind a
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screen you know and that's even how I date basic human skills of understanding
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of connecting of empathy of reading they're getting hopelessly degraded that's my long-winded answer for why I
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wrote that book if there's someone listening out there and they can relate to certain
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parts of what you've just said maybe it's a lack of their own self-awareness or maybe they have poor sort of
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awareness of others is there a starting place to reversing that is there maybe a
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most important skill that we need to master as at the foundation of that transformation yeah it's very simple
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it's to get down on your hands and knees and realize you're bad at dealing with people the problem that you have is you
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think that it's a natural skill yeah I'm okay at it I just kind of wing it I understand what I'm doing I'm a human
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being I I I I know how to read people Etc you don't you're operating in darkness you're groping around just
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realize first of all that you need this skill and once you realize that the
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first thing you do is you look inward you look at your own nature you look at the things that I write about in the
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book about narcissism about irrationality and instead of searching for the people
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around you that fit those categories look at yourself so it all begins with
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self-awareness you are the best subject of human nature so when I was writing
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this book it was actually quite painful so I'm writing a chapter on
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narcissism one of the longest chapters in the book because it's a very important subject and I'm telling myself
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Robert you're quite a narcissist you didn't think of yourself that way but you have all of these classic tendencies
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that you're writing about in the book it was painful but in order to come to understand narcissism and other people I
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had to sort of understand it in myself so step number one is I need this
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knowledge I'm actually not very good with dealing with people it's caused me problems go back and review the problems
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and the mistakes you've made mistakes I've made as well many many times and
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then when you realize that you want this knowledge then you begin by looking inward but if you think that that it's
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not needed that you're not it's just oh it's kind of interesting or maybe I'll sort of dabble in it it won't won't mean
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anything to you you have to feel that pain that you've been through in life and it's kind of an ongoing pain it's
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one that I still have even though I wrote the book where I misread people where I inadvertently hurt them when I
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didn't mean to hurt them you know and I feel that and I suffer from it and so the pain that you feel the emotions that
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that this turns up motivate you then to become better at understanding other people what if you find things in
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yourself like you said that you don't like you find narcissism in yourself you
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find darkness in yourself what are we meant to do with that are we meant to heal it resolve it you're meant to
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look at it you're meant to confront it um I me I I have in the book a quote from the great writer Anton Czech of
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that people can't begin to change themselves until they know who they are until they understand themselves right
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so we all want to change we all want to be better at ourselves but until we know who we are until we realize our flaws
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and our weaknesses so the main law of human nature if I could summarize it is
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we don't like to look at ourselves it's always the other person they're the ones with the problem they're the ones who
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are aggressive or passive aggressive they're the ones who feel Envy they're the ones who are rational but me no no
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I'm a paragon of virtue I'm always moral I'm always good I'm always smart Etc so
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it's the point isn't to beat yourself up and go damn it I'm an awful human being
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we're all humans come from the same Source we all have the same ancestors
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are we all have the same flaws in our brain it's not like you're exceptional it's not like you're the one person that
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doesn't have narcissism that doesn't have self-absorption so realizing that you're connected to all these people
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that we all have these flaws and weaknesses is actually not a bad thing it's a good thing and then by examining
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yourself deeply you can begin to change some of these things you know it's just like you I don't go like oh damn it I'm
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a narcissist I'm I'm self-absorbed I think a lot about myself I love talking about myself which is something I'm
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afraid I do like to do right the point isn't well oh well I'm just depressed
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there nothing I can do once I'm aware of it I can begin to change it but if I'm
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always repressing if I'm always thinking no I'm good I don't have those problems then if you can't see them how can you
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change them how can you deal with them how can you be become a better person how can you change those qualities that you don't want one of the most important
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things in the laws of human nature is that you have patterns that you are compulsive it comes from your character
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these patterns that you see in your Intimate Relationships you always fall for the wrong person or you sometimes
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fall for the wrong person you see it in your work world I make these mistakes I get fired for this reason etc etc and
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they're good patterns but we tend to repeat over and over and over again and these these s of compulsive Behavior
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being aware of these patterns being aware of these things you can now begin to you have the power to change
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them a lot of people climb the mountain of awareness and they get I was thinking about people
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in my life that have climbed the mountain of awareness and in my own life hill things that I'm aware of Darkness within me that I'm aware of or
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challenges or patterns I'm aware of taking the next step from so I think
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becoming aware is painful and then doing something about it is difficult it's painful
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because there's a lot of cognitive dissonance associated with figuring out that you're not who you want to be you
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know and then doing something about it requires breaking what feels like old
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neurological Pathways in my brain you know trigger you think about the Habit
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cycle how breaking that is difficult I look at it very differently
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I'm afraid so I think actually it's wor wor when you're not aware of who you are
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when you walk around in this world with all of these false ideas about who you are you you don't even know who you are
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you're wearing this mask you're not authentic you're behaving in the world as if you're somebody else and you're
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not aware of that but it's causing you pain it's making you suffer because you're not aware of of the real person
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that you are you're not authentic and coming to terms with some of these dark qualities is actually a very enlighten
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experience it's actually can be euphoric you go I am an animal I'm not this saint
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I'm not this Paragon that I thought I was I'm an animal with flaws I can Embrace that we're all like
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that and it's a good thing and feeling like you have this and you're coming to terms with it I have a chapter on the
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dark side of human nature everybody has a shadow side I have it you have it
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right and seeing that shadow side which is something you've been repressing
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since childhood and dealing with it and confronting with it is actually one of the most wonderful experiences you can
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have in life because repressing all of these things is what is making you miserable in life but coming to terms
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with who you are and being aware of it is actually what liberating you know
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where does it come from our Dark Side what you talk about in chapter nine of the
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book well I think it comes from uh childhood so when you're a child when you're three
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or four years old you're like this complete person I compare it to like this round ball you have good qualities
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you have loving qualities you love your parents perhaps you love your siblings
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perhaps but you also have these other darker qualities these kind of aggressive impulses you sometimes you
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hit people sometimes you say nasty things right but you're a complete person it's natural it's who you are
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it's how you were born it's like a round ball and it's complete and then slowly
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year by year month by month you have to cut off that dark side that back side of
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yours in school you're told don't ever show that part of you your parents are
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come on you got to be nice you got to get along we want want to be proud of you all of those aggressive impulses
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that you have all of those feelings where you were you felt Envy about somebody whatever you wish you had what
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your your brother or sister had so they all go underground right you force them down
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you don't want to deal with them but they're still there because you're a human being those emotions don't leave
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you they just get pushed down and they go into the back side of your head that round ball now becomes cut off it's like
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the moon with a dark side and a front side and when you're out in the public and you're in work or in Social
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situation you're only showing people that bright happy side the good side and you're doing the damnedest to conceal
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all that dark energy inside of you and then suddenly because you're not aware of it
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it comes out in explosions very typical thing is you suddenly get angry and you burst out
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with an angry email or you yell at somebody you say something kind of nasty and then you look back and you go
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where did that come from that I didn't that's not really me I'm not really like that I feel ashamed about that but what
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you must realize is that's part of your Shadow that's speaking it's coming out you're just not aware of it you're trying to control it too much and I
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say the best thing in life to do is not to take out this dark side and just throw it around the world and and and be
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nasty and aggressive that won't work but you have to find ways to take that
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energy because that dark side contains a lot of energy a lot of power and use it
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and channel it into ways that are productive so I happen to be someone who
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has a fair amount of aggression I have to admit I'm extremely competitive right
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even in card games I don't like losing so I've channeled it into my books I
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take all of that energy and I put it into making the best books that I can into ambition so if you're ambitious
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channeling that energy into becoming the best and beating the competition is is
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is a productive way of using that dark energy if you feel angry about a cause
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or something that pisses you off about the world some injustices instead of whining about it Etc you go out and you
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do something you do something you get involved in a movement or whatever you channel that energy into something
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productive that's the way to deal with the dark side and that's you can't go throughout life imagining that you're
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the saint because you're not you have these qualities in your book about the
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strategies of war the second strategy of War that you write about is do not fight
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the last war and when I read that what I understood it to kind of mean was
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about not being rigid you know how does one dismantle
00:16:12
their the prison of convention that they live in so for that lawyer or for that
00:16:17
person that's working in the financial district who is you know 47 and they're a lawyer they're a a stock broker and
00:16:23
they're miserable um they have somewhat been imprisoned by
00:16:28
their own identity which is like a set of ideas from the past and I'm really obsessed with how we get out of the way
00:16:35
of our own identity so that we can live our most fulfilling lives CU even me you know there's and probably even you I've
00:16:42
created this perception of who I am and I'm like following the instructions every day yeah it's a trap you you can't
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fall into that so one of the laws of power that I have one I think is very important I think it's l 25 or 26 I
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don't remember the number is recreate yourself so the moment people start um uh know
00:17:03
who you are they they they they identify they create your identity oh Robert Green is this person who writes these
00:17:10
dark Machiavellian manipulative books then I'm trapped I'm trapped by their perception of me and I always have to be
00:17:16
like a little dog performing for them right and I don't want to fall into that trap you have to recreate yourself you
00:17:23
have to use your personality and who you are as clay that you are molding you're like an AR artist and so you you change
00:17:31
yourself for each person that's different so for me it means I don't
00:17:36
write 48 Laws of Power part two I write now a book that's not like the 48 Laws
00:17:42
of Power at all for you it's doing your podcast but changing it up or maybe you
00:17:48
do a different podcast or maybe you do go into a different career set maybe you become a a CEO or an entrepreneur in a
00:17:56
different direction I was recently on Andrew hu huberman's podcast right one
00:18:02
of the most successful podcasts besides yours in the world and um he I don't want that's sound like
00:18:10
bragging but the book Mastery helped him a lot because he was a professor I believe at Stanford I hope I have it
00:18:16
right everything was going well he was on a fast track in in Neuroscience but he was miserable he hated the
00:18:23
politicking he hated all the [ __ ] that you have to go through in Academia and then he read the book and he goes I
00:18:30
don't know how old he was he must have been in his early 30s he goes I don't want to do this I want to change I want
00:18:36
to recreate myself he decided to go into podcasting to take all of his knowledge
00:18:41
about science and Neuroscience and bring it into a different medium and so that's that's extremely powerful because if he
00:18:47
had stayed in Academia he would have gone down the path that we're talking about it sounds
00:18:54
a little sexier than being in finance in your 47 but being stuck in Academia when
00:19:00
it doesn't fit you with all the nasty politics that go on in universities Etc
00:19:06
that is a path for misery if he doesn't fit so you have to kind of go through this process all the time and not let
00:19:13
other people tell you who you are in the case of Andrew huberman who transitioned from an academic to a
00:19:21
podcaster it's Quite a feat because there's lots of forces that try and hold our existing identity in place
00:19:29
a lot of people and to sort of cross the chasm get past all of that force that
00:19:35
says no we want you to stay with us Andrew we want you to be an academic who do you think you are being a podcaster
00:19:41
you know that that that Force I'm so intrigued by because everyone regardless of where they are now if they're going
00:19:47
to try and venture to somewhere else a better place they're going to encounter that um how does one work through that
00:19:53
what is that how do we understand that Force that's trying to keep us down it usually happens when you're successful
00:20:00
that people start giving you these identities that kind of Define who you are and if you're okay with it that's
00:20:07
fine you know if it doesn't but I'm a big believer in listening to your own pain and listening to your own
00:20:14
frustration so when you feel frustrated in life you have to go through a process you have to look at it and you have to
00:20:19
go what is the source of it normally the first thing you'll do is you'll blame
00:20:25
other people you'll blame the world you'll blame your your spouse your children whatever right and you
00:20:31
won't really look at what it is why you're frustrated and if you look at it deeply
00:20:37
enough and you go I'm really frustrated because I'm not enjoying my work I'm
00:20:43
making money I'm going there every day and I'm going through the motions and I'm successful and people admire me but
00:20:51
I'm not happy I'm frustrated I'm upset you've got to lean into that pain you've got to lean lean into what frustrates
00:20:58
you and go go I can't go on another 5 years like this
00:21:03
because the mind and the body are tied in there's no difference they're all we're all one we're all a unity and so
00:21:11
when you start having these frustrations these desires that are not you're not acting upon it creates physical problems
00:21:18
you're not aware of why suddenly your blood pressure is rising why suddenly your back is having pain like I'm having
00:21:24
right now it's all interconnected and when you're not doing something that you that you're not engaged with your whole
00:21:31
being goes out of whack everything doesn't work you've got to listen to it you've got to understand it and you've
00:21:37
got to go I want some joy and some excitement in my life I want a challenge
00:21:44
it takes some fearlessness because leaving a prestigious job at Stanford
00:21:50
where you've got money I don't know if you had tenure or not or perhaps he did you know it takes some guts because
00:21:56
you're leaving something that that that's that you know that's it's a convention that's stable etc etc but
00:22:03
you've got to go it's not worth the price it's not who I am I'm going to suffer for it down the road and so you
00:22:11
know let's say he decided to go into podcasting and it failed all right so be
00:22:17
it then he learns that and he he's somebody who's very smart he would have figured out another way another direction to go in if my book the 48
00:22:25
Laws of Power hadn't been a success I don't know what would have happened to me but hopefully I would have figured
00:22:30
out another way to go you know CU I also had to drop a career direction that I was going in but you've got to try
00:22:38
you've got to be able to try and you've got to go say yourself it's actually a great thing in
00:22:45
your 30s let's say to go I need something new I need something
00:22:50
completely different I need a new challenge I'm going to drop this I'm going to start something you won't
00:22:56
believe the energy that will suddenly rise up you right you'll suddenly feel invigor you suddenly feel youthful again
00:23:03
I'm not stuck in this thing I can try something else I'm so intrigued by two things within that one of them was going
00:23:10
back to the case of Andrew who left Stanford and became a podcaster was my brain you said um he's an intelligent
00:23:17
guy he would have figured it out if he'd failed my brain also was saying he could have always gone back and there's a real
00:23:24
illusion sometimes I think in most of our lives where we don't realize that if we mess up and this thing as I think
00:23:29
Jeff Bezos calls it this is probably a type two decision where we can walk back
00:23:35
through the door but it's this sort of Illusion that we're going to really lose something great if we fail that stops us
00:23:41
taking that first step and the other thing I was curious about is this idea that pain is is a catalyst for Change and do people need to get to that point
00:23:47
in their lives where they go I'm just so sick of this to change can someone change before they get
00:23:54
there unfortunately not sometimes the bottom has to drop out before you
00:23:59
realize what you really want and what you really you know need to get in life uh I wish it weren't that way but um
00:24:07
feeling like you're suffering and that you need a change and that if you go on this way bad things are going to happen
00:24:14
is the greatest motivator of all because if you're moderately discontented with
00:24:20
your job you're going to constantly be justifying to yourself going uh it's all
00:24:25
right it'll get better I'll get there'll be a new boss or I can always move from this job to another company similar
00:24:33
you'll justify you'll never get out of it and the trap will just close in on you and you'll never get out of it right
00:24:39
it's those moments Where damn it I hate this I can't go on you know I'm I'm
00:24:44
heading to Suicide I'm heading to depression I'm heading to drinking I'm hitting bottom I don't like where I'm
00:24:51
going it doesn't have to be quite so drastic I know I'm exaggerating but you have to feel a degree of pain and
00:24:57
frustration to say I need to make a major change in my life you know the
00:25:03
other thing I say is in the same book you were quoting in the in in about Warfare I have What's
00:25:10
called the death ground strategy where you feel like so he's
00:25:16
going into podcasting and if you go in with the attitude well if I fail I'll
00:25:22
just go scurrying back to Stanford that's a recipe for failure in itself already your attitude is already half
00:25:28
fast you're already half into it you go to yourself I've got to I'm cutting my ties at Stanford if this podcast doesn't
00:25:35
work I'm not going back it gives you the energy the motivation the desire to actually make it successful but if
00:25:42
you're always going through life kind of with half measures going well if I start
00:25:48
this business and it fails I'll go back to living with my parents and and I'll and I'll do this other job you're not
00:25:54
going to put your full energy into it you're not going to give all of yourself into it and it's probably going to
00:25:59
fail it's really um it's so true um it reminded me of something I
00:26:05
was reading in one of the psychology journals about a study they did with participants where they asked them to do
00:26:12
a puzzle and offered them a delicious snack as the reward and then in one
00:26:17
group they said um this is the only way to get the snack if you do this puzzle and then in the other group they said by
00:26:22
the way the same snack is also available in the vending machine down the hall and then the people in the second group
00:26:28
where they had a plan B were less committed to doing the puzzle spent less time trying to solve it and did worse in
00:26:33
the puzzle and it's this idea that a plan B actually psychologically does distract you from your plan a yeah we're
00:26:41
we're animals right we have we have a certain nature which is what I talk about in human
00:26:47
nature and our our earliest ancestors to go back to something I was talking about
00:26:53
our Brilliance the power of our species is we are actually very physically weak
00:27:00
compared to like chimpanzees and cheetahs and lions etc etc but we use
00:27:05
our brain and feeling the necessity feeling that we're going to die unless
00:27:10
we don't solve these problems right if we don't use our birs if we don't create
00:27:16
tools if we don't work together as a team we're going to we're going to we're going to die we won't survive is what
00:27:21
makes us inventive it's what makes us creative it's almost like a barometric
00:27:27
pressure I like that's the metaphor I like to use what's that when you feel that pressure inside of you and it's
00:27:33
very heavy like in like weather that's very you know heavy and thick You're
00:27:38
motivated you feel it I've got to get up in the morning I've got to do this I've got to accomplish this when that
00:27:43
pressure goes away and and you don't feel any pressure in your life you can do anything and there's no consequences
00:27:50
for it you'll just waste time you'll waste Years you'll waste months you'll never accomplish anything you give
00:27:57
somebody a dead line right they'll accomplish in two months what it would
00:28:03
take somebody two years to do without a deadline it's that necessity it's that sense of there's a there's a sword at my
00:28:11
back I've got to get it done it makes you get things done it gives you the energy it's get rich or die trying to
00:28:17
quote somebody yeah you talk about that in the Strate um the book about the strategies of war the chapter four or
00:28:23
strategy number four is about creating a sense of urgency and Desperation
00:28:30
and when I was reading that I was thinking to be fair I don't know any great leader that isn't a little bit
00:28:35
urgent and a little bit desperate and even if they Fain that desperation to Galvanize people there's something about
00:28:41
creating urgency and Desperation in your life that is incredible Tailwind is
00:28:47
there any practical ways that you think the average person can create a a the
00:28:52
required sense of urgency in their life so they can get things done well it's kind of like a level here so you need
00:28:59
challenges in your life that's what that's sort of what the death ground is about you're challenged you better rise
00:29:05
up to it if the challenge is too great if you're like I'm I'm
00:29:11
24 and I've never written a book but I'm going to write the best book ever you're you're going to fail because it's too
00:29:17
far above you you're never going to reach it if it's too low you're never going to have the energy it's too easy
00:29:24
it's not going to motivate you but there's a sweet spot I don't know I'm just you know just drawing it here be
00:29:30
like here where it's a challenge it's above what you're can do can do right now it's not so far above that you can't
00:29:37
possibly do it but it's enough of a challenge to mean God I better get my
00:29:42
act together I better get the energy get together I better you know change my habits I've got to get up earlier I've
00:29:49
got to work harder it's not like I have to get up at 4 and force myself and work out Etc I can get up at 6 6:30 an hour
00:29:57
earlier and I'm going to meet this challenge that's a little bit above my level that's a powerful way of
00:30:02
motivating yourself you need challenges you need constant challenges in life or you're going to or you're going to
00:30:08
stagnate it's just the law of nature you talk about false purpose as well yeah
00:30:14
what is false purpose and how do we know the difference your purpose in life is
00:30:20
something that you're born with it's like your destiny this is what you were meant to accomplish this was what you
00:30:25
were meant to be what you were meant to do and we were going through we were talking about that in terms of your
00:30:32
childhood Etc right but we humans are not born with that purpose engraved in
00:30:38
our heads we don't wake up when we're seven and go that's my purpose if it were that easy it would be that simple
00:30:45
right but because we don't have any direction you know animals don't wake up
00:30:51
in the morning if they're not nocturnal and go what am I going to do today I can go here I can hunt for this anal I can
00:30:58
un for that animal I could eat this no they don't they operate by Instinct they don't they have a purpose it's it's
00:31:04
automatic almost okay we don't have that we have to find our purpose and because it's so
00:31:12
deep and and so important that if we don't find it through this authentic
00:31:17
process I'm talking about we'll find it somewhere else because we need a purpose
00:31:22
in life we need something to live for what will that be it will be drugs it
00:31:28
will be some kind of cult that I have to join it will be some kind of political movement where I can get out all of my
00:31:34
anger and vent all of my frustrations you know it'll be on and on and on it's
00:31:39
something that has nothing to do with who you are personally but it's something that you can believe in and
00:31:46
can give you a sense of purpose but it's not really who you are it's like a drug
00:31:51
it's drugging you into believing that you have a purpose but it's not the real purpose that you were born for that's
00:31:57
what I mean by false purpose and when we find our purpose if we are able to and
00:32:04
lucky enough to discover it what's the variance in what someone's
00:32:09
capable of that's found their P purpose versus someone that hasn't do you think like what's the difference in how they
00:32:15
show up how they deliver the results they create the impact they have when you find your
00:32:21
purpose it's like everything falls into place right you don't need to you don't need to almost do anything you'll find
00:32:28
whatever you need to find thing good things will come to you I know that sounds woo woo I know that sounds
00:32:34
mystical but I definitely believe it right and so it's not like you have to
00:32:39
try so hard yes you have to learn skills yes you have to apply yourself yes you have to work hard etc etc etc but things
00:32:48
just go so much more smoothly when you have it so for instance one thing that
00:32:53
happens when you have a sense of purpose and I hate it's something that I feels
00:32:58
um so I I know my narcissism is coming out again um I know what I don't want
00:33:05
that's you don't know the power of that you can't imagine how powerful that is so people come to me all the time with
00:33:12
Robert we can make a lot of money doing this we could try this we could let's make a TV show out of the 48 Laws of
00:33:18
Power let's do this let's do that let's make a game I'm not interested it's not
00:33:23
my purpose no I don't want it if I didn't have that radar I'd be spreading
00:33:28
myself out into eight different venues and I'd be you know all of my energy
00:33:33
would be would be scattered I wouldn't have that focus and I'd probably end up being pretty miserable because I would
00:33:39
have lost my purpose but when you have a sense of purpose it's like no I don't want to do that I don't want to do that
00:33:45
I don't want to I want to do this yeah it can be rigid you have to be a little bit flexible so if somebody comes to me
00:33:51
and goes Robert what about this I'm open to it that sounds moderately interesting
00:33:57
all right maybe I'll try it you know and I and I do open things things like that I'm going to be doing in a month I'm
00:34:03
going to be recording uh a French version of you know the master class there's a French
00:34:10
version of that so you know I'm not so rigid where I can only write books I can try other things because I can see value
00:34:16
in it and it interests me it's a challenge being able to say no is so
00:34:22
important and and it's so empowering and that's what a sets of purpose will give you to among other things there's a
00:34:29
quote that says something like distractions come dressed up as opportunities and to even know what a
00:34:36
distraction is you first must understand what your goal and what your purpose is or else it's impossible to distinguish
00:34:42
between a distraction Robert go let's go start a game or an opportunity which is
00:34:47
sounds much more like that Mastermind thing and I think about this all the time you know the more clear I am on the
00:34:53
goal and what my purpose is the much easier it is to understand what a distraction is for
00:34:58
they do look the same when they my yes well the other thing I do is I kind of game it
00:35:04
out so somebody comes to me they go let's do a television show the 48 Laws
00:35:10
of Power and believe me I've been through that about 85 times people comeing to be that and we have even
00:35:16
attempted it but I go I've worked in Hollywood I've worked in television
00:35:21
before before I had my books I know the process I know how miserable it can be I
00:35:28
know how you have no power I'm a writer now where I write books and I have all
00:35:33
the power I have all the control you go into Hollywood you go into television or film 85 you know 800
00:35:40
other people join in and they all have their ideas and they change this that you have no power and and it's meetings
00:35:46
and meetings and meetings and talk talk talk talk talk I game it out and I go I
00:35:52
don't want to get into that trap I don't want to be spending a year having meeting after meeting after meting
00:35:57
meeting hearing about this possibility having it changed by this producer I game it out and I go no I don't want to
00:36:03
do it can you do that when you're younger kind of 21y old no no takes a
00:36:09
lot of takes a fair amount of experience in life because when you're 21 everything looks great and exciting man
00:36:15
yeah I'll do that why not yeah it'll be fun I'll meet some I'll meet some hot girls I'll do this and the other great
00:36:20
you know etc etc you know you don't you don't have that radar you everything
00:36:25
looks exciting and enticing it takes the pain I keep going back to that
00:36:31
of things that you wasted your time in and Things That Failed things that you didn't like to teach you the ability to
00:36:37
say no and to save your energy for what you really love should a young person just be saying yes to
00:36:45
everything you know the problem that we have is everything is has to be this way
00:36:50
or that way has to be black or white and it's not like that it's kind of in between you can learn to dance in life
00:36:56
you don't have to go this way or that way you can kind of do both so the best advice I give people is your
00:37:05
20s the best years of your life actually I think the 30s are but let's just say for for argument sake your 20s you're
00:37:13
young you probably look pretty good you're healthy you know you've got all these things going on for you I want you
00:37:20
to have some fun and I want you to have Adventures I don't want you to be 22 and go and get a job at Goldman Sachs for
00:37:27
the rest of your life Etc you need fun you need Adventure you need some looseness you know you want some
00:37:33
experiences but it has to have some direction to it it can't just be I'm
00:37:39
going to write poetry I'm going to do rock and roll I'm going to go learn chemistry I'm going to you know become
00:37:45
you know this that the other no connection at all between all of these things just trying everything for the sake of novelty that's a recipe for not
00:37:53
being successful because what you want to happen is you're 30 years old now
00:37:58
you've let your 20s are behind you it's usually a time of Reckoning where you go [ __ ] I'm not so young anymore okay you
00:38:05
know I'm getting older all right I've had my fun I've had Adventure I'm ready
00:38:10
for something serious and I've learned some real skills in life I've for me
00:38:16
personally I learned how to write um or whatever it is you didn't just go try 80
00:38:21
different things you you you kind of had four or five that you did you you experimented with all right now I know
00:38:28
what I love now I can go down that path and in Mastery I often tell the story to
00:38:33
people of one of the Masters I interviewed was Paul Graham who was the man who started y combinator you
00:38:40
probably heard of Y combinator he was somebody who got into AI when he was like 18 19 years old he
00:38:48
was like at MIT I believe right back in the late 70s when nobody was even thinking about it okay he was a hacker
00:38:56
cuz his father father was was a scientist who had computers back in the 70s and he learned how to hack early on
00:39:04
okay so he went down the process of going into Academia of of of going into
00:39:09
programs of Compu com computer programming etc etc and he was on a track just like huberman at MIT to
00:39:16
become a professor to become proficient in it and he hated it it was soul
00:39:22
sucking he didn't like the politics he didn't like dealing with the people he didn't like Academia so he quit
00:39:28
and he became a painter because that's he loved design and he loved visuals he
00:39:33
comes back to New York he's living in a loft he's painting he's happy and he's
00:39:39
not making any money and then he hears an advertisement on the radio for I I
00:39:45
think it was maybe Netscape one of the earliest um you know internet whatever
00:39:50
you call it and they're saying the future in in for computers is being able
00:39:56
to set buy and sell products on the internet he ends up creating the first I
00:40:01
think one the prototype for all the things that we have now Yahoo ended up buying it for like $5
00:40:08
million and then the rest is history he spent his 20s trying something out
00:40:14
learning real skills he went somewhere else learning something that he loved and then he's 30 and he combines the two
00:40:21
together and he's he's a classic example because he he gets very bored easily so
00:40:27
why combinator is worth billions of dollars extremely successful he sells it gets into something else cuz he likes
00:40:34
writing Etc he's always he's kind of a prototype for a lot of what we're talking about we've spoken a lot about
00:40:40
self-awareness and self and all those kinds of things what about other people
00:40:45
you know the only thing that seems to stand in the way of all of our goals in life are other people so if I if I want
00:40:52
to become exceptional understanding the human nature of other people and using it in my favor
00:40:58
where do I start there what are the the sort of foundations of being great at
00:41:04
using other people's human nature to my advantage that sounds very narcissistic and very uh awful but
00:41:10
it's it is what it is party as it is what it is exactly people as I said the main
00:41:17
mistake we make in dealing with other people and and it's a common mistake that I make as well is we take the
00:41:24
appearances for reality we take their masks for how they appear to us for
00:41:30
their politeness for their smiles for their saying oh I Loved You etc for the
00:41:35
reality and we have to learn that to look behind people's masks we have to
00:41:41
learn what's really really going on behind them and we have to learn some Basics about human nature people like to
00:41:49
believe that they're essentially good you know saintly virtuous however you want to do it people want to believe
00:41:55
that they're intelligent they're you never want to feel like I'm not stupid I'm intelligent and the other third
00:42:01
thing is that they're that they willpower that they're in control of their lives they do things because they
00:42:06
decided to do it to tell to make people feel insecure about their intelligence
00:42:12
right to make them feel like they're not moral or they're not good to make them feel like they do things not because
00:42:18
they choose to but because they were forced to or because they they're not aware of themselves they hate that
00:42:23
they're going to hate you they're going to resent you they're going to resist you knowing some Basics about people like
00:42:31
that gives you the power to use that for influence for persuasion okay
00:42:37
understanding Envy in the human world and on social media Envy is just an it's
00:42:44
like a nuclear bomb it's just exploded our tendency to feel Envy to compare ourselves to other people you've got to
00:42:50
use that for power there's great power in that in a marketing publicity sense
00:42:56
virality what getting other people to be interested in what other people are doing that's how things sell themselves
00:43:03
if you try and tell people what they should buy as opposed to look at what other people are doing I want to join in
00:43:09
on that right knowing about these basic qualities in human nature about how we
00:43:14
like to compare ourselves how we have these certain opinions about ourselves etc etc gives you all of this power to
00:43:21
take that human nature and use it for whatever purposes you want for good or
00:43:27
unfortunately some people use it for bad do we have to lie to be successful and I
00:43:33
say this because through reading some of your work I I heard sentences such as you should keep your true intentions
00:43:39
hidden in social situations um you say a lot about like kind of cloaking yourself in various ways you talk about showing
00:43:45
up as an actor that sometimes we do need to show up as an actor in our lives so in order to be truly successful I know
00:43:52
it's a little bit of a difficult question but do we have to lie look
00:43:57
being a human being means we lie right the moment you open your mouth
00:44:02
and you speak you are essentially not telling the truth you know what doesn't
00:44:08
lie body language non-verbal communication the way you smile the look
00:44:14
in your eyes you can't lie about that but children three or four years
00:44:20
old are already learning to craft what they say to mommy or daddy to get what
00:44:26
they want they're very clever they're very strategic right they know that if they if they say that they what they
00:44:32
exactly want they won't get it they learn to kind of whine and complain and put a certain tone in their voice and to
00:44:39
be an actor a social animal like we are we are
00:44:45
actors in life get over this idea about guilting about about it I'm so sick of
00:44:50
that we are actors we are descended from chimpanzees chimpanzees are concept
00:44:57
subit actors read the literature on that they know how to deceive incredibly well
00:45:02
and they don't even have language to deceive right so we are actors the
00:45:07
moment you go out in the public you're not telling people oh you're fat you're ugly your writing sucks you d d d da I
00:45:16
don't like what you're wearing you never do that you're an actor when you see
00:45:21
your father you act a certain way when you see a little kid you act a certain
00:45:26
way when you see little kitty cat you have a certain tone in your voice when you deal with your boss the person who
00:45:32
pays for the for your podcast I don't know if there is such a person you wear you act a different way you're
00:45:38
constantly changing how who you are and how you are Act One Moment you're Robert dairo the next moment you're I don't
00:45:44
know what other actor you are but you're you're changing your roles depending on who you're dealing with I'm so tired of
00:45:51
people not recognizing this fact that we are all actors that we are constantly
00:45:57
deceiving yes there are differences there are qualities of lying you know I understand that there's Donald Trump
00:46:04
lying and there's the lying of the everyday white lies in which we have to say certain things to get ahead Etc
00:46:11
there are degrees I understand that and some lying could be very harmful and and
00:46:17
very counterproductive in the end but the moment you enter the world and the
00:46:22
moment you open your mouth you are in some ways already an actor and you are already using forms of deception why
00:46:30
can't we be our true selves because it would irritate people
00:46:37
because it would gr you know I don't know about you but I
00:46:42
appreciate politeness right I go somewhere and I know someone's being polite I know that
00:46:48
they're not necessarily meaning it but it's nice right it's kind of smooth it kind of makes everything sort of smooth
00:46:55
if people weren't polite it I'll be grading and like two pieces of metal constantly hitting each other it'd be so
00:47:01
annoying you'd want to kill yourself or you want to kill people You' become a k a murderer you know social life depends
00:47:08
on that kind of smoothness those interactions so we need that to some
00:47:13
degree if we were just always telling people what we really thought our our world would collapse
00:47:20
tomorrow what about showing our weakness I've got this quote from you that says if you are weak and ask for little
00:47:27
little is what you will get but if you act strong making firm even outrageous
00:47:34
demands you will create the opposite impression people will think that you are
00:47:40
confident and that it must be based on something real you will earn their respect which in turn will translate to
00:47:48
real leverage well it's it's about certain
00:47:53
situations so I don't want you to apply that idea to everything in life and some
00:47:58
people make the mistake when they read the 48 Laws of Power they think well I'm going to use that everywhere no it
00:48:03
applies to certain situations so let's say you're negotiating and I know I dealt with this
00:48:10
myself I'm actually a fairly timid person by nature but I've learned to
00:48:16
cultivate the opposite so if you're negotiating a price for what you want for your time for your services and
00:48:23
you're not very confident and you kind of ask for a little that's what you're going to get because
00:48:29
people aren't going to they're assuming that you're that you're not really up to the task you say all right $20,000 is
00:48:37
enough that's what they'll give you but if you raise your price high and you say it with the right voice and you believe
00:48:44
in it they're going to go wow that person is is confident and if they turn you down that's fine because somebody
00:48:50
else will give you that price if you you set your own value by what you believe
00:48:55
about yourself if you think that you're worthless if you're not very good at it
00:49:01
other people pick that up as you were talking I was thinking about um Adam Newman from Wei work and this
00:49:06
conversation I heard with him and the founder of soft Bank in the back of a taxi where Adam Newman's asking for a
00:49:12
billion and then the owner of soft Bank this very eccentric Chinese very rich
00:49:17
Asian man goes do you know what Adam the only problem with you is that you're not ambitious enough and he writes him a
00:49:23
check I believe for like five or 10 bli million dollars in the back of this taxi after like something like 12 minutes of
00:49:30
being with him and I always thought about that and thought Jesus what if I just started asking life for way more if
00:49:37
I just multiplied all of these emails that I send and requests I make by 10
00:49:43
what would happen to my life over the course of 10 years well yeah um probably you probably would have gotten a lot
00:49:49
more than you got without asking for that um yeah
00:49:55
because we we we we're creatures that as I said before we look at the appearances of things look it's it's very very easy
00:50:02
metaphor here you go into a social situation like a party and you go up to somebody who's
00:50:10
kind of nervous and insecure and anxious and I'm not criticizing that because we all have insecurities I have many of
00:50:17
them myself but you go up to somebody like that and it makes you feel kind of
00:50:22
nervous and insecure right and you're kind of fumbling for words and it kind of goes
00:50:28
bit of awkwardness happens reverse that you go up to somebody else and they're
00:50:33
kind of confident they look you in the eye you know their voice is strong their
00:50:38
body language is strong they connect to you whoa you think it brings out that
00:50:44
part of you who's like that you might be intimidated but it also might bring out your own kind of confident self I
00:50:51
remember being around 50 Cent who's a very charismatic confident to the point
00:50:58
of ridiculousness and it was very infectious I felt that way after being
00:51:04
around him for a couple hours I was with him for several months it rubbed off on me right we have these kind of viral
00:51:11
contagious Effects by people so if you project strength and
00:51:17
confidence you know and I understand it's a little different for women which is an interesting subject because
00:51:24
sometimes projecting that for a woman will rub the wrong way because people will think that and it's a terrible qual
00:51:31
thing about us that that women are judged by a different standard where that'll seem like they're a [ __ ] or
00:51:37
something like that so I understand that there are nuances here and that the game is different for women as it is for
00:51:44
people of other ethnicities as well you know so it's not just one way or the
00:51:50
other but to the degree that even for the woman that you
00:51:55
have this air of conf confidence that you believe in what you're doing that you believe you're worth it IT projects
00:52:02
itself to other people you don't have to scream and shout you don't have to demand 10 billion dollar but if you feel
00:52:09
confident if you feel you're worth this amount of money it will project outward to other people body language yeah want
00:52:16
to talk about that does it you know you said earlier it's one of the things we can't lie about is there anything that
00:52:23
you still look for in today when you're trying to read someone their body language are there certain cues is there
00:52:29
postures or well you know you you got to in Reading non-verbal communication it's
00:52:35
a different form of intelligence it's not algorithms it's not formulaic it's
00:52:42
human it's emotional it's empathetic it's a reading without words it's ATT
00:52:48
tuning yourself to other people so I attune myself to people's emotions to
00:52:54
the vibe that they give off in an over overall sense a Galt is one thing that I like to do so if I had to give it a word
00:53:02
I would say anxious or I would have to say outgoing and extroverted or I would
00:53:08
have to say impatient or whatever there's an energy that kind of defines them it's a word and that word is not
00:53:15
precise but there is an overall feel that I get from a person and then I'm
00:53:21
always looking at specifics it's not like I'm sitting there
00:53:27
consciously in my head going through a checklist I'm just feeling certain
00:53:32
things and I'm feeling that the eyes are kind of dead they're not engaging with
00:53:40
me and you can't put that into words but you know the feeling so when someone's
00:53:45
looking at you but they're not really looking at you you know what that feels like don't you mhm and a lot of
00:53:53
Psychopathic people a lot of narcissists do that so part of their face pretends to be
00:53:59
interested in you they are looking at you in the eye but they're not really looking at you they're thinking of something else they're seeing in you
00:54:05
what they can get out of you they're seeing you as an object right eyes are
00:54:11
hard to lie they tell you something now actors very skilled actors can kind of
00:54:19
create some of these Impressions but one thing that they can't fake is the tone
00:54:24
in their voice and actors will tell you that it's the hardest thing to actually consciously control so the voice of a
00:54:32
person tells you a lot about their confidence levels tells you a lot
00:54:37
about you know how just about their General emotional tone about their character about who they are it's very
00:54:45
difficult to fake and when it's hesitant when it's like stammering when it's not
00:54:52
you know you can kind of sense something from people's voice and it's very hard to fake and then the smile the
00:54:59
smile tells you a hundred different things if you know how to read it there's the authentic smile which I'm
00:55:07
not going to fake right now but well I just it lights up the whole face you know like you really feel Joy you can't
00:55:15
you don't can't foret your eyes go up your cheeks go up everything kind of connects together right the fake
00:55:24
Smiles you know yeah we've all seen the fake just when the mouth goes up and the rest of the face
00:55:30
doesn't bother Stephen I really like you you're really you're wonderful you
00:55:36
know most of the time most Smiles are fake but you can kind of when you see
00:55:41
the genuine smile and you go that's what caused the genuine smile you should become aware of that and then body
00:55:48
language tells you a lot like is somebody when they're talking to you and
00:55:53
you're standing up at a at a party is there body kind of facing another Direction while they're talking to you
00:55:59
or they're kind of looking out there way while they're talking to you that means they're not really interested in you
00:56:04
they're not really engaged in you right also when you catch people by surprise
00:56:11
and they don't have the time to put on a fake smile I often tell people to do this like there's somebody in your
00:56:18
office and you don't know whether they're a snake or they're actually genuinely your friend you suspect could
00:56:24
go either way you kind of approach them from an angle right and you surprise
00:56:31
them you come up to them you go they look at you and for a second you detect what we call a micro expression of of
00:56:39
disdain and then they put on the smile that micro expression which scientists
00:56:45
psychologists have studied lasts for like less than a second much less than a second you have to be able to read it
00:56:52
but it reveals whether they actually like you or they're totally false they can't fake it so if you come to straight
00:56:59
on they'll oh hi Stephen I love great to see you they come oh they they kind of
00:57:05
pretend then they try and act and you you can get Clues like that there's so many ways to read body language it's
00:57:11
such a fascinating subject I could go on for hours about it how important is it you know you're talking about colleagues
00:57:18
and team members there and earlier you said that people are contagious how important do you think it is to the
00:57:26
success of our lives and I paused there because success means it's a personal thing it's a professional thing to
00:57:32
surround ourselves with the right group of people and to be intentional about that it's very important
00:57:39
um I have a chapter in excuse me in the 48 Laws of Power about
00:57:44
infection and um I think it's an experience many of us have had where
00:57:50
you're around somebody who seems at first glance to be very interesting
00:57:57
and they they they become your friend maybe they're very dramatic and they
00:58:03
have all these stories to tell and they seem almost slightly larger than life
00:58:08
and you engage with them and then you become friends and then slowly slowly
00:58:15
slowly it becomes clear that that they're a little bit nuts right they're
00:58:20
always talking about how this person screwed them how that person screwed them how this boyfriend or girlfriend
00:58:27
was so awful and so nasty you to re you begin to realize is this true or is it
00:58:32
maybe there that the pro they the problem but now they're your friend and now you're emotionally attached to them
00:58:39
and now they have room to play all these kind of games on you and all of their drama starts infecting you and it's like
00:58:45
God damn it I want to get away from this person but I can't they've infected you with their negative energy and it gets
00:58:51
under your skin and so uh you have to avoid people like that
00:58:56
you have to read before you get involved with them that they are a drama queen or a drama King because there just as many
00:59:03
men out there who have this quality you have to see that they are that they play
00:59:09
the victim of all of everybody else but actually they kind of bring it onto themselves some people are genuinely
00:59:16
unfortunate bad things have happened to them and it's not their fault I'm never saying it's a misconception about that
00:59:22
chapter that you should avoid everybody who's unfortunate there are people and a lot of people out there whose
00:59:29
circumstances have put made them who you know in their what's going on it's not
00:59:34
their fault right but there are other people you have to recognize that the bad things that happened to them are
00:59:40
things that they have brought on because they have this infecting power it comes from Deep insecurity you don't want them
00:59:48
in your life being around insecure people will make you insecure being
00:59:53
around confident people who kind of know what they're doing who've got their act
00:59:59
together who are trying to make things and accomplish things because there's so many people out there who talk and talk
01:00:05
and talk but never do anything being around people who do things who get things done who've made a business
01:00:11
who've made this that or the other their goal to be around because they'll infect you with their positive energy
01:00:19
Frenemies yeah do we all have Frenemies and how do we spot
01:00:24
Frenemies well hopefully we all don't have them but um in the laws of human
01:00:30
nature and in in several of my books I talk about the phenomenon of Envy which is very very powerful human trait it has
01:00:38
roots very ancient Roots we know that in hunter gatherers societies from thousands of years ago
01:00:46
Envy was a real problem and so they create all kinds of rituals to avoid Envy where the moment somebody in a
01:00:53
tribe received a gift they had to give it to other members so they wouldn't face Envy because facing Envy you could
01:00:59
be murdered for it so you learned all of these rituals and we've noticed that chimpanzees feel Envy you give some one
01:01:07
of the higher up chimps because they're very hierarchical a grape and all all the other chimps are very wanting that
01:01:13
grape as well and they feel envy and etc etc so it's an extremely human emotion the thing that we don't realize
01:01:21
though that the people most likely to feel Envy first of all we all feel Envy
01:01:26
we're all comparing ourselves to other people I feel it all the time right now
01:01:31
I envy Ryan holiday because he's you know so 30 years younger he's sold so
01:01:39
many books you know he's got all this great stuff I I know I know what Envy is like I feel it we all feel small degrees
01:01:46
of Envy but there are people I call it passive Envy but active Envy means
01:01:51
people act on it they do something to hurt you they sabotage you and some way
01:01:57
Frenemies are the classic scenario so somebody who feels envious of you ends
01:02:04
up befriending you and consciously they may not be even aware of that they think
01:02:10
well I would do want to like them but unconsciously they feel Envy they think that you have success that you don't
01:02:16
necessarily deserve that you have what they want right they become your friend
01:02:24
and they they charm you Etc Etc and then lo and behold you start noticing all
01:02:29
kinds of behavior that's very ugly that you weren't expecting cuz you're there're your friend they start saying
01:02:36
[ __ ] comments that get under your skin that make you feel insecure they take
01:02:41
things from you they act in ways that are hurtful but because they're your friend your first instinct is to blame
01:02:48
yourself well maybe it's my fault that they've done this maybe I'm actually to blame for what for what they're saying
01:02:55
etc etc ET so I believe behind the frines phenomenon is this this phenomena
01:03:02
of Envy where the person secretly wants what you have and they're becoming your
01:03:08
friends so that they can wound you and what's best to do is to recognize that
01:03:14
and one common sign of a friend ofy of somebody who's befriending you out of Envy is they're in a rush to be your
01:03:22
friend normally we like to take it a little bit slow we just don't let
01:03:27
anybody into our lives we like to vet them a little bit beforehand right we don't trust everybody but the person who
01:03:34
feels Envy is like I love you you're fantastic I want to be your friend we got to hang out let's go out for dinner
01:03:40
the next night they're in a hurry that's a sign that something else is going on
01:03:45
because that's not natural what about when friends become Frenemies because sometimes through the
01:03:52
process of US changing yes you might Inspire that Envy yes like your status changes we've all
01:03:59
had to deal with that I've had to deal with that as well you have success and you you came from a
01:04:05
background where with where you weren't so successful and your friends are still there and they Envy you and they're not
01:04:12
very nice to you and uh you know it's it's not a good quality and I've I've
01:04:18
I've I've understand the quality I understand where it comes from and I've I wrote about it in human nature where
01:04:25
we're all aware of the of this of the what we call sha Freud Shan Freud means
01:04:32
you take pleasure in other people's pain so you hear a friend didn't get the job
01:04:39
that they wanted to get and you go oh I'm sorry but deep down inside you're kind of kind of happy you know and we
01:04:47
all go through that right the opposite is mitfa it's an expression that n a
01:04:53
coin which means you feel Joy for other people I like to try and cultivate some
01:04:58
of the higher qualities in life so if something good happens to somebody i' my first thing is I might
01:05:06
feel a twinge of Envy but then I go it's great for them I'm actually very happy I'm excited I share their joy in what
01:05:13
has happened right but it's not natural so when somebody that you know and you've known for a long time has success
01:05:20
in life your first thing is to be they didn't deserve it they kind of cheap
01:05:25
their way to it okay as we talked about in the very beginning you confront that ugly emotion yourself and you go that's
01:05:32
not who I want to be and you go I'm going to make myself feel the opposite I'm going to make myself feel happy for
01:05:38
their success it's not natural and most people don't go through that and I know
01:05:43
personally from people I knew before I had any success in
01:05:49
life they're the ones that give me the fewest amount of compliments for my books they never read my books in the
01:05:56
first place they're very spare with their with what they say they've got a pinched look on their face whereas
01:06:02
people I've never met before in my life give me all kinds of compliments why is that because they're envious they're
01:06:08
upset are you are you threatening them because they see themselves like you
01:06:14
because they knew you and you're where you're from where they were from so you're even more threatening you're holding up a mirror to them in a way
01:06:20
that makes them feel even more uncomfortable well they're not going to feel that way so what people will go through in that sense is and this is how
01:06:28
I I I I I think through oh Robert sold himself out he wrote a book that's evil
01:06:35
that's nasty that manipulative I didn't think he was like that I thought he was this nice person oh I don't like this
01:06:42
book is ugly they'll go through that process they'll stay my friend because we've had years and years together it's
01:06:50
very very common at least I know that they go they do that with my books even though my later book books aren't like
01:06:56
the 48 Laws of Power they still have it in the grain that this guy who used to be so sweet and nice with these nasty
01:07:02
evil manipulative mellan books he sold out what is it at the heart of the 48
01:07:08
Laws of Power that some people are triggered
01:07:14
by like what is the what what was the single most triggering concept or the
01:07:19
most um controversial or the concept that people just had a surface level
01:07:24
allergic reaction to onsite without even really reading it they just no no yeah they read the back
01:07:31
of the book they read the names of the laws and they go oh that's that's ugly
01:07:37
and a lot of times they've had to deal with ugly people in their lives and so
01:07:43
that's when I see I see the authentic disgust reaction I understand it that they had to deal with someone who's very
01:07:49
manipulative and they find it disgusting of course when I get to have a rational
01:07:55
discussion with them and I calmed down their emotional reaction I said look if
01:08:00
you had the 48 Laws of Power before this person manipulated you they would have never been able to manipulate you that
01:08:06
book is the best defense you could ever have in your life it's like a shield once you've read it you know all the
01:08:12
tricks people are playing on you right they know they're posing as a friend and acting like a spy right they're
01:08:17
concealing their intentions you know etc etc etc it's showing you all of these
01:08:23
tricks okay but that's when they calm down an able to say that but the idea that we're not
01:08:31
angels that we don't all have the the best intentions in life that I'm writing
01:08:38
a manual that they think for how to manipulate how to deceive how to con
01:08:44
people triggers people very much A lot of people who've who've
01:08:50
suffered in life who've had a lot of pain understand that there's irony in The Book book they don't read it the
01:08:56
same way they read it knowing yeah I've had this happens this is what people are like I'm okay with it I'm cool with it
01:09:03
and I must say I don't know if this will come off wrong but a lot of the readers
01:09:08
who responded most positively to the 48 Laws of Power early on were African-Americans people like 50 people
01:09:14
in the hip-hop business Etc they didn't have any Illusions about human nature about how
01:09:20
good we are because they've seen the side all throughout their lives right 50
01:09:27
said when he got into the record business he was shocked at how political people were how manipulative they were
01:09:34
so they weren't having that same reaction they weren't having the guilty reaction like oh that I don't want to
01:09:42
read about that why do we why do we even have to discuss that that's not that's not positive that's not helpful that's I
01:09:48
think a lot of what triggered people it's funny cuz I was speaking to a CIA agent recently and he said something at
01:09:54
the end of our conversation to me he said you know one of the things I've come to learn from being in the CIA is
01:09:59
that I no longer believe that equality is possible and he he said equality
01:10:05
equality yeah because that's just not the way that the human world works and we all pretend we want equality we all
01:10:11
pretend we want everyone to be equal but if you look at every game we play whether we're politicians or we're business people or whatever it's all
01:10:18
about hierarchies and power and getting ahead even that the sheer nature of being a politician is campaigning to get
01:10:25
into a position of you know objective power and I want wanted to know what you
01:10:30
thought about that well I mean there's some truth to it in the sense of there's something in our nature that is
01:10:36
hierarchical that has deep roots in us but I do believe in one form of
01:10:43
equality um and that is everybody at their birth has the possibility for
01:10:50
following the path that I talk about in Mastery for being great for fulfilling their Destiny for being the unique
01:10:58
individual that they are at Birth so everybody is born with a a DNA that will
01:11:03
never be replicated in the past or in the future right there is a uniqueness about every person and and there's a
01:11:10
uniqueness about your parents about your background about your early years right and that uniqueness is a seed that if
01:11:18
you PL if you cultivate it and you and you use it and you know your purpose and you you mine it for power
01:11:26
in in in Mastery I interviewed one of the master I interviewed was a woman named Tempo
01:11:31
grandon who was born with severe autism at the age of two she was about
01:11:37
to be committed to a hospital for the rest of her life she was she was like
01:11:43
almost like in a walking coma for some reason they got her a teacher to teacher language and she
01:11:51
started emerging a little bit and then slowly she blossomed and she realized be it was something
01:11:57
common to a lot of autistic people that she had an incredible connection to animals and a lot of autistic people
01:12:04
have that she couldn't connect to people they were so tricky and deceptive she she didn't know how to deal with them
01:12:10
but animals give her a horse a dog a cow she felt like she was one of them she
01:12:16
ended up following that path and becoming a highlevel animal behavioral
01:12:22
scientist who um she was born with autism about to be committed to a hospital and it she achieved incredible
01:12:31
success in life as a scientist I do honestly and I'm not faking I do honestly believe that
01:12:37
everyone has that potential but it it's not equal in the
01:12:42
outcomes of that there are a lot of PE the majority people don't follow that path but I do believe everybody has that
01:12:51
potential is that potential like objective greatness or is it our own
01:12:57
subjective greatness I I can become the greatest version of Steven or do you believe that everyone could become great
01:13:04
in the context of you know the very best in the world like you know Steve Jobs or
01:13:10
no they're not you don't have to be the very best in in the world I mean I uh when I Mastery came out we were uh the
01:13:17
New York Times wanted to do a story about my house in the home section okay
01:13:24
well why but all right right I never get any publicity from mainstream media so okay fine so I had to quickly upgrade my
01:13:31
house because they were going to come over with photo photographers and we got a man over to do the tile work on my
01:13:37
patio which look like hell and I I told people this guy was a
01:13:43
true Master he wasn't like making six figures nobody would ever write an
01:13:51
article about him he will die and no one will ever know that but I could see in
01:13:56
the quiet quality and how well he understood it and the care that he took in it and how much he enjoyed you know
01:14:03
creating a beautiful effect with tile work that he was a master it doesn't
01:14:08
have to be the best ever you don't have to be famous and successful there are grades of this there are degrees of it
01:14:15
some people is just being a great parent they are very social they're very empathetic
01:14:21
and they're not maybe going to become extreme successful Finance person
01:14:27
but they're really good at raising their children and they put to put a lot of effort and Care into it that's fantastic
01:14:34
you don't have to be famous you don't have to be Steve Jobs there are levels of it right but the sense of this was
01:14:42
what I was meant to accomplish and I'm I'm following it and I'm happy what I do
01:14:47
I feel fulfilled by my work and I can go on doing it I take it seriously I care
01:14:53
about it I do believe that that anybody can have that level of power in their life I
01:15:00
think I struggle with that if I'm being honest yeah on a personal level I struggle with um enough being
01:15:08
enough and also I think I've grown up in the generation where there's so much comparison everywhere we look when we
01:15:14
open up our phones and Instagram that you kind of always are led to believe that you're not quite there yet now I've
01:15:21
contended with the idea that maybe that's a good thing because it drives you forward it's that pressure you described it's that creates that urgency
01:15:28
that desperation so maybe I should never believe I'm there yet but then also I wonder am I going to defer happiness off
01:15:35
into the future because I think it's behind some kind of accomplishment or job title or you know success in my life
01:15:44
and you know when I hear about that Tyler I go that person that was tying your um patio I'm really jealous because
01:15:51
they sound contempt with much less than would make me contempt what is the correct correct answer is it
01:15:58
to be the happy Tyler who's tiling the patio or is it to be the um
01:16:06
impatient Steve Jobs that's striving for the personal computer well it depends on who you are
01:16:13
we're all individuals we all have our our unique energies it's the fact that
01:16:19
you engage you love that you're emotionally connected to it that it gives you a sense of fulfillment that
01:16:24
you're not looking over your shoulder oh I I could be doing this instead I'm fine with that I doesn't
01:16:31
have to be the Steve Jobs who's continually dissatisfied who's fouy and
01:16:36
who always has to have more I'm not against that either I don't know why we have to be so judgmental if people are
01:16:44
following the path and they are in love with what they do and they have a genuine connection to it I'm not going
01:16:50
to judge it because they're not famous or because they're not trying to be the greatest the Michael Jordan of tying or
01:16:57
whatever Etc I think it's fine and you you're not happy you want to you want to
01:17:03
crush it you want to be have the number one podcast that's fine as well why
01:17:09
can't we have you know that kind of diversity in our world the most important thing for both those types of
01:17:15
people the the people that have that sort of insatiable sense of ambition but also the people that are contempt with
01:17:22
whatever they're doing in their lives from what I had there is they both love what they're doing uh and they both have
01:17:28
those core components that you described earlier like they both feel the challenge in their work still and that
01:17:34
challenge might be okay I'm going to do a bigger patio today or it might be I'm going to launch a billion- Dollar business tomorrow for someone else and
01:17:41
it's really about those cool components of like challenge meaning purpose yeah
01:17:48
yeah because what you don't want is you don't want to be in your 50s in your 60s
01:17:54
she's facing death you know cuz your days are numbered who knows how long you're going to live and you're going to
01:18:01
go damn it I could have done something with my life when I was a child I had
01:18:06
these dreams I thought I was going to be really great at it and I never realized it I went off on these other paths I was
01:18:13
lost I thought I was happy but but I never really fulfilled any of those
01:18:19
childhood dreams or those fantasies you know it's a terrible terrible feeling and I want people to avoid that as long
01:18:26
as it's something that engages you that's connected to that child that you were it's something that you love and
01:18:32
that you you can create these challenges for you is death a motivator for
01:18:40
you well um it certainly is now you know because um my days are are
01:18:47
literally numbered you reach a certain age and you know you can literally count the numbers of the days that might be
01:18:54
left you and I nearly died several years ago with my stroke came this close to
01:19:00
dying you know I was driving my car and if my wife hadn't
01:19:06
suddenly seen something I wouldn't be talking to you here right now either I
01:19:11
would have crashed and died or I would have had such bad brain damage that I'd be a vegetable so I know about death I
01:19:18
feel it in my body every day I wake up I do my morning meditation I'm a whereare
01:19:25
there's a practice that I have in my meditation where this could be my last thought I
01:19:31
could die 10 seconds from now what do I want in my head in those last seconds do
01:19:37
I want to have some petty little thought about somebody who did this or said that or do I want to have something else
01:19:44
greater in my head I'm constantly aware of my mortality and with the book that
01:19:50
I'm writing it's always it's always in my mind because
01:19:55
frankly I'm aware that I might die before I finish the book so now I've
01:20:01
written 2third of it if I die tomorrow the book can be published and it's okay
01:20:06
I can live with that but uh you know I'm in a hurry to get it done because I know
01:20:12
it could happen at any moment you know and it almost happened to me so I'm
01:20:18
continually aware of it but not in a bad sense in a way of it kind of makes gives
01:20:24
meaning to my life it makes me aware of how you know valuable each
01:20:31
moment is and how things that everybody I look out my window I see people doing
01:20:37
things that I can't do anymore and I go they take it all for granted they walk
01:20:43
around unaware of their mortality of how their body could break down at any day
01:20:49
now I'm aware of it so I'm not going to feel Envy because I my mind is at a
01:20:56
different level I'm aware of the of the ephemeral nature of life and it makes
01:21:01
everything kind of beautiful to me makes me appreciate everything around I don't mean to be too sacr about this because
01:21:09
it could come off that way because there is a dark side to it and I definitely in my dreams and in my thoughts I have a
01:21:15
lot of that Darkness but I believe the awareness of death is is a beautiful
01:21:22
beautiful thing it's it's it's it's it makes everything intense and makes
01:21:27
everything a glow with that awareness if you were my age I've just turned
01:21:34
31 wow you're a kid Jesus Christ
01:21:40
man I hate
01:21:45
you I was 31 I was The Biggest Loser that's amazing if I could transplant that awareness from your head
01:21:53
to my head that you've got from the life you've lived but also from that stroke
01:21:58
incident and the perspective of your mortality that it gave you and the ephemerality of life that it showed you
01:22:05
how do you think I would live my life differently how would you have lived your life differently when you were 31
01:22:11
uh you know I I make a point of I never go through that exercise because I
01:22:16
believe in something called aor Fati which means love of your fate everything happened for a purpose I wouldn't have
01:22:23
done anything differently if I I had to go back because it all led to the right things so if I'd been in a hurry when I
01:22:29
was 22 to be successful as a writer I would have never been able to write the books that I wrote would have all gone a
01:22:36
skew who knows where I would have ended up I'm very very happy with I don't regret
01:22:41
anything but if you're young what often happens is because your life the pattern of your
01:22:48
life if you think of it as a weaving is only like for you is only like a third woven right for me it's like 2third
01:22:56
woven so I can see all of these patterns that you can't see in your life but at
01:23:02
your stage you know you tend to think I've got all of this time ahead of me
01:23:08
I'm so young i' I can do this I can I can go travel here I can do this
01:23:13
business and that business ET Etc you don't feel that sense of urgency you don't realize that tomorrow you could be
01:23:20
hit by a car tomorrow you could suddenly be diagnosed with cancer people are dying now in their 30s and 40s I read
01:23:28
unfortunately when you get older a bad habit is you start reading the obituary
01:23:33
pages I don't know why um and you start reading about people a lot of people who
01:23:38
are in their 40s and 50s are dying left right and center today for various reasons it can happen and what it does
01:23:45
to you is it says I only have so much time I wanted to accomplish this one thing that I've
01:23:52
been putting off okay okay you wrote your book maybe there's something else that you've always wanted to do but you
01:23:58
have never done and you're kind of putting it off a sense of urgency a sense that your time is relatively short
01:24:06
is a good thing the other thing is it makes as I said it makes everything a little more intense a little more a glow
01:24:13
is the word I like to use so I used to swim like three days a week
01:24:22
and I would swim long distances and I loved it it was my greatest therapy I
01:24:28
just loved getting out of my head and just going being in the water okay but I never appreciated it until now when I
01:24:35
can't do it so I want you to appreciate you going to the gym having your health
01:24:41
to being able to do these things don't look at it like take it for granted and it pisses me off that young people take
01:24:48
all the stuff for granted they think that I'm privileged because I have this
01:24:53
success C when you're young you have all those privileges you have your health you have other things that are could be
01:24:58
taken away from you don't take for granted these things in your life that you have that are not going to last
01:25:05
forever think in those terms and think of of how more intense everything around
01:25:10
you becomes when you have that mindset one of the things I think I worry that I take for granted is
01:25:17
my romantic relationship with my partner and you know hearing your story of being
01:25:23
in that car that day it's literally evident that your romantic partner can save your
01:25:29
life she did and um yeah uh you know we've been together for a while I'm not
01:25:36
going to say how many years because she doesn't like hearing that because um so
01:25:41
you know we have a a a deep rich past and it and it's a wonderful thing and
01:25:48
she saved my life and saving someone's life man it really is important it
01:25:53
really means a lot of ch of changes things and in my book that I'm writing now I wrote a chapter on love which is
01:26:01
something I've never written about obviously written about seduction Etc but I've never written about love and I
01:26:06
wrote about the in the incredible the sublime quality that you can have when you allow
01:26:13
yourself to go deeper and deeper and deeper into that falling process where you get rid of your your ego you get rid
01:26:20
of your defenses you get rid of all the resistance and you just let yourself fall fall fall fall fall and you connect
01:26:27
to someone on that deeper deeper level it's as I say it's it's a chapter
01:26:33
on the sublime because it is a very Sublime experience and the reason I wrote it is I feel like people are
01:26:39
missing that now because they're so they don't want to be
01:26:45
vulnerable they don't want any pain and falling for another person and letting
01:26:51
go of your defenses opens you up to pain right and we just want to we don't want to experience that we want to be
01:26:59
invulnerable and it's like cutting off all the richest experiences in life and
01:27:05
so I wrote that chapter addressing that and say let go of your defenses let go
01:27:10
of your resistance let yourself go into that process of falling let feel what it
01:27:16
feels like to have your ego dissolved in the presence of another person and care
01:27:22
more about them than you care about yourself you mentioned a second
01:27:27
ago dark thoughts and dark dreams we all have dark thoughts our
01:27:33
dark thoughts are our own how do you go about dealing with dark thoughts and what are those dark
01:27:39
thoughts that you're able to share well you know um in my dreams I'll be
01:27:48
doing all kinds of weird things uh a lot of times there'll be guilt like like did
01:27:55
I actually murder that person are the police actually after me damn it what's
01:28:00
going to happen what's going to happen to my reputation then I wake up you know so all that kind of stuff happens but
01:28:07
also doubts about myself and depression and about I've I've dealt my whole life
01:28:14
with feelings of like not being very worthy like even doubting My
01:28:21
Success doubting that my work work is any good doubting that I deserve it I
01:28:28
had you know a lot of periods in my life where I I wasn't successful and
01:28:34
um I kind of had it ingrained in me that I could do better I could do better I could do better I wasn't a good parent
01:28:41
to myself I was very tough on myself and a lot of my dark thoughts are I'm still
01:28:46
very tough on myself and it's like you know the other dark thoughts
01:28:53
that I have is I can't do the things that I used to be able to do is life even worth living
01:29:01
when you can't like hike when you can't swim when you can't go out on your bicycle when you can't travel
01:29:09
normally do do I is it really worth it you know maybe maybe death wouldn't be
01:29:16
so bad compared to that I go through that and then I go yeah I talk myself
01:29:22
out of it again and again and again but my dark thoughts are about about myself
01:29:28
and my doubts and about the state of my body as it is right now kind of thing if
01:29:35
I said to you that I had those same doubts about you know if I was if we
01:29:40
were identical in every way and I said Robert I'm having a lot of doubts about I can't go out my bicycle I can't do the
01:29:46
things I used to do I'm wondering if life is worth living and I asked you for advice said I don't know what to do
01:29:51
about the self-doubt I have about these books that I've written and what would you say to me well um I would say um
01:30:00
there's a lot of people we talk a lot in life who [ __ ] their way who say they've accomplished this and the other
01:30:06
and they've never done anything you have a book out there that you can be very proud of that you could die tomorrow and
01:30:14
it's like a momento that we live on forever and you've accomplished that
01:30:19
you've accomplished this stuff with your podcast you've actually made things so
01:30:25
focus on that focus on the fact that so many people never get out of bed and and
01:30:30
amount to anything so you've built things you've accomplished things focus
01:30:36
on that and then about your body well you know when you're dead it's
01:30:44
it's all gone who knows what lot what there is on the other side but just think of of the insanity of what it
01:30:52
means to be alive and that's another chapter in my in my new book the odds
01:30:58
against you Stephen of ever being born are absolutely insane and I describe
01:31:03
those odds in the book and I go through from the very first cells that ever from
01:31:09
Life forming a planet Earth to the evolution leading to us sitting here is
01:31:15
unbelievable so that you are alive is an incredible astounding thing and you have
01:31:20
to think about that and you have to think about just seeing the sky just being aware is
01:31:28
is an amazing thing so I often think about people who are suicidal there are
01:31:35
a lot of people like that in life particularly nowadays and I know because I went through that
01:31:40
period most strongly in my early to mid-30s as I was contemplating the lack
01:31:45
of success in my life um you know and
01:31:50
what kept me going was I still believe that I could accomplish something so even in my darkest moments I managed to
01:31:56
pull myself out but then I I think of people who maybe don't have that energy
01:32:02
who are kind of going down that hole and I know from my own experience
01:32:07
that hearing somebody tell them that life is is incredibly amazing fact won't
01:32:13
have any effect on them right because it's it doesn't connect to them emotionally and I often think how could
01:32:19
I connect to them emotionally how could I make it clear to them that there's something there that that's worth
01:32:26
preserving I don't have the answer here today but I think about that all the time like how would I deal with somebody
01:32:33
who is suicid and I get people writing me like that and we've had I've had relatives in those situations before so
01:32:41
that's something I think a lot about it's it's a difficult question to
01:32:46
answer what you have to say to that person in that situation to get them to believe in the sublime to get them to
01:32:54
believe that there's life is worth living I Ponder
01:33:01
whether what maybe you need to do is to get them to take the first step to create evidence for themselves somehow
01:33:08
whatever that small first step is I think that's great I think that's I think that's spot on that's exactly what you have to do they they have to come to
01:33:14
to the realization themselves and through some action that you get them to
01:33:20
do which makes them gives them a little bit of an ounce of believe in themsel
01:33:25
then the spiral can turn around so I think you're right it has to be come from them and it has to come through
01:33:30
something that they actually do all the talk in the world won't really help them
01:33:36
what that is is something that I you know I would like to think about and it's and it depends on the individual
01:33:43
but that I think that is the way to do it you're writing this book at the moment called the sublime right are you
01:33:48
writing that book because of the situation you found yourself in after having the Str and and
01:33:54
going through that journey of saying why is life worth living and going in search of the sublime that we all
01:34:01
have inherently well to be honest with you about 20 years ago I had the idea for the book I read a book on the
01:34:09
subject and I got excited about it because they were explaining it as it's
01:34:14
a kind of experience that's very hard to verbalize that goes outside of what we
01:34:20
normally experience and I got very excited by the idea and I planned to
01:34:26
write that book and then around after war that was going to be my fourth book
01:34:32
and my agent was getting all prepared to sell it and then I got hooked on 50 Cent
01:34:38
and I did that book instead and I put it on the back burner and then Mastery came up and I got hooked under that and
01:34:45
suddenly it kind of got pushed aside and then in in human nature first of all the
01:34:50
last chapter in the 50 Cent book is on the Sublime it's about death and and
01:34:56
what 50 and facing it then the last chapter in human nature is about the sublime it's about death and
01:35:02
mortality and the irony is that two and a half months after finishing that
01:35:09
chapter in the book I I nearly died but what I had planned originally was I was
01:35:16
going to go to the goby desert and and and walk across the goby desert I was
01:35:21
going to go swim with w Wales you know literally Wales in New Zealand I was
01:35:27
going to go to Tierra del fuo I was going to have all of these Sublime experiences and write about
01:35:33
them and now I can't do any of that right all I can do is sit in my my
01:35:40
little room in my house at my desk and write the book it's all in my
01:35:46
head the book is so much better because of that so it's changed I can't go to
01:35:52
the GOI desert I can't swim with well or I drown I can't go to Tiara Del fuo I
01:35:58
can only sit in my office look at the birds go through the books that I'm reading and write the book keeping in
01:36:05
mind other people and what's going on in the world in their life and my limitations so ironically the book has
01:36:12
become better because I had to go through this experience but nearly dying
01:36:18
was going little bells were going off in my head all right it's time to write that book you're not putting it off any
01:36:23
longer and has it forced you to find the sublime in the everyday life well obviously I mean um
01:36:32
I'm writing right now a chapter on what I call the deont which is an ancient Greek concept
01:36:40
that all of us are born with like a guardian Spirit right I know it sounds very
01:36:46
mystical but a lot of psychologists contemporary psychologists have written about the dayon phenomena theide that
01:36:53
you have a second self a kind of higher self that in some way is guiding you and
01:36:59
it has a lot to do with some of the things we've talked about purpose Etc and I have to think about it I have
01:37:05
to think about it in terms of my own life I have to think about is there something else inside of me that's
01:37:11
communicating to me what does that mean how does that connect with other ideas about the Universe I get to read books
01:37:18
about it it's a very very exciting process it's it's keeping me alive right
01:37:24
now and then you know I write a chapter about animals and what's Sublime about
01:37:29
interspecies communication and now I get to look at my cat I don't look at my cat
01:37:35
or I don't look at the birds the same way as I did before I wrote that chapter so it's changing me and it's Lifting me
01:37:41
out of the kind of people who have strokes we all have to go through terrible diseases all of us
01:37:48
unfortunately unless we die by an accident cancer Etc Strokes
01:37:55
the number one thing that happens is is terrible depression to suddenly lose your body and what you could do and so
01:38:02
this has kept me out of that depression I have to say you said that all of your books have
01:38:08
been kind of focused on different subjects and that's very much the case there's sometimes three lines between the different books but they're all very
01:38:14
much focused on a variety of different subjects if there was a
01:38:20
message that kind of brings all of your work together if this was your last day
01:38:26
on Earth what would the message that you would want to leave the world with
01:38:32
be wow that's a really good question
01:38:39
um a lot of my books have to do with um the reality of
01:38:46
our life and and what not not what we want to believe not our our our fake
01:38:53
ideas about it not our Illusions Etc but what life is really really like this is
01:39:00
the human animal this is how they behave this is what will seduce them this will was what will turn them off this is how
01:39:08
strategies will get us what we want in life this is how you can master your subject not the [ __ ] thing that
01:39:15
people tell you about master where you can take a drug where you can hack your way to Mastery this is the truth this is
01:39:21
the reality so all of books the through line is this is what the world is really
01:39:27
like it's not ugly it's not beautiful it just is and it's great to just relate to
01:39:34
the world as it is to see things as they are it kind of is liberating and in a
01:39:40
way it is kind of beautiful to just connect to the reality and not being inside of your wishes about why can't
01:39:48
people be more like this why can't somebody tell me this why can't they give me this why can't I be successful
01:39:53
blah blah blah blah getting rid of your Illusions and just looking at the way that life is is sort of I guess would be
01:40:00
the through through line of all of my books do you see Life as a bit of a game and is that a healthier way to view Life
01:40:06
a game where we need to learn the rules and then play the game versus fight against um the Injustice of the rules of
01:40:14
the game yeah it's all a game um definitely
01:40:19
uh there was a great um uh man on the left named Saul Alinsky who wrote a book
01:40:26
called Rules for Radicals he was a strategist for Union organizing and he
01:40:33
hated he would hate the world today with people with all of their virtual signaling and everything he said if you
01:40:40
want to change life if you believe that there's Injustice you have to be a strategist it's Warfare you have to
01:40:47
organize you have to understand the rules that will lead to actual change in this world and whenever you enter the
01:40:55
realm of rules and strategy it is like a game you know and so yeah I believe that
01:41:02
I believe people with all their moralistic ideas who think just because they believe something is right that it
01:41:09
that it it it will get get what they want they're just living in it fools you
01:41:16
have to strategize if you don't you're just bullshitting you're just pretend
01:41:21
you're just virtue signaling you want people to see you as a saint if you're not willing to get your hands dirty and
01:41:28
to organize and to say I've got to take this A B C D I have to figure out the
01:41:33
process of getting there then all you're doing is just playing a game of appearances as opposed to the real game
01:41:40
of getting things done in life what is the opposite of that strategy you're talking about so I'm trying to figure out
01:41:46
there the average person that is currently not strategizing in their life
01:41:51
what are they doing well
01:41:56
um you know everybody I guess you could say everybody has a strategy but their
01:42:02
strategies are extremely ineffective their strategies are full of Illusions
01:42:08
so human beings have to strategize because to wake up in the morning and to go I've got to make breakfast you got to
01:42:15
strategize how you're going to cook and what you're going to make and what you're going to do the day and what you're going to wear you know it's human it's Human
01:42:22
Nature it's just people do it very very badly and they do it badly because they're so
01:42:29
emotional now I'm not against emotions and emotions play a huge role and I'm writing a lot about it in my new book
01:42:36
but the ability to get things done you have to be in control of your emotions you have to take a step back and you
01:42:42
have to go I'm not going to react this person is pressuring me
01:42:48
they're saying these things my natural tendency is to react get my back up and
01:42:54
bite back no I'm going to step back and I'm going to go what's going to make
01:42:59
them shut the [ __ ] up what's going to make them get out of my life what's going to make what's going to get rid of them what's going to defeat them if
01:43:07
they're an adversary all right I made that decision not to react to get emotional all right now I have to think
01:43:14
if I do this they're going to react this way but if I surprise them with this angle they won't know what to do and
01:43:20
then they'll they'll react in a different way and I'll be in control of the situation I strategize I go through
01:43:26
a process of of gaming out the possibilities here and that's to be a
01:43:32
strategist the opposite is a book that I meant to write after seduction which is
01:43:37
a book about human stupidity to not be strategic is to be stupid and and PE stupid stupid people
01:43:45
create more damage in this life than anybody else with their bad strategies their bad Wars the bad things they lead
01:43:52
people into to their bad politics Etc so that's the opposite of strategy
01:43:58
stupidity I also heard within there that sort of emotion being emotionally driven is very much it doesn't allow you to
01:44:05
have effective strategies because you'll get caught up in yeah you'll get personal things
01:44:10
personal things and yeah and things that probably don't matter that ability to rise above though I think we all want to
01:44:15
master that I would love to master the ability to rise above in all situations at all
01:44:21
times well you can when you're younger it's harder because because you've got
01:44:26
your hormones you've got all that energy got all that adrenaline it's harder you get older gets a little bit easier do
01:44:32
you have a A system that you use just to detach yourself from the emotion sometimes well I'm not always good at it
01:44:39
um so I've learned to not react emotionally when people say something
01:44:46
that I think is going to be triggering I just don't do anything I go
01:44:52
into my zen mode oh it's just it's just life it's just words it's just verbiage doesn't matter
01:44:58
it doesn't mean anything to me I'm neutral I'm unaffected I'm in my Citadel goodbye fine it's okay if I get angry
01:45:06
and I write that email which I still do I don't send it I put it in my draft box
01:45:13
I look at it a week L what the [ __ ] was I thinking about I'm glad you didn't send that you know you delay your
01:45:19
reactions but mostly I've trained myself and I must say my meditation practic has
01:45:25
helped me to not react when people say things that are so annoying that that get under my skin I just go that's them
01:45:32
it's not me they're another human being they have a bad idea I don't care it's not my bad idea it's their life as you
01:45:40
know whoop are a sponsor of this podcast and I'm an investor in the company and last month I had the chance to sit down
01:45:45
with Kristen Holmes she's a VP of performance at woop and I learned so much from our conversation about circadian rhythms and things like sleep
01:45:52
study show that for every 45 minutes of sleep debt that you acrew that your decision-making ability will drop by up
01:45:58
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01:46:03
the person the fraction of the boss partner friend manager that you can be that's why I'm obsessed with whoop which
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CEO that's join. woop.com CEO and let me know how you get on if you don't like it there's no commitment
01:46:35
join. woop.com CEO earlier you mentioned the opposite of strategy with stupidity so let's talk
01:46:43
about politics it's a really interesting time in politics at the moment I'm really obsessed with us politics in particular
01:46:50
because it's it's more like a reality show over here than um in the UK it's quite boring it is very boring over
01:46:56
there I must admit this year Trump is running for re-election against Biden the country seems to be very divided for
01:47:03
a number of different reasons it feels I don't know I just feel like it's more divided than ever I do feel like the
01:47:08
left has moved further left than ever before to the point that I I struggled to resonate with that side and I still
01:47:14
don't resonate with the the right so I kind of feel a bit trapped what what do you think of everything that's going on
01:47:19
and how does your kind of work in form what's happening and everything in between well U we all
01:47:27
have biases and um I've come from more of the the liberal side the left side uh
01:47:35
I was actually rather extreme when I was younger so I have that bias um so I'm
01:47:41
not really going to be objective so let's get that out of the way right you know I have my emotional reactions my
01:47:49
triggering by what I see but um I'm very
01:47:55
concerned about the overall Spirit the overall Zeitgeist
01:48:01
so I worked as um I know this will sound like I'm going in in a tangent but bear
01:48:07
with me I was on the board of directors of a publicly traded company American
01:48:13
Apparel and I was brought on there because I was friends with the CEO but he thought of me as a strategist because
01:48:19
he loved the 48 Laws of Power and I started Ed seeing that things were kind of going
01:48:25
downhill and I sort of had my finger on what the problem was the problem was our
01:48:33
our demographic was basically young women at the ages 18 to
01:48:38
24 it's a very difficult demographic to deal with because their tastes change
01:48:43
very quickly they're very viral etc etc and so what worked early on with
01:48:50
American Apparel it was sudden slowly becoming a cliche right and it wasn't going to
01:48:55
translate well to a new generation coming up which ended up being gen Z so
01:49:01
I had the idea of like we need to have these Retreats these yearly things where
01:49:06
we step back from the day-to-day business and we think about the brand where we're going how we're going to
01:49:13
adapt we're not going to change it but we're going to adapt etc etc I presented to
01:49:18
CEO no we don't need anyah what I came away with was that the reason businesses
01:49:25
are so awful large businesses why they suck why they're never successful why they're so damn
01:49:30
annoying is because they're always dealing with the quarterly report at least for publicly traded businesses
01:49:36
right they can't have a long-term Vision because they can't afford it they have to deal with what Wall Street will say
01:49:43
to that quarterly report and and you know what what what what the investors are how they're going to react to sit
01:49:50
there and step back and think about where you're going to be in a year or two we might not even exist in a year or two so forget it well politics is the
01:49:57
same thing you've got to win elections you're facing every couple of years
01:50:03
every four years you don't have the luxury of thinking of the larger picture and that's what we're suffering from
01:50:09
right now because if you look at the political situation in
01:50:14
America nobody has any loyalty to anything so in my age when I grew up you
01:50:21
were a Democrat you were a Republican and you had kind of roots and you
01:50:26
believed in that because well the Democratic party was for the working class we were for the unions we were for
01:50:32
the common guy the little guy the FDR mentality even to some extent Kennedy and Johnson the Republicans we were for
01:50:40
big business for lower taxes blah blah blah blah blah blah blah you had a sense of connection to it
01:50:48
now people have no connection at all to any particular party which is fine I don't I don't but what that means is
01:50:55
it's so volatile so somebody will vote for Obama then they'll vote for Trump
01:51:01
then they'll vote for Biden and then they'll vote for Trump again and there are plenty of people in that situation
01:51:07
they have no roots they're not connected to anything and it's not people's fault it's our politics fault they're not
01:51:14
creating a sense of what it means to be an American what is it can you give us a
01:51:22
story a myth about what it means to be an American in 2024 that will connect us
01:51:29
that will kind of give us a sense of what is beautiful about our country because there are beautiful things about
01:51:34
it it's possible it's very possible to create that kind of a vision if you can
01:51:41
step back and you can think in longer term all right maybe it's hard to do that for America but what is it for the
01:51:47
goddamn Democratic party what does it mean to be a Democrat what does it mean to be now to be a Republican it just
01:51:53
means to be a lap dog for Donald Trump to believe everything he does but the Democrats have their own problems their
01:51:59
own issues it doesn't you can't have a party that's just against everything
01:52:04
what are you for I often tell people I'm sick of hearing what you hate I'm sick of hearing what you're against I'm sick
01:52:10
of hearing what you're complaining tell me what you want tell me what you're for tell me your vision of what a great
01:52:17
country would be like but you can't they can't do that because they're only in this bubble of what I hate what I'm
01:52:22
against what I'm trying to protect etc etc so there's got to be a a politician
01:52:29
that rises up at some point that has a vision that's not just a demagogue
01:52:34
that's not just a charismatic that's looking out for themsel they can connect the dots that can say this is what it
01:52:41
means to be in this party this is our vision this is what connects this is the glue yeah they're going to be little
01:52:47
separate parts of it okay but we're the party of the of the work
01:52:52
class right we're the party that's going to protect people protect make life
01:52:58
easier for them or we're the party of business etc etc I don't care what it is
01:53:04
but create a vision a sense of who you are of what it connects to hit people in
01:53:10
their heart in their you see Trump succeeds because he has an emotional
01:53:17
visceral effect on people and he's very good at it the Democrats can't learn that it's all always about a laundry
01:53:24
list of we're going to do a b c d and e we're going to hit the numbers we're going to reduce inflation we're to get
01:53:30
create this amount of jobs Etc it's all in the head it's not in here you've got to create you got to connect to people
01:53:37
viscerally emotionally you have to create a myth that will connect people
01:53:42
even within their disperate little niches and it's possible because to believe it's impossible goes against the
01:53:49
grain of History somebody will emerge I might be dead when it happens who will
01:53:54
go through that some process by that because otherwise everything will fall
01:54:00
apart Robert we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest oh
01:54:05
I remember not I I didn't prepare it's okay I'm sure I'm sure you can come up with one about the sublime maybe I don't
01:54:12
know we'll see the question for you is okay and you're not allowed to say
01:54:20
nothing if you could change one thing from your last 10 years what would it be
01:54:26
and why well um I would have I would have
01:54:33
prevented my stroke um I would have uh realized that I was burning myself out writing the law
01:54:41
of human nature I would have taken it slower I would have realized that my body has limits and I would have uh I
01:54:49
would have been easier on myself and not put myself CU that book was very
01:54:55
stressful and very difficult I would have taken it slower I would have gone in a different
01:55:01
pace and I wouldn't have had my stroke and I'd be so much
01:55:06
happier do you think you could have pre prevented your strike yeah definitely I
01:55:12
mean um it was a weird set of circumstances um but the stress of
01:55:19
writing the human nature kind of ground ground me down and then I had kind of high blood pressure already and then I
01:55:26
took a trip to New York where I forgot my blood pressure medication and then I was hiking in a park and a wasp stung me
01:55:34
here and 5 days later this whole area got inflamed turned red I was itching I
01:55:40
couldn't stand it went to the doctor they prescribed me basically a steroid
01:55:46
which raised my blood pressure to the roof and then when I had the stroke my blood clot was exactly where that wasp
01:55:53
sting was in my neck so if I hadn't worn
01:55:58
myself into the ground if I hadn't forgotten my blood pressure medication if I hadn't if that doctor hadn't
01:56:05
prescribed to me that nasty pronone if I had just been more careful like that I
01:56:11
probably wouldn't have had stroke are you able to forgive that sequence of events and the people
01:56:17
involved yeah I have to I forgiven the WASP you know
01:56:22
that wasp maybe died because of me because I don't know if wasps die when they sting you bees do but I forgiven
01:56:28
the WASP um I've walked past that spot where the wasp stung me and given my
01:56:34
little prayer to it and said I'm sorry about your little life Etc and yeah I've I've forgiven uh I I've gotten over that
01:56:42
and I've made my peace with it you know what it was meant to
01:56:47
happen aor fatti it was my fate and probably probably it happened for a good
01:56:54
reason I mean I'm right now contradicting my answer to that person's question but so was so life
01:57:01
because the way I think about it is I was kind of Reckless with what I thought I could do
01:57:08
and probably if I hadn't had my stroke I probably would have something else bad would have happened because I I didn't
01:57:14
realize my physical limits I probably would have and so I'm alive I have my
01:57:19
brain and I'm writing this next book so it happened for a reason if that bee
01:57:26
wasn't there that day wasp sorry correction if that was no no preas
01:57:32
please if that wasp wasn't there that day and I say this because I've been reading a few books recently about how
01:57:38
throughout human history these tiny little events like the Nagasaki where they dropped the bombs and all of these
01:57:44
tiny little events with a a cloud that flew over a butterfly effect all of the little butterfly effect things is there
01:57:50
anything from the how these tiny seemingly insignificant chance events
01:57:56
can have massive consequences you're going to make me cry cuz what if there was like a little bit of wind and the
01:58:01
WASP didn't come directly in my path yeah I know it's horrifying but is
01:58:09
there anything CU that's the nature of the world we live in we tiny little things that we cannot
01:58:15
predict can determine our lives in huge ways can sway our lives in huge ways is
01:58:21
there any anything that we can do about it no there's nothing you can do about
01:58:26
it you you know it's it's it's Ryan holiday we'll talk to you about it you what you can do is the stoic philosophy
01:58:34
is how you react to it mentally you can't change the physical circumstance
01:58:39
but you can change how you think about it and how you react Robert thank you so much for your
01:58:44
time and your wisdom and I'm so very very excited for your upcoming book because if it's anything like your past
01:58:51
books it's really something worth waiting for and that's nice to hear thank you before we started recording you told me about the process you've
01:58:56
going through You' spent four years writing this upcoming book Sublime so far it's been four and a half and it'll be another year and a half so that'll be
01:59:03
six total years yes pouring I it's so incredibly it's so inspiring to me well
01:59:09
keep this in mind Stephen I can't type so um my I used to be a fast typist
01:59:17
and I can't go up take a hike to clear my head so everything it's not like
01:59:22
double takes like it's like one and a half times more I have to write things
01:59:27
out by hand I have to edit by hand I have to dictate into the computer I have
01:59:32
to edit with one hand I have to clear my mind without hiking so everything takes
01:59:38
one and a half times more that's probably so probably would have been like a four or five year book but as you
01:59:44
said about your cycle when you slow things down sometimes you enjoy them more and you make better things yes I
01:59:49
think you're right and and probably the slower cooking will make a better book exactly right I can't wait I hope
01:59:55
everyone has your existing books cuz they're all um as everyone's witnessed today they're all based
02:00:01
on challenging but important enduring wisdom every single one of them and I
02:00:07
think we need more challenging wisdom in our society these days well thank you so thank you so much Robert you're a real
02:00:12
um you're welcome hero to many thank you so much okay thank you stev thank you for inviting me back
02:00:20
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