Robert Greene: How To Seduce Anyone, Build Confidence & Become Powerful | E232

1. 0:00 – 2:14

   Intro

   1. RGRobert Greene0:00

      Some of the greatest seducers were not good-looking at all.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett0:03

      What are the qualities of a great seducer?

   3. RGRobert Greene0:07

      I'm revealing stuff I shouldn't be revealing. Robert Greene is one of the best-selling authors in history.

   4. NANarrator0:11

      An internationally renowned expert on power strategies.

   5. RGRobert Greene0:15

      He's been referenced in songs by Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Drake. Written six international bestsellers that have become legendary.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett0:21

      Why did you write a book about seduction?

   7. RGRobert Greene0:24

      Seduction is an high form of power. People will do what you want without ever even realizing it. Seduction is a mating ritual. You can't just swipe and get it. But because of all the dating apps, if you are able to understand the language of seduction, you're gonna have so much more power and success than anybody else. One thing about words is people can lie, but body language, it doesn't lie. You master that language, you can start deciphering all the ****** people are giving you. It's about psychology and it's about how you carry yourself. If you feel confident, it will naturally radiate through your gestures.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett0:57

      But what is real confidence and how does one build it?

   9. RGRobert Greene1:00

      The confidence comes from-

   10. SBSteven Bartlett1:02

       We've talked about the topic of power, but in 2018 you had a stroke. In that moment, it sounds like your power had been taken from you.

   11. RGRobert Greene1:10

       The left side of my body is paralyzed and that was not easy. I've gotta find a strategy to deal with all this ****. Please understand that the ability that you have now to run, to walk, to type, it can be taken away from you. It's miserable. Please don't take it for granted.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett1:31

       Before we get into this episode, just wanted to say thank you, first and foremost, for being part of this community. Um, the team here at the Diary of a CEO is now almost 30 people, and that's literally because you watch and you subscribe and you, um, leave comments and you like the videos that th- this show's been able to grow and it's the greatest honor of my life to sit here with these incredible people and just selfishly ask them questions that I'm pondering over or worrying about in my life. But this is just the beginning for the Diary of a CEO. We've got big, big plans to scale this show, um, to every corner of the world and to, to, to diversify our guest selection. And that's enabled by you, by a simple thing that you guys do, which is to watch. So if there's one thing you could do to help this show and to help us continue to do what we do, it's just to hit the subscribe button. If you

2. 2:14 – 11:44

   Your book & its international success

   1. SBSteven Bartlett2:14

      like this show, if you like what we do here, if you watch these episodes, please just hit that subscribe button. Means the world. Let's get on with it. What do I need to know about you and your, your earliest years to, to understand the life that you went on, that journey you went on, and the person you came to be?

   2. RGRobert Greene2:37

      Well, uh, I grew up here in Los Angeles, not far from where we are, in, in a neighborhood called Baldwin Hills, and then we moved to another neighborhood. I had a very nice childhood, very middle-class family. My father was a salesman his whole life, worked for the same company for 40 years, just sold chemical supplies. Um, and you know, my parents kind of left me alone a lot. I was basically... My sister almost kind of raised me in a way. And, and, you know, I had a very nice childhood, kind of left alone, sort of an introvert. Books kind of shaped me. I became an avid reader at an early age. Kno- knew I wanted to be a writer, got heavily into drugs, I'm afraid, in high school, because that's, that was the time and where I went to school and in college, had some great experiences. I look very fondly back even on my drug experiences, even though they got kind of depressing after a while. But it kind of shaped me in, in some ways. And, you know, that was, that was me growing up, you know, and if... and I had a, an attitude or a lens in which I looked at people from a distance. Like, I was always sort of obsessed with... People wore masks in, uh, the way I looked at it, even when I looked at my, my parents and their friends and I said, "What is really going on behind their- the masks that they wear and all the social niceties going on? What is behind... What is really the human animal like?" And so these are kind of the themes that, that, that were a ma- big part of my, me growing up.

   3. SBSteven Bartlett4:14

      From what I read, you had a lot of different jobs in a lot of different industries up until the point when you wrote, um, the first of your many books called The 48 Laws of Power back in 1998. And I was looking at all of these different jobs you'd had, and they all seemed to be completely different from one another. So then trying to understand how you arrived at a moment where you then wrote a book on the topic and subject matter of power, um, having not been, you know, a psychology graduate or seemingly worked in any industry related to, like, human psychology seemed to be really peculiar to me.

   4. RGRobert Greene4:50

      Yeah. And also, I never really had a lot of power up until that point, so it wasn't like I, I knew everything about being a, a leader or anything. Um, you know, a lot of things that happen in life are kind of by coincidence or serendipitous. You don't necessarily plan on it, which is sort of... When you look back on it, you can see a kind of an odd plan going on, like a destiny or fate. But in the moment, I didn't feel that. Um, I had all of these different jobs, as you mentioned, com- some of them completely unrelated. You know, I worked in construction jo- I had a construction job. I worked in a detective agency. I was a tour guide. I helped write an encyclopedia. I taught English in Spain, you know, on and on and on and on and on. But, uh, I was searching... I wanted to be a writer, and a writer needs experiences. I just was hungry for weird experiences. You know, I never really stuck at any one job. And by the time you're 37, 38, you know, my parents are starting to worry about me. I'm starting to worry about me. I'm getting a little bit depressed, even have moments where suicidal thoughts are floating in my brain. Like, I'm very ambitious. I know I could do something well, but it's never come together. And so here's the serendipity part. I'm in Italy for a job, one of my 80 different jobs, and I meet a man who's a book packager there on this particular job we're on, and he's, he's a Dutchman, I'm not gonna imitate him, but he asked me if I had any ideas for a book.And suddenly, all of the painful experiences in my life working in Hollywood, all the assholes I've worked for, all these weird politicking, all the manipulative games, all the crap that I had seen, it just came, like, almost vomiting out of me, and I said, you know, "Here we are, it's the 20s..." Well, this was 1990, it was in (laughs) the 20th century back then. Here we are in the late-20th century, and people don't dress like they did in the days of Machiavelli, right? They don't wear wigs and stuff, but it's the same damn thing. It's the same bloody battles going on, the same manipulations, the same kind of w- you know, people a- don't reveal who they are. And it's a timeless game of power, just the same as Louis XIV, or Cesare Borgia, or the people, the CEOs in the late-20th century. It's this tou- this timeless thing. And I, as I'm telling him this, his eyes are lighting, and he goes, "Wow, this could be, this could really be a book." And you know, he said, "Look, Robert, I'll pay you to live while you write half the book, and then we'll sell it." And as I told you before, I was desperate. It was my get rich or die trying moment. I went back to Los Angeles. I borrowed money from my parents, 'cause I was that poor. And I wrote a treatment, and he loved it, and then the rest is history. That's sort of my long-winded answer to your question. (laughs)

   5. SBSteven Bartlett7:43

      That's so interesting. It's crazy how in life things can just take such a turn-

   6. RGRobert Greene7:51

      Yeah.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett7:51

      ... out of nothing, and you never know what that thing is gonna be. And I mean, you say the rest is history there. Give me an idea of the success of that book, The 48 Laws of Power, because I mean, I've seen it everywhere for, for as long as I've been looking at books. So, what's the, give me some, quantify the global success of that book.

   8. RGRobert Greene8:09

      Quantify?

   9. SBSteven Bartlett8:10

      Yeah.

   10. RGRobert Greene8:11

       Well, here in the US, it's, it's sold, uh, quite a bit over two million copies, which is great. The weird thing is, it's selling now more than it ever has sold before. In other words, the, the percentage of books that we're selling here in 2023 is greater than any period before. So it's accelerating, which is insane, you know? And even my English publisher's having the same, uh, is telling me the same stuff. So it's kind of accumulated. It, it started off a little bit slowly. I mean, we got press, but it became this kind of cult thing. I've had very little, um, publicity in mainstream media, which was big back then. It's not big anymore, thank God. But, um, it was word of mouth. It's like, "Have you heard about this book? It's kind of dark," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It got on a few television shows. There was this show, a reality show with boxers, I think it was called The Contender, in which the finalist held up a copy of the book and said, "This book helped me get to where I am now." And it sold like crazy. It got into the hip-hop stream, you know? Jay-Z was the first person I ever saw quoting the book in, in, in print, in a Playboy interview. And then, you know, 50 Cent and all that, and Drake and all these people. That really kind of sent it into the stratosphere. So it's, it's slowly become a bigger and bigger thing. And, um, I had no idea, you know? I thought it was a weird book and it could be successful, but I had no idea the journey I was about to begin. It's, it's, it's weird.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett9:45

       That journey of writing this book, has your, ha-have your feelings towards the book evolved or changed over time? Because society moves on, you move on as an individual, as a human. You learn new things, you mature, and then the book is kind of held in time.

   12. RGRobert Greene9:59

       Not really. Um, I, I, uh, my philosophy in life is, is never look back, regret nothing. You know, it's, it's there, I did it. It came in a particular moment in my life and in, and in the zeitgeist, and things have changed a little bit. But I was, it was a very serious effort to, to try and get at something timeless. Now, yes, there's a dark side to it, and maybe I've moved on from that. And I di- honestly, when I wrote my fourth book, Mastery, I was a little bit concerned that young people, uh, were getting too... were thinking that ev- the whole game of life is about politics manipulation. So I wrote a book to kind of, um, counter that. But I, uh, I think the book is, is true and it's held up. I think if I look at business, what's going on in the business world, I kind of got, f- uh, uh, I think I hit it on the nail about what goes on, and the dynamics, and the power game. You know, I wrote a book on human nature, and the idea is we were formed hundreds of thousands of years ago in particular circumstances. Our brains is, are wired a certain way. Yes, we're very sophisticated. Yes, we have the internet. Yes, I'm here being interviewed by you on a podcast. It's pretty insane. But we haven't fundamentally changed. The same raw emotions of envy, of aggression, of, of, you know, st- worrying about our status, about having to disguise ourselves and appear like we're saintly and loving, that we don't have a shadow, which we all have, none of that has changed. So yeah, I wouldn't write that book now, because my- I'm at a different place in life, and, and I understand

3. 11:44 – 22:18

   What is power?

   1. RGRobert Greene11:44

      that. But I have, I don't, I'm not ashamed of it in any way. I stand by it, and I think I hit at something real.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett11:50

      What is, in your, your definition, what is power? Uh, you know, I was really compelled when you're talking about the evolution- evolutionary roots of power. But like, at its essence, what is power?

   3. RGRobert Greene12:01

      It's not what you think it is. It's not, you know, Vladimir Putin, or presidents, or Biden, or all these political figures, and these big games. Power is a feeling, it's an essence, it's an emotion. It's a, it's a human need and desire. And really what power is, is a sense of understanding yourself, and, and being able to control yourself. So the way I look at it...I like to look at it, not through the lens of great power politics, but at a, as an average, everyday human being here in the United States or in England. The feeling that you have with your children, with your spouse, with your, uh, colleagues, uh, the people who work for you, the sense that you have no control, that you can't influence them with your ideas, that you can't get them to maybe, you know, soften some of their ugly behavior if they, if they have that, that you can't get them interested into helping you with a project or whatever, is the most miserable feeling a human being can have. Malcolm X had a quote that I love which is, "Absolute power corrupts, but absolute powerless corrupts even more." Um, I'm butchering it, but (laughs) that was the gist of it. The feeling of powerlessness is actually more corrupting than the feeling of having a lot of power. You, it t- makes, it turns people into being passive-aggressive, into playing all kinds of weird games, negative games to get power. You want to feel that you have a degree of control over events in your life, over people, over your future, and that, to me, is what p- power is, right? And so some of that involves these games that I, I mention in there, and some of it goes beyond The 48 Laws of Power, which I've tried to indicate in my other books, but it's, uh, the sense that I'm not helpless in this world. I remember when I first entered the work world as a very naive college graduate with all these ideals and s- things I'd read, 'cause I was studying literature and languages. Going, "Man, this is weird. People are playing all these kinda games. I'm in over my head." I made mistakes, I got fired for being, you know, too brash, for t- for outshining the master. It was painful, right? And so learning you don't have to abuse the laws of power. I don't advocate crushing your enemy totally. I hope I don't have any enemies ever that I need to crush ever. You just need to know these things so that when you enter the work world you're not naive, you're not stupid, you don't make the same kind of mistakes that I made, you spare yourself the pain, you understand the most fundamental thing about human nature. People have egos. Even your boss has an ego. You think he, he or she doesn't because they're powerful? They ha- they're even more insecure than other people. You need to be aware of these things so that you don't inadvertently make them feel insecure and suffer the consequences. So, um, that's, I don't know, that's sort of my idea of power that I was trying to describe there.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett15:14

      The way you describe it is more of a sort of intrinsic, um, force, perception of yourself. When people think of power, they think of having control over others, or their influence over others, but you've kind of made it more of a internal force.

   5. RGRobert Greene15:30

      Yeah. Well, if you can't control yourself, then you're in a lot of trouble in this world, right? Because when you just naturally are yourself doing things, you're gonna offend people. You learn early on we're social animals. I have to tailor my behavior, you know? If you go on babbling about, all about how you feel and think, et cetera, and you just say what's the first thing on your mind, you're gonna end up having a very, very short career. You're gonna be saying things that are gonna offend people. You're gonna be making a fool of your good self. You're gonna be saying things that you end up regretting, right? S- you have no self-control, and if you see somebody who has no self-control, it makes them, it makes you look like you're not powerful. If you can't control yourself, how can you control anything in your environment? How can you be a leader, right? So, you have to learn certain things about, about your nature, about who you are, and, and not just, just be anybody. You have to kind of tailor your appearances as well because, for good or for bad, I, I'm a believer in looking at the human animal without shame and embarrassment, just as we are, right? And appearances matter. It's the animal part of our nature. We, we are, we look at, and we'd look, we judge people by how they, how they, uh, they appear, how they dress, h- their tone of voice, their body language, et cetera, et cetera. It would be, in an ideal world, we wouldn't judge people by appearances. We would just judge them by what's inside of them. Yes, I agree with that. But that we're not ideal, we're not descended from angels, we're descended from primates. So, you have to understand that appearances matter, and this is part o- o- o- of the game, and so you have to control your appearances a little bit. You have to tailor it. You have to be a bit of actor in this world, on and on and on. You know, these are things that people don't like to admit about ourselves. We like to think that we ha- we're much more, h- much more idealistic, that we're, that these things really don't matter in the end. And I wish it were that way, but it's not, and so, um, I'm a bit more of a realist when it comes to things like that, but yeah.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett17:44

      Uh, as you were talking about this need to keep up appearances to some degree in order to survive and to fit into the, the tribes that we form in our lives, it made me think about how many guests I've had on this podcast who work in maybe the e- the entertainment industry or other industries-

   7. RGRobert Greene18:00

      Yeah.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett18:01

      ... you know, they're, they're famous, whatever, and they report that keeping up appearances had a really detrimental impact on their happiness and their fulfillment in life, because in some cases, they, you know, it meant that they were doing a job as a presenter and had to always be happy, when inside they didn't feel that. And maybe the contrast of reality and, um, and perception caused them a lot of harm, or they've built a life around things that they're not interested in. I think you t- you touched on some of that in Mastery.

   9. RGRobert Greene18:27

      Yeah.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett18:28

       Um, that's the, that's the question I have, which is-

   11. RGRobert Greene18:30

       Yeah.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett18:30

       ... keeping up appearances and the impact that that has on your happiness, are you wearing a mask?

   13. RGRobert Greene18:34

       Mm-hmm.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett18:35

       Um...

   15. NANarrator18:35

       ... and happiness. What's the relationship?

   16. RGRobert Greene18:39

       I talk about it in The 48 Laws of Power where you have to play this, this game in life. It's a kind, to me, it's a form of wisdom, which is, it's a wisdom that used to exist, like, in the 18th century. I read a book that had a big impact on me, uh, many years ago called The Fall of Public Man by Richard Sennett, in which he described, like, cafe life in London in the 18th century, or France, and he was saying back then, when you entered the public arena or your cafe, you knew you were an actor. You left the house, you put on a mask, and you had fun. You know? You knew it was, like, fun. It was play. You know, when you're a child, you like playing games, you like putting on costumes, you like playing your parents or some character you saw on TV. It's part of human nature. We like to play these games. We're role-players. We're actors. And he was saying in the 18th century, that was just a given in life, that when you entered the public realm, you knew you were an actor, and then when you went home to your wife, your family, or your husband or wherever, you drop the mask, you went, you breathe a deep sigh of relief going, "Now I can be who I am." Right? And, and it wasn't a problem. It didn't create neuroses. It didn't create this, like, "What's wrong with me? I'm, I, I don't know who I am anymore." So people now, the problem now is we don't have distance from that social realm, and so we think that if we're acting, that's who we are. Well, it's not. It's just, that's part of being a social animal is playing a role. You know, I did a book with 50 Cent, and he kind of exemplifies a lot of that. He plays a role in life. You know, when I met him, I, I thought, "Uh-oh." I was kind of intimidated. I was a little bit afraid. You know, the thug. This is a guy who, when I met him, he was, you know, just a few years away from being shot and all this stuff. And I met him, and he was the nicest person in the world. He was almost kind of sweet. He'd hate it if I said that word, but he was sweet, right? He was very down-to-earth, he was very calm, et cetera. He's playing a role when he goes out and he plays that person, and he knows it. He knows it. It's like, he doesn't take it seriously, you know? He had this big beef with Kanye West back when I was doing the, the, the, the book with him, and then I met the two of them in Vegas when they were there for the awards, and they were like the best of friends. They were joking. It was just a game they were playing, right? So what I tell people is, "We all are actors. Humans are born actors. We learn at a very early age to play that kind of game." It's kind of fun sometimes to do that, you know? Have a, enjoy that part of life, but don't think that it, don't get it confused with who you are in your essence. That's sort of the dance you're playing between those two things. I understand what you're saying, and a lot of it has to do, as you said, related to mastery, where people end up in a career that doesn't suit them. And I look, I, I, I, I think I understand what you're getting at when I look at, like, presenters or people in the news, and they, and they have to f- smile and be so cheerful. I go, "Man, what a drag. I'd hate to be like that." You know? That is so false. Don't you feel, kind of, don't you want to take a shower after you, being so cheerful and chatty and all that shit? You know, yeah, I understand that. But if, if that's the profession you chose and y- you love it, then maybe you don't feel that way. I couldn't do it, personally, but, you know, I think, I think it's

4. 22:18 – 24:53

   Learn how to use your enemies

   1. RGRobert Greene22:18

      okay to think of yourself as an actor. I don't think there's anything wrong about that.

   2. NANarrator22:23

      Um, the second very curious law in your book that I uncovered was, was law number two. I'm talking about The 48 Laws of Power here, where it says, "Never trust friends too much. Learn how to use enemies."

   3. RGRobert Greene22:34

      Yeah.

   4. NANarrator22:35

      Do you trust your friends?

   5. RGRobert Greene22:38

      Okay. Well, the th- everything in the book is context, so when you take things out of context, it's a little harder to understand, and what I'm trying to say in that, I'm talking about in the work world, when you're out in the social realm, and one of the worst things that people do is, you have a job, and I've been guilty of it myself even after I wrote the damn book. You're out in the work world, and you need to hire somebody, you need to find a colleague, you need to find some, a partner or an employee. Your mind naturally gravitates towards a friend, right? Because they know you, you trust them, you have a relationship, you know, and you feel comfortable with them, and it's a terrible mistake. So many of the worst things that have happened in history are because of that very problem, because friends is, there's all these emotions involved between people, right? And those emotions confuse the issue. So what I'm talking about in that law is when you need to get results, you need to think, when you have a job or something, you have to think in practical terms, not in terms of emotions, not in terms of friendship, et cetera, et cetera. So you want to keep your work world separate. It's not everything about life is having to be friends and having nice things and everybody like you. Sometimes what matters is getting results done, and sometimes the best person to work with isn't your friend because they don't have all this other stuff that we're talking about. In fact, a very powerful move is if there's an enemy out there, somebody who you never got along with, if you s- say, if you approach them and say, "Let's bury the hatchet. You know? I have a job, and I'd really like you to work with me. I know you're really smart." That per- the, the turnaround of emotions is a very powerful thing, where they're going, "Wow. Yeah. Sure. That's, that's great. I never expected that." And they're o- they're highly motivated to now prove that they're worthy of, of your, of your change of mind.So, it's not about not trusting your friends in the realm of friendship and personal relationships,

5. 24:53 – 33:42

   Conceal your intentions & be a strategist

   1. RGRobert Greene24:53

      it's about being aware that the work world is different from the realm of personal relationships.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett24:59

      The other point I, I found really curious was, was ch-, put point three about concealing your intentions and-

   3. RGRobert Greene25:04

      Yeah.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett25:05

      ... I, I find this curious because I've never really known where to land on this when people ask me for advice on the subject matter about how much of your hand should you show, whether it's in business or life or whatever. There's a, there's a group of people that think you should always just keep everything you're doing and your intentions totally secret, because then people might copy you or they'll attack you or whatever. And then there's another school of thought that says when you're building something, when you're doing something, when you have a mission, you need to share it with as many people as possible because that will galvanize people to, to come along with the journey with you and they'll want to support you and help you. So, when I read, um, point number three about concealing your intentions, I wanted to, to ask you about what, what you think about that, which side do you land on?

   5. RGRobert Greene25:46

      Well, everything depends on the circumstances. So, the laws are never meant to apply to every situation, right? So, when it's with your own team and you're trying to inspire them and you're trying to give them a vision, you try to get them on your side, yeah, you share your vision with them. You share, "This is where the group is going. This is where I want things to be in three years. Let's all get together. We're trying to do something very positive for the world. Okay, here we... Here's my plan." Right? But then there's circumstances where revealing everything that wh- you... about what you're planning to do is actually very counterproductive, right? So, the business world in the 21st century is extremely competitive. It's getting worse and worse by the day as more and more people now are entering the power arena, and I think it's a great thing, where it used to be just a realm where only older white men had power and now it's, the doors have opened to everyone. The com- comp- level of competition is that much more intense, particularly now even with the internet. You have rivals out there. You have competitors out there. Even as we talk right now, maybe you're not thinking about them but they are. They're, they're m- going to steal your ideas, they're looking to take your business away from you, et cetera, et cetera. Just be aware of that phenomenon and just always saying what you're planning on doing isn't always the wisest thing to do. Sometimes if you're in a tricky situation, making, putting people off the scent, giving them a red herring and saying, "I'm planning to do this," when in fact you're planning to do that, it's a very powerful technique. It's deception, but all's fair in love, in war and business, I'm, I'm afraid. So, you know, there are moments where you don't want to lay all your cards out on the table, right? You want to either create an, a little bit of mystery so that people don't know what you're going to do next and they're wondering what you're going to do next, and as they're wondering what you're going to do next they're kind of on their heels a little bit. "What's the next thing that, that, that Steven is planning? I don't really know. Wow." You know, it makes... I- i- it's a very powerful approach. There are other times and other experiences and moments in life where you do want to reveal what you're planning to do because there's a purpose behind it. I'm just saying, be aware. Don't just act in this world, be aware, have a strategic mindset. Sometimes concealing is what you need to do, sometimes not concealing is what you need to do.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett28:16

      It's funny, when we have this conversation about power and the darkness and the shadows that people have in them, I think a lot of people listening, and probably it seems that way because I'm the one asking the questions, as if I'm questioning society that I'm not part of, um, they'll think they d- they might think they don't play these games, right? They might, you know... So that's the question I have is, like, have you ever encountered anybody, do you believe there's anybody out there that doesn't play power games, manipulation, have shadows, have darkness in them?

   7. RGRobert Greene28:45

      No, I don't. But, um... So in my war book, uh, I, I read the biography of Mahatma Gandhi, one of the saintliest figures in history, right? And I realized that Mahatma Gandhi was actually a brilliant strategist and I'm not saying his use of non-violence and civil disobedience didn't come from the heart. He didn't mean it. He wasn't actually... He didn't actually believe in the peaceful method. He did, he was very sincere, but he was very strategic about it and he planned a campaign, several campaigns like the Salt March in the '20s where he knew, for instance, that the English public was very liberal-minded. They had this ideal of themselves as being this very... They weren't colonialists, they weren't imperialists, they were doing the best for the world. And he deliberately had these marches where he knew that, that they're on... and they would be reading in their newspaper and seeing photographs of Indian people being beaten up by Englishmen and, and their Indian officers on the streets of wherever. It would have a terrible impact on the public. He thought in terms of strategy. Okay, so there's Gandhi, then there's Martin Luther King who's somebody I wrote about a lot in The Laws of Human Nature, another great icon whom I admire who actually was inspired by Gandhi and had campaigns of civil disobedience, and there was a campaign, I believe it was in Montgomery or Selma, I can't which... remember which one, where, um, he was getting fed up. They weren't getting very far. The Civil Rights Movement, they were reaching a stalemate and he was getting very frustrated, and, um, somebody, uh, an advisor came to him and said, "Look, we're going to have this m- massive march in... and I, I can get a lot of elementary school and junior high school students to be on this march because they believe in you and they're very fervent, and I think it would be great." And his advisor goes...... that? You can't have, put 13-year-olds at risk." And Lo- Martin Luther King thought about it for ages and he said, "No, we're gonna go ahead and do it, because damn it, I want the American public sitting in there all fat and watching their televisions to see these brutal..." You know, Bull Connor, the police chief then. "I wanna see these children being water-hosed and beaten, and it's gonna have an incredible impact." He was being strategic and his advisers were shocked by it, but it ended up proving to be one of the most pivotal, important moments in the civil rights movement. So, here you have Gandhi and Martin Luther King. I'm never ... And Martin Luther King was a flawed individual, as we know, right? He had a private life that wasn't exactly in the pub- the same as his public life. I don't judge him for that because he was a brilliant man and, and I admire him. I love him deeply. Reading his biography made me even admire him even more, seeing that he had a human, flawed side to him. But these are icons that we set up, and they reveal what I'm talking about in human nature. You can't escape it. Yeah, maybe there was some saint born in some century that I've never heard of that maybe got pretty far away from everything I've talked about, but you n- you know, we all have this idea, like, in The Laws of Human Nature, I write about irrationality, envy, aggression. People go... Or narcissism. Narcissism is a good one. "Oh, they're a narcissist. W- I'm not a narcissist. I'm not self-absorbed, but they are. Yeah, yeah. I don't have any of those traits." Well, damn it, every single human being has self-absorption traits. We can't help it. We naturally think of ourselves first. Yes, there are people who are much deeper narcissists in life, no doubt, and there are toxic narcissists, but we all have a touch of it. I want you to be a little more humble in this world and not be so arrogant and not think that you are somehow exempt from having a dark side, that somehow you were born with a halo over your head, that you were born different, you don't have human nature, that you're a saintly person, you're much better. Get rid of your moral superiority 'cause I find that deeply offensive. We are all cut from the same cloth. We all have the same flaws, and when you look at yourself, and when I wrote The Laws of Human Nature, I'm going, "Damn it, Robert. You're, you have a dark side. You're a narcissist." You know, I had to come to terms with my irrationality, my grandiosity, my aggressive i- instincts. But it's the only way to change yourself, is to be aware that you have these issues. I have the narcissistic tendencies. Now I see it, all right? Now when they pop up, pop up, I can control it better. I can say, "Damn, Robert, you're being too self-absorbed here. Think more about the other person." But if you go around in life thinking, "I don't have any of these

6. 33:42 – 42:10

   Is it being a narcissist good or bad?

   1. RGRobert Greene33:42

      problems. I'm not a narcissist," you're never gonna have the awareness to stop the fact that you are actually one.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett33:49

      Being a narcissist, is that objectively a good or a bad thing? Because when you were, when you were s- obviously, I know people are having a, says it's a bad thing. It's a ... Narcissists cause a lot of harm, and that's very true. But in the context of the human animal and why the human animal develops certain attributes and qualities to ha- to, you know, maybe further its survival or its ability to stay within the social pact, is it just a consequence of being a human to have these, like, shadow traits and to be coercive and mini- mini- manipulative? Is it good or is it bad? Or is it neither?

   3. RGRobert Greene34:21

      It's neither. Neither. Um, because it just is, right? Um, so, with narcissism, for instance, um, there's a reason why we're narcissists. So, I explain in the book, it's not my own theory, it comes from some great psychologists like Kohut, the origins of narcissism, right? So, when your ... have to leave you, when your parents have to kind of, not abandon you but have to not give you as much attention as you used to have, when you're three years old or four years old, you don't remember it but it was very painful. Like, "Oh, they don't love me as much. What's wrong with me," right? You know? "I have to get that love and attention not just naturally. I have to do things to earn it," et cetera, et cetera. And what happens with a lot of people in that situation when you're a child is, "I have to develop my own ... I have to be my own mother or father. I have to find a way of loving myself. When something bad happens, I have to retreat inward and go, 'I'm really not so bad at all. I'm actually a decent person. I like my own tastes. I like the clothes that I wear,' et cetera, et cetera." You're developing the shreds of self-esteem, right? And people who never develop that because they were abused or they were abandoned or even if they were suffocated never develop that self-esteem. And so, what happens in life is, whenever y- if you don't develop that and you get older, and people attack you and yell at you or criticize you, you can't retreat inward to that self-esteem, that love you have. The only thing you know is to get angry, to get the, they call it narcissistic rage, and to yell at people and say, "God, get away from me. You're, you're evil," et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, right? And then the other problems evolve where the only way ... I don't have that inner self-esteem. The only way I can get people to love me is by being incredibly dramatic and overly dramatic, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and always making myself the center of attention. That's what creates a deep narcissist. That's their only way of, to getting the love that they need. So, children, we all need that degree of self-esteem, that anchor in our life. So, narcissism, self-love is not a bad thing, but what happens is as you get older-... if you go too deep into it, it becomes a problem. And so what I say is, you need to take that self-love and it's, uh, it has a good function, and turn it outward slow- as, as much as you can, and turn it into empathy, and love, and consideration for other people more. That's your task as you get older in life. That's how I approach all of these flaws. You can't run away from them. You can't run away from your shadow, your dark side. You can make it work for you. You can make it positive and productive and healthy. You can become a healthy narcissist, which is a s- a name that I use in the book. You can use your dark side for positive purposes. Let's say you have a lot of anger in your s- in- inside, and I had a lot of anger when I was younger. I was a very angry young man, right? Channel that into some kind of cause, like, and you know, and I, and that I have a lot of causes that I believe in very deeply. And when I was younger, I was like that. Channel that ener- energy into something productive and helpful, and put it into something that c- it goes to something that helps society. That's using your dark side for positive purposes, because the dark side of human nature has a lot of creativity, has a lot of energy. An artist has to have a dark side. You use your dark side because all those dark emotions, all the people that shat on you in your life, they inspire you. They create your best work. Don't run away from your shadow. Don't run away from your narcissism. Use it in a, in a healthy way.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett38:24

      And acknowledge it.

   5. RGRobert Greene38:25

      Yeah.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett38:25

      I think that's the hardest thing for people to do, right?

   7. RGRobert Greene38:27

      Yeah.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett38:28

      S- so few people, I think, including myself, like, have really fully understood what their, their shadow and their dark side is. I mean, doing this podcast has really helped me because I learn things from other people vicariously, and then I look at, reflect on myself. Or keeping a diary has helped me to understand that. But that first step in someone having the self-awareness to understand their dark side. I mean, there's even a lot of people who confronting their dark side would be so ... it feels like it would be so impactful in their self-esteem in a negative sense that they spend their life putting up a wall to never go there.

   9. RGRobert Greene38:59

      Yeah.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett38:59

       I mean, there's some people who you even mention something to them and they would-

   11. RGRobert Greene39:03

       Triggers.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett39:04

       ... triggers them.

   13. RGRobert Greene39:04

       Yeah.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett39:05

       You know? We can all think of those people. Um, we can all think of those people. The, the really interesting thing there is the role that your early years play on your relationship with power, because when I think about some of the nicest ... I don't know if this is just a general, uh, uh, stereotype or, or narrow observation I've had, but some of the nicest people I've met in terms of, you know, being the opposite of whatever an, a toxic narcissist is seem to have really comfortable, loving, secure, safe early experiences. And then, is that, is that broadly true in your view? Or not?

   15. RGRobert Greene39:45

       It's a generalization, but there is, is some truth to it. I mean, there's things they call attachment theories, where psychologists have looked at the kind of attachment you had to your parents and they categorize it in four different ways. And there's the ideal, the best one, where you have this incredibly loving mother and father and they n- they're, they're giving you unconditional love, but they know also how to give you your independence, et cetera. That's not terribly common. I don't know what the percentage would be. Then there's levels and levels and as you get to the fourth level, it's like the abandonment one, where ... or, or abusive and abandonment, where you basically leave the child alone. You don't give it any attention, any love, and it's very crippling, right? But the thing is, children are much stronger than we think they are. They're very resilient. They're very resourceful. They're gonna find their love. They're gonna find a way to compensate for it in some way. And what's something very interesting when I was doing Seduction and some of my other books, and I look at people who were, like, very charismatic, like a Malcolm X, like a Marilyn Monroe, I could go on and on and on, these are people that came from very, very bad families, right? They had no love. Marilyn Monroe was an, was an orphan essentially, raised in an orphanage, you know? Her whole life was, "I gotta get people to love me. I need love so desperately." And her way of doing it was to literally make love with the camera. Nobody ever done that before. You could sense that she needed it, and it was so powerful that you sensed it, that she drew it to herself. Great charismatic individuals. John F. Kennedy is someone who had a lot of charisma. He came from a very bad childhood, right? His father was very mean to him, et cetera. Some children, in the worst circumstances, it ends up bringing the best out of them. They have to find their way in life. And some people who have everything don't go very far because they don't know how to find things for themselves. So life is weird.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett41:58

       Mm-hmm.

   17. RGRobert Greene41:58

       Some people who have great childhoods do well, some people who have great childhoods are spoiled and never learn how to get things on their own, and some people who have the shittiest childhoods learn how to be resourceful and,

7. 42:10 – 45:24

   The power of seduction

   1. RGRobert Greene42:10

      and, and, and, and get what they need on their own.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett42:14

      You mentioned seduction there, the art of seduction. Why did you write a book about the topic of sed- seduction?

   3. RGRobert Greene42:21

      Seduction is an ex- high form of power because you make people feel pleasure. You make them feel excited or interested in you, and then their, their resistance to your ideas slowly lowers, and you have the ability to influence them and to move them in the direction that you want. If you yell at them, like how we were talking about your child, and you tell them, "Do this, do that," they re- they resent it, and for good reason. But if you're subtler, if you're more seductive in your approach, if you're more indirect-... people will do what you want or go, or go in your direction without ever even realizing it, so it was a sub-theme in The 48 Laws of Power. And so, I was sort of interested in the psychology of that and why some people are good at it and some people are awkward about it. So, when I finished The, uh, 48 Laws of Power, I thought this would be a natural segue, the next book.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett43:15

      What are the qualities of a great seducer?

   5. RGRobert Greene43:21

      Well, I like to distinguish between cold seducers and h- warm seducers. A cold seducer is something you don't want to be. That's the typical image that we might have of a male seducer, but even of a female seducer, like the great courtesans, et cetera, where they're just after money or the men are just after sex. That's not my ideal. My ideal is kind of a back and forth quality where it's not domination, it's sort of like a game that you're playing, it's like a mating game, it's like a courtship ritual where both part- people are kind of seducing each other. And so, what makes for a great seducer is very simple, I can summarize it very simply, you are outer-directed. So, when you meet somebody for the first time, or you're on a date, or whatever it is, you're not having that internal monologue going, "Does she like me or does he like me? Am I dressed well? Am I saying stupid things? What can I do to impress them?" No. You turn it off and you're outer-directed, and you're listening to them, and you're entering their spirit, and you're hearing them say things that, that give you an idea of what they're missing in life, of what they want, of what their needs are, of what makes them an individual. You're absorbing it, you're entering into their spirit, and then you can reflect it back to them. You can give them gifts, you can take them to places that show that you're attentive to them. Because if you look at how we are in our day-to-day life, normally people never pay us attention. They're always so self-absorbed, they're never thinking about us. They're, you, there aren't many, the times where you get the sense that people are actually interested in who you are as an individual is pretty rare. If you give that feeling to someone, it's incredibly powerful because we all wanna be validated, we all wanna be recognized. So, what the seducer is not someone who's all worried about hims- him or herself and thinking, they're involved

8. 45:24 – 51:18

   What makes you anti-seductive?

   1. RGRobert Greene45:24

      in the other person, they're absorbed like a sponge inside their psychology, inside their world.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett45:31

      A lot of this is, you know, very applicable to romance and dating, et cetera, et cetera. It feels, for whatever reason, I, you know, not necessarily something I've read much about in your work, but it feels like dating, and romance, and relationships have become much more complicated in the modern world. That it's be- it's become much more difficult to seduce somebody. Um, what is the, what are the attributes of someone then that is not good at seducing?

   3. RGRobert Greene45:58

      Anti-seducer has many qualities. I have a whole chapter on the anti-seducer, I try and define it. Uh, there, there's several of them, I can't, I don't have them all memorized, but one quality that's very anti-seductive is preaching and moralizing, is like telling people, "Oh, that's wrong what you just said." Or, "Your politics are ugly." Or, "You're not a really, you're not really good at this." Or something or other. F- having a moral superiority, a sense of sanctimonious, sanctimony in a realm which should be about pleasure, where it should be that kind of equality, that kind of dyna- back and forth dynamic where you're asserting your moral superiority is deeply, deeply anti-seductive, the element of preaching to people. Not being generous, and I mean not just with money, money is important, but not just being generous with your spirit, right? You wanna be open, you wanna give as much as you can to the other person of yourself, of your time, of your money, of your energy, et cetera. So, being all kind of crimped and, "I don't wanna give. I don't wanna spend money. I wanna take you to the cheap place to eat. I don't wanna give you much time." Is very, very anti-seductive.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett47:14

      When you were talking a second ago about the person who goes on the date and they're thinking about themselves and what they, you know, what their hair looks like or whatever else, that spoke to an insecure person. Is insecurity a seductive quality or is it a anti-seductive quality?

   5. RGRobert Greene47:34

      It is anti-seductive. Now, there is a part of weakness that is seductive, so I would say vulnerability is seductive, but insecurity is anti-seductive, and there's a big difference.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett47:47

      W- why does vulnerability draw people to you?

   7. RGRobert Greene47:50

      Because the sense ... So, if I can define seduction in, in, in, in simple terms, um, most of the time we are closed to the influence of other people, particularly now. We have these walls up because life is harsh, people are coming at us with their advertisements, with their pleas, with their wanting money, with this, that, and the other, and we've all learned to be very defensive, right? And seduction is an openness, is the opposite of that. And you felt it when you were a child towards your parents, you felt very vulnerable and open and, and there was an element of your parents and how they treated you that was very much like a seduction, right? So, seduction is about being open to the other person to the extent where you can even fall in love, you can fall under their spell. And this sense of letting go of your ego, letting go of your defensiveness, and letting other, another person enter your world is b- being seduced. It requires vulnerability. If you meet ... The typical, um, scenario is of a man...... who's not vulnerable at all, he's so powerful and in control and everything, has no vulnerabilities, it's frightening. You know, for a woman, it could be very frightening. Like, this, he's s- he's so strong, he's so invulnerable that there's something wrong about it. You know, maybe he's a serial killer, maybe he's got skeletons in his closet. Something isn't right about that. What, what seduces you about a puppy, about a child, about an animal, is their vulnerability. It makes you want to hug them, it makes you want to help them, right? The sense, which if you came upon a, a tiger that's there and they don't need that, well, that's not seductive.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett49:38

      (laughs)

   9. RGRobert Greene49:38

      I mean, it, on your screen it is, but if they're there in your living room, that's not seductive. But that puppy is, right? Vulnerability, the sense that somebody needs protection or help brings out qualities in us that we don't normally have that I think allow for seduction, so that is being vulnerable. That is, I can be influenced by that other person. I am open to the, to their spirit, right? That's being vulnerable. The word vulnerable, I hate to sound like a professor here, so excuse me, it's seduction, comes from the rom- the root of it means a wound, vulnus. So you have a wound inside of you and you need healing and the other person naturally wants to help you, right? But being insecure is the opp- means, I'm so self-absorbed, I'm so worried about myself that I can't get out of it, and we've all had that experience. When you meet somebody and they, and you can sense, you can smell their insecurity in them, I'm not judging them because we all have insecurities, it makes you feel insecure. It makes you feel a little bit awkward. Whereas if you meet someone who's not like that, who's confident, et cetera, it brings out that quality in you. So if you're on a date and there's someone who's f- you smell their kind of insecurity, it makes you awkward and insecure, it creates a kind of a problem. So that would be the difference between the two.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett51:06

       There's going to be a lot of people listening to this that are single and ready to mingle. Um, what advice would you give them in terms of being great at dating? You've

9. 51:18 – 1:02:48

   Best dating advice for single people

   1. SBSteven Bartlett51:18

      talked about the importance of vulnerability there and how that kind of forms connection between humans in a very innate way. What else is great dating advice for the single people out there?

   2. RGRobert Greene51:27

      Well, the thing is, okay, there's several things. So first of all, we live in a culture where people think you don't, you shouldn't have to put effort into something like love and romance. You should just be who you are, man. I don't have to put on a role, I don't have to play a game. That's manipulative, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, I'm sorry, love and romance is something that is almost biological. If you look at animals and mating rituals, they're incredibly elaborate. Seduction is a mating ritual, and so the worst thing you can feel is that this person isn't putting any effort into something. Let's just say it's, it's, uh, it's from the woman's point of view, this man, he just shows up wearing jeans and his usual sloppy outfit, he doesn't comb his hair, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. He takes me to the pub for dinner on our first date. You know, he, he's not thinking about me. He's not willing to put any effort into it. If he's not willing to put any effort into it, what's it going to be like three months down the line when he completely takes me for granted, which is what happens in a relationship? Am I not important enough, right? Whereas the ability to have a little bit of effort, to think of it as kind of theater and drama and that there's nothing evil about it, so I'm going to dress nicely. I'm going to... I just have to be fancy, just that I'm going to, you know, I'm going to put some effort into how I look. I'm going to take her to a place that isn't, you know, I'm not talking about candlelights and roses and that kind of crap. It doesn't have... You can be creative. It could be somewhere that's scuzzy, that's on the wrong side of town, but it's different and it's appealing to... And you put some thought into it. There's a reason you're taking her there, right?

   3. SBSteven Bartlett53:20

      I have a friend who went on a date and she came back from the date and was complaining because the person that she date- went on that first date with was using a... Took her to a spot where he had an available valid discount code, like 2:1.

   4. RGRobert Greene53:37

      Oh, awful.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett53:39

      And, and so-

   6. RGRobert Greene53:39

      Talk about anti-seduction, there you go.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett53:42

      Why is that anti-seductive? In that case, one might say that male is being, you know, economically savvy, financially savvy.

   8. RGRobert Greene53:51

      (sighs)

   9. SBSteven Bartlett53:51

      That, you know-

   10. RGRobert Greene53:52

       If you're not able to let go of your, of your kind of tightness when it comes to a woman, then something's wrong with you, man. Just let go, spend some extra money, spend the extra 10 quid that you might need to spend on taking her to someplace different. But it signals a kind of cheapness, and it's not about money, it's about a cheapness in your spirit, right? She's not worth, you know, letting go. Okay, maybe you don't have that much, but oh my God, you have enough. It's not going to, like, make... If you're that poor, then, then, you know, okay, maybe. But probably not. You can afford it. Show that you, that, that it means something to you. Le- Seduction is a language. It's not a language of words, it's a language of gestures that we're paying attention to. We're paying attention to people's body language, we're paying attention to their actions, to the things that they never say. So when you signal that discounts are so important to you that even on the first date you have to have a discount, you're signaling that it's not... There's something tight about you in your nature and it's not very pleasant.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett55:04

       I...From doing this podcast and speaking about topics like love and sex and dating and, you know, dating apps even, one of the, um, comments I saw quite frequently was from young men who are struggling to seduce a woman-

   12. RGRobert Greene55:22

       Yeah.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett55:22

       ... or, or vice versa. Um, specifically young men that, you know, and then I read some stats. I think Scott Galloway came on the podcast and talked about how, uh, going to butcher these numbers, but a staggering ama- amount of men haven't had sex in the, young men haven't had sex in the last 12 months. Um, and then I, when I looked at the comments section, specifically on YouTube, I saw, I kind of saw that energy reflected, where it looked like young men in particular were struggling to seduce, um, a mate, a partner in the modern world. Is, d- d- is that real, i- in your view? Is there, is there something that has changed in society? Has that always been the case? Um, is there anything we can do if we're, we're a young man that's struggling in the modern world because of the internet and computers and this and dating apps and...

   14. RGRobert Greene56:09

       Well, the, a lot of it is, I'm afraid to say, is internet porn, where you get the idea that, you know, sex is something that should be very easy and quick and that women should have, look, have that kind of body and physique, et cetera, et cetera, and that becomes your norm, et cetera. That can be, that can be very damaging. But the idea that things must come easy and quick is, is very prevalent. And to win over someone, like a, let's say you're a man and it's a woman who might be reluctant to have sex for good reason or reluctant to have a relationship, requires some effort. It requires some thinking. You can't just hack your way, you can't just swipe and get it. You can, you can have your internet sex, but you're not gonna get that in real life. It doesn't work that way. It takes time. It takes patience. You know? And you're gonna have to work at, and you're gonna be rejected. Being with people is a skill, being a social animal. Although there's a part that comes naturally, if you spend all of your time here, you're losing that skill of how to respond to people's body language. You know? Half of the thing is, you're sitting in a bar opposite, let's say it's a woman, and how she crosses her legs, how she sips her drink, how she looks at you, how she touches her hair, she's signaling things. It's a language. It's a beautiful language. Right? You have to learn it, and you're not gonna learn it here because you can't. You have to be in person. It has to be skin to skin. You have to get a feel for what other people are thinking and feeling. And we're actually really, really good at that. Humans have... That's what makes us human. It's called mirror neurons. I can f- sense what's going on in your mind. I can read your body language. You have to get out in the world and you have to be f- put yourself physically out there and try and try and try and have rejection, and I know it sounds awful, but it is a skill in a way, where you're learning how to like understand and deal with people and, and, and, and understand their, what they're, who they are and get inside their spirit. It takes time and effort and patience. So for young men, you have to realize that, right? Y- if y- if you think everything has to be easy and quick, it's never gonna work for you. And I talk about the actor, the Hollywood actor Errol Flynn, who was perhaps numerically the greatest sedu- male seducer ever, because it's estimated that he had seduced close to 3,000 women and he died when he was 50. And if I, I did the math one day, like what the, how can that possibly be? Um, and I, I tried to research what was his secret, and it was hard to find out. Finally, I found a book written by a woman whom he had seduced, another actress, and she said, "He was so relaxed and so comfortable. It was like being, it was like an animal type thing. And then when I would sit with him, it was almost as if I had drunk two martinis just sitting next to him. His comfort and his security and his confidence, his relaxed attitude, it just made me drunk." So feeling relaxed, feeling confident and not defensive, and comfortable with yourself is a very powerful seductive quality. I mean, there are many of them, but that's one that I would point out.

   15. SBSteven Bartlett59:38

       Have you ever figured out what builds confidence? You, you, earlier on you were talking about how children need to experience things firsthand. You can't just tell them. You can't just tell someone, for example, to be confident. Preaching doesn't seem to work. What, what is it in your view that, that does build that true au- you also can't fake confidence.

   16. RGRobert Greene59:57

       No.

   17. SBSteven Bartlett59:58

       I remember, I'll tell you, we talked about rejection a second ago, I was rejected by pretty much every girl that I was pursuing between the ages of, of 16 and I'd say 22.

   18. RGRobert Greene1:00:10

       Really?

   19. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:10

       Yeah. Like b- and I, do you know what it was? I, I was faking confidence. It all changed when I was actually had a sense of security in myself.

   20. RGRobert Greene1:00:19

       Right.

   21. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:19

       But in the period where I was like faking confidence, I was pretending I was confident, um, it was like they could, they just could read past it. That's almost how I, I look back on the situation. So I came to learn that you can't fake confidence. You can't pretend to be it because there's so many sort of micro-expressions that...

   22. RGRobert Greene1:00:36

       Yeah.

   23. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:37

       ... that y- that look

   24. RGRobert Greene1:00:37

       Very true.

   25. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:38

       ... that end up reading more like insecurity than confidence. Um, but what is real confidence and how does one build it in your view?

   26. RGRobert Greene1:00:44

       Well, you've kind of answered your own question there in a way. So, um, you know, con- fake confidence is like bravado, right? And you're, you're putting on an act. And particularly women who've had to deal with this for, you know, millennia, they can smell it. They can sense it. They don't have to, it doesn't have, it's not in your words, it's the body language, et cetera, et cetera.Real confidence comes from actual, um, actions, from your actual things you've accomplished. Right? So, you know, when you're 22, 21, it's hard to have that confidence because what is it based on? You know, maybe it's based... Okay, maybe you're, you're really good-looking, if you happen to have that good fortune, and you can feel confident about that and you don't have to try so hard. All right. Maybe that might work. Or maybe you're really good at sports, or maybe you're a really good dancer, or you're a really great singer, but it's based on something real. You have a skill. You have something that separates you. You have something that you can do, that you can accomplish. Because when you're 21, it's hard to have those. You know, I look back on myself when I was that age. I had nothing. No wonder I got rejected, you know? Um, so, it comes from what you do in life. Okay? The, the finest sense of confidence is actually creating things and having success and meeting goals and achieving things and having a, a record of that. You know, and maybe what goes with that is having some money, but it's not necessarily, because you don't have to have a lot of money, and you don't have to be good-looking to seduce. That's a myth that I try to explode in The Art of Seduction. Some of the greatest seducers, male and female, were not good-looking at all. It's about psychology, and it's about how you carry yourself. But the confidence comes from actually what you can do, not how you feel or what you say. Well, it is how you feel, but the feeling is based on things that you actually can do, skills that you have

10. 1:02:48 – 1:11:26

    Your body language betrays you

    1. RGRobert Greene1:02:48

       that separate you that make you feel really confident, you know? So...

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:54

       Body language. Yeah, I, I find it fascinating that, you know, there's quotes and things that say 80% of our communication is non-verbal, et cetera, et cetera. Um, body language is so interesting to me because, again, I think that's one of the things that it's just impossibly hard to fake. I was reading, you know, a couple of books on... There was a phase when I was, I don't know, 20, probably just after being rejected all the time, when I was maybe 22 where I read- started reading books from pick-up artists. And they would obsess, uh, o- on the topic of body language, and one of the things they'd say is... And I, I try, I was explaining this to my girlfriend a couple of weeks ago, that when, when a man is lower confidence and when he's desperate, he does this thing called pecking in a nightclub, where he'll, like, lean in and, like, shout in your ear. And when he's higher confidence, he kind of leans out and h- he'll, he'll wait for you to lean in. Small things like that, subtleties like that, that in- intuitively we, we're reading and understanding and communicating and, uh, et cetera. But someone that doesn't have the confidence probably isn't even aware that they do. So when I reflect on my rejection phase, I think, "Gosh, my body language must have been exuding desperation and low status and low value, low self-esteem." What's your thoughts on body language, and...

    3. RGRobert Greene1:04:06

       Well, um, in my last book, Human Nature, I wrote a whole chapter on it. Uh, you quoted the figure 95%, but who knows what it really is? The thing it is, that, um, we evolved for hundreds of thousands of years before language existed. Right? And our earliest ancestors depended on the group for their survival and getting along. And their powers came from observing other people and their body language. You could read it. So it's a skill that's wired into us, wired into our brains. It's a very unique skill that we humans have. It's just that you don't learn that. When you're a child, when you're two years old, you have it, because your life depends on it. You, you, you have to see what... if your mother is, is loving you or is, or your father is kind to you. Because if not, you know, you could be abandoned. Your life depends on it. You're great at reading that. And children have... are incredibly adept at picking up body language. So if someone is fake, if someone's an imposter, they hate being around children because children see through you, you know, like, you know, like radar. Right? Because they're so attuned to it. You had that skill when you were very young, but you lost it because you became so oriented with words and you became so self-absorbed that you're not paying attention. But it's extremely important. Right? So, the whole body is involved in it. So you've got to first stop thinking about people's words so much. Because the one thing about words, unfortunately, is people can lie. They can say whatever they want. They can say, "I love your screenplay. That was fantastic. You were great in that movie. I thought you were great," et cetera, et cetera. They can say anything to please, to flatter, to cajole you. But body language, man, it doesn't lie. Right? So I talk in that book about the eyes and the fake smile. The fake smile is something you see every single day, but you're not paying attention. It's like ... (laughs) it's kind of tight. Right? (laughs) It's like...

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:08

       (laughs)

    5. RGRobert Greene1:06:09

       Yeah. Right? But a real smile, your... the whole face gets animated, and there's a little crinkly thing here as your face... as you... as it lights up and your eyes light up. It's, it's hard to even put into words, but it's there. You can see it. It's real. It's not faked. Knowing the difference between a fake and a real smile is really important in seduction, in business, or whatever, to know if someone is like, "Yeah, uh, I like that idea." No, they don't really. They're saying that to please you. They actually hate your idea. You master that language, you can start deciphering all this bullshit people are giving you. The face, you can disguise it a little bit. Actors know that. But you know what you can't fake? It's your voice. If you're nervous, not even the finest actors in the world can fake that. Your voice betrays so many things about you. It betrays your weakness. It betrays your lack of confidence, or it betrays the other quality, et cetera. Right? So, pay really attention to the tone of people's voices, to how fast they talk. People who talk fast are very nervous. Someone who's talks... I know I'm probably talking a little too fast here. Sorry.Uh, my mind races, so I can't do that. Normally, I don't talk so fast. But, um, you know, you, you talk slowly, you have a certain tone, you have a certain intonation that kind of reveals confidence, okay? Body language, posture. You were talking about pecking, right? When you go and look at a meeting of people in, in a business meeting, you'll see all the employees kind of leaning forward, nervous, and you'll see the boss kind of leaning back, arms crossed like this, you know? "I'm the powerful one. You come to me. I'm the leader. I'm the, I'm the top dog." Or she, it's a woman. "I don't need to be like this. I'm like this." Body language reveals a lot about leadership qualities, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You know, if you go, you're at a party, and you come up to someone that you're meeting for the first time, and they're talking to you, and you notice that their feet are angling away from you, that means that they're not really interested, they're looking for any moment to try and walk away and escape. They're not really into you. Whereas their feet are s- facing you, they're engaged, they wanna talk to you, right? This is a whole art you can learn, and you can sit there and you can read it, and I talk about... I give this story in Laws of Human Nature of a man named Milton Erickson, the founder of NLP and hypnotherapy, probably one of the most brilliant psychologists who ever lived. When Milton Erickson was 19 years old or so, he had polio. He nearly died. His entire body was paralyzed. The only thing he could move, the only muscle he could move were his eyeballs. Now, imagine that. He was a young man with a very active mind. He can't talk, he can't do anything. All he can do is move his eyeballs a little bit. He was so bored. Can you imagine how bored you'd be like that? You can't read, you can't do anything. As people would come in to visit him, all he could do was look at them and study them. He became the greatest reader of body language ever in the history of mankind. People said it was, he was, almost had ESP. He could read everything about who they were just by look- 'cause he ended up recovering, he became a psychologist, because his life depended on developing this skill. He was gonna just die from sheer boredom if he didn't learn how to read body language. He mastered that language much like somebody could master French, and it's an incredibly powerful language that I, I, I can't emphasize enough.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:55

       You know, we can go about learning the language of body language, and I'm sure that will help, but it's such a complex, um, v- like, va... There's like a th- a thousand things with my body language at all times, like how I'm speaking, my eyeballs, my, where I'm looking, my posture, my arms. Like, am I crossing my arms? Am I crossing my legs? All of these things. So, the, the challenge of mastering all of that feels a little bit overwhelming. Um, am I right in assuming the easiest, the easier challenge to master is in fact just, like, my sense of self?

    7. RGRobert Greene1:10:28

       Very well put.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:30

       Because, you know-

    9. RGRobert Greene1:10:31

       If you feel confident, if you feel secure, if you're not all inward and insecure and worried about yourself, it will naturally radiate through your gestures. Yeah. N- you don't have to sit there and pay attention to your fingers, your arm, your ears, your eyes. It's just there, it's natural. So yeah, that is the solution. So, the two game, parts of the game, it's your own body language. Be aware that people are judging you for that, right? And you can't, as you say, be monitoring everything or you'll drive yourself crazy and you'll look very weird.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:03

        (laughs)

    11. RGRobert Greene1:11:03

        Right? So, the best solution is to feel these certain things that are gonna radiate, and to not give the fake smile, but when you're really happy, to just show it and, and show your emotion that way. And the other side, which is more im- is I think really important, is learning other people's body language. And that can come from study, and is much

11. 1:11:26 – 1:26:16

    Learn the art of mastery

    1. RGRobert Greene1:11:26

       more a logical thing than a, than constantly thinking about everything that you do.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:32

       Your next book that I have here, Mastery. Why did you write a book called Mastery?

    3. RGRobert Greene1:11:40

       Well, to be honest with you, it came, uh, the idea for it was around the year 2010, 2009. I was getting a little worried that people who were reading my books, particularly young men reading Power and Seduction, they kind o- they were thinking, "That's all I need in life, man. I just need to be a manipulator, I just need to play political games. That's what success is all about." And I was worried that, you know, if, if you don't understand how to make something, what's gonna be the future of mankind? Are bridges just gonna fall down? Are hotels gonna collapse? People don't know how to make things anymore. We don't know how to use our hands anymore, right? So, being able to be good with people is extremely important as a social animal. But perhaps higher up in the hierarchy is being able to do things, to be able to have great skill, and to be able to create something and know how to master a subject, and to, you know, build something that can last. That's really important, and I'm feeling like because young people... This is back in 2010, imagine now. Had this idea that everything comes quick and easy because you can click, click, click, and things come to you, that everything in life should be that way, that we're, we're becoming alienated from the human brain and how the human brain operates, because the human brain requires time. If you know how the human brain operates, we have what are called neural pathways, and every time you repeat something, a neural pathway is created and strengthened and strengthened and strengthened. It's why we get addicted to things, but it's also why we develop skill. So, if I'm sitting there shooting free throws day in and day out and day out, my brain is wiring it, it's learning it, it's learning that motor skill, that hand, mind thing, and it's getting better and better and better at it. It takes time, it takes repetition to build those pathways. And I explain in Mastery...... that you reach the proverbial 10,000 hours, which some people dispute nowadays, so it's just a number, it's not, it's not a fact. You've re- spent so long learning something that there's so many pathways, it's like this amazing, uh, inner landscape with all these connections going on in your brain and now you can be creative, now you can come up with things that nobody's ever thought of. You can play chess on a higher level, you can be Pele in soccer or Lionel Messi making passes that no one had ever seen before because you're not having to think. Right? You don't have to think anymore, your body just does, does what it wants. Imagine 20,000 hours, which is possible, just people sometimes attain in certain fields. You're almost like a genius, you're almost like superhuman, right? If you're someone who's so logged into the internet, to getting things instantly, you can't get past 100 hours, let alone 10,000. You're never gonna develop skill and you're gonna find life really, really difficult for you. So I wrote the book because I was actually deeply worried that we were losing a part of, of how the human brain operates, something elemental part of our wisdom.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:14:49

       The, the interesting through line between that and the subject matter we've discussed in Power & Seduction is that by learning to master something, you build that sense of self-esteem and confidence that we're looking for, um, to, to be good at the former topics mentioned. But on the topic of, um, mastery, the first chapter in this book, and really the first question a lot of people ask is this question about finding your passion, and I've always had a difficult relationship with this question because it sometimes assumes that there's one of them and that you have to go in search of it somewhere. Uh, in the first chapter of your book you talk about discovering your life task. Um, why, why is it important? Is it the same thing? Is, is finding your passion and finding your life task the same thing?

    5. RGRobert Greene1:15:31

       No, I just recorded this yesterday, uh, uh, on my own podcast I went on a rant about how it's not about passion, it's not about finding your passion. I actually don't like that word passion, it kind of makes me cringe because if you think about it, passion, to succeed at anything requires time and effort and boredom and tedium. So let's just use a, a simple example, you're learning to play the piano. When you first sit down at the piano you have to play these really insipid tunes, it's so boring, you have to learn, you know, um, I've forgotten what they call it, um, finger exercises and scales, on any instrument you have to learn scales, et cetera. It's tedious, man. If you think it's gotta be passion, forget it, you're never gonna get far. The thrill comes after a year of playing the piano and you get better at it, better and better, and now it starts becoming fun. Then 10 years, it's more fun, then 20 years, it's fantastic. You know? I'm not, I'm not trying to name-drop here but the other night I had dinner with Stevie Wonder, it was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. He's absolute... I wish I had interviewed him for my book. Speaking of genius, you know, and he's blind obviously, everybody knows, but I was watching him, he performed for us, we were over there with a gr- group of friends at his recording studio. I was watching him play the piano and he's blind, right, and he's, he's improvising and it's just absolutely brilliant and amazing and as I'm seeing this I'm thinking, "I could see the thousands of hours he's been putting in just touching these keyboards and knowing where the, where the, where the keys are." You know, it was just mind bogging, mind-blowing how amazing it was. That is the power that the human brain naturally has through hours and hours and hours of effort. That's how it works. So, you know, he didn't get there because it was passion, he got there 'cause he was a child prodigy. At the age of 11 he was signed to a contract with Motown Records, right? He was playing that as he was a kid hour after hour after hour after hour. He had a love for the piano but it wasn't like every time he sat down it had to be passionate about it. He had the patience to put up with all of the boring stuff, okay? So, you want to discover what you were meant to, what you have a connection to, what you m- have a love for, right, when you're a child, hopefully, or when you're 18 or 19 or 20, that's the best time to discover it. All right? You decide, and it doesn't have to be something highfalutin' or, or worth, uh, you know, like intellectual. You could be great with your hands, you could be great with your body, you could be great with images and visuals, you could be great with words, you could be great in many different areas. Okay? They're all equal, they're all great. You as a child are naturally... So there's a book I always recommend for people called The Five Frames of Mind by Howard Gardner in which he talks about the five forms of intelligence that humans have. The b- each brain d- by genetically is wired in one direction or the other. You wanna know that, you wanna feel it inside of you. It's like a feeling, it's not an intellectual thing. You feel when you're doing sports that it's, it's good, it's a natural thing, it's what I'm meant for. When you're involved with words like I was when I was eight years old, it felt right, it felt like a natural fit. "I have to follow this path." When you're three or four years old and it's music like Stevie Wonder and you're hearing this in your head, "Wow, that's, that's it for me." Right? Okay. You feel it, you feel this connection. All right. Now you fast-forward to when you're 18 or 19 years old and you're having to make a career choice. Okay, so I call that, your 20s, the most important phase of your life. That's gonna make or break you in some way. If you spend your 20s trying to learn skill in something that connects to you deeply, right...... then things are going to happen to you by the time you reach 30. You've discovered your life's task. It may not be something so specific. For me, it was writing and words, but I didn't know what to write. I tried novels, I tried journalism, I tried theater, I tried screenwriting. But you know what? It gives you a direction, and you try and you try and try, and you know that's what you were meant for. That's what you were destined for. You ha- You feel connected to it. You feel a love for it. And so when it comes time to do the tedious stuff, you're able to do it because you know, in the end, it'll pay rewards. You'll get better and better at it, and the connection is so deep that to not do it would be miserable. So, you can't think of everything in life having to be pleasurable and having to be passionate. There's going to be boredom. There's going to be tedium. How do I deal with it? You have to feel a greater love than just mere pleasure or passion. It's got to be something so deep within you that to not do it will make you deeply unhappy. For me not to write or be a writer, I don't think I'd be alive right now. I would have been so miserable. I would have been so alienated from who I am. So, that's what'll get you through. That's wh- That's what a life's task is.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:20:56

       When you think about that, in the book, you talk about the first phase, which is, you know, your apprenticeship on your journey to mastery. When you're in that apprenticeship phase, you know, when you're maybe early in your career, you're early in- on your journey to becoming the pianist, the violinist, the podcast, the entrepreneur, whatever, what are the- the most important things to be, um, selecting for as it relates to the job you take, the people you're around, that kind of thing? Like, if there's a 23-year-old listening to this that is a, you know, an apprentice at a floristry shop, making bouquets of flower, and they're being offered five different jobs in the industry of floristry, which one should they be looking at if they're in the early steps of their apprenticeship?

    7. RGRobert Greene1:21:38

       Very easy question to answer, thank you. Um, you want to look for the job that offers you the most possibilities of learning. So, if you're going to go to a florist shop where, um, there's only one other person there, it's like an entrepreneur who started it, and you're going to be like their right-hand man or woman, and you're going to learn, and the pay is half of what you could get at this very fancy ... You could be a- working at the shop at some department store where they'd pay you triple, take the job that pays one-third, where you're going to learn the most, where you're going to learn about the business, you're going to learn from the ground up, and, you know, there's going to be a level of excitement where, you know, we might not survive another few months. We've got to work hard. We've got to be motivated. We're all on the same page here. A lot of people, when they're 23, they grab the job with the biggest paycheck, and that's a mistake, because if you go to, like, a large- large firm, you're kind of lost. You don't have as much responsibility. You suddenly have to deal with all the political games, the 48 Laws of Power. You're not paying attent- You're not developing skills as much. You don't have as much responsibility. Take the job that has one-half the salary, but you're responsible. You're going to be learning, and it's up to you. That's- That's the most important thing you can do when you're at that point in your life.

Episode duration: 1:54:47