The Diary of a CEOThe Manipulation Expert: You're Being Manipulated! Use Jealousy To Manipulate People! Robert Greene
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
155 min read · 30,967 words- 0:00 – 2:35
Intro
- RGRobert Greene
You need this skill. If there's somebody in your life and you don't know whether they're a snake or that they're genuinely your friend, approach them from an angle and surprise them. And for a second, you detect what we call sh... You should become aware of that. Robert Greene is one of the best-selling authors in history.
- SBSteven Bartlett
An internationally renowned expert on power strategies.
- RGRobert Greene
He's been referenced in songs by Jay-Z, Kanye West... The godfather of... Power, seduction and mastery. We have this idea that if I apply myself really hard, I should be successful. But I kept noticing this blind spot that people had. They were terrible in dealing with people. And if you're not careful and constantly misreading people, they could manipulate you. They could wound you. But if you follow the process that I lay out, it will be the best defense you could ever have in your life. You know all the tricks people are playing on you. We have to learn to look behind people's masks. Being a human being means we lie. But you know what doesn't lie? Body language. Eyes are hard to lie. The smile tells you a hundred different things if you know how to read it. But the problem that you have 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. But I do believe everybody has that potential. So, the first thing you do is ...
- SBSteven Bartlett
Frenemies. Do we all have frenemies?
- RGRobert Greene
Yes. They sabotage you, hurt you, and you don't want them in your life. And one common sign of a frenemy is, they're-
- SBSteven Bartlett
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 subscribe to our show. We now have five million subscribers on YouTube, which is a number that I just can't comprehend and it's a dream that I absolutely never could have had. We started the Diary of a CEO just over three years ago now, and in my wildest expectations, we might have had 100,000 subscribers by now. So you can imagine how shocked I am that so many of you have chosen to tune into these conversations every week, um, and spend some time with us. So, thank you. And I made a deal with you, I made a deal that if you subscribe to this show, that we would continue to raise the bar. And in 2024, we're gonna raise the bar like never before. I've been working for the last nine months on a surprise for all of you that have subscribed to this show, and I'm very excited to deliver that for you. The production's gonna change. We're gonna go even further with our guests, and we're gonna tell even more global stories. So as always, if you appreciate what we're doing here, the simple, free favor I'll ask from you is to hit the subscribe button. Let's get on with the episode.
- 2:35 – 4:34
Why did you write a book about human nature?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Robert, you wrote a book about human nature in 2018 called The Laws of Human Nature. Why did you write that book?
- RGRobert Greene
Well, it's the fruit of a lot of experiences that I've had. Um, so I wrote the 48 Laws of Power, and prior to that 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 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 shocking, right? And I started noticing a trend. And the trend is, we live in this intense technological age where we have so much power at our fingertips, right? And we- it's so easy to get attention, and on and on and on. And we have this idea that everything in life should be easy. It's all about just, well, if I apply myself really hard, I should be successful. But I kept noticing this blind spot that people had. They were terrible in dealing with people. They were making all of these mistakes. 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, right? We- we're all a bit strategic. And if you're not careful, you're constantly saying the wrong things, you're constantly misreading people, you're doing things at your job that you think are going to impress, but they have the opposite effect, and then something bad happens and you're confused and you're emotional. It was like this circle atmosphere of pain around the globe of people suffering because they don't know how to handle the people in their lives. And because we're so virtual, and we're so locked in our phones, that we're becoming worse and worse at reading other people and understanding them. You know, when I'm sitting across from you,
- 4:34 – 7:01
How do we reverse a lack of self-awareness?
- RGRobert Greene
I can see your body language, I can see your non-verbals, 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 screen, da-da-da-da-da, you know, and that's even how I date, basic human skills of understanding, of connecting, of empathy, of reading, they're getting hopelessly degraded. That's my long-winded answer for why I wrote that book.
- SBSteven Bartlett
If there's someone listening out there and they can relate to certain parts of what you've just said, maybe it's a lack of their own self-awareness or maybe they have poor s- sort of awareness of others, is there a starting place to reversing that? Is there maybe a most important skill that we need to master as at the foundation of that transformation?
- RGRobert Greene
Yeah, it's very simple. 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 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 being. I know- I- I know how to read people, et cetera. You don't. You're operating in darkness. You're groping around. Just realize, first of all, that you need this skill. And once you realize that, the 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 book about narcissism, about irrationality, and instead of searching for the people around you that fit those categories, look at yourself. So it all begins with self-awareness. You are the best subject of human nature. So when I was writing this book...It was actually quite painful. So I'm writing a chapter on narcissism, one of the longest chapters in the book because it's a very important subject, and I'm telling myself, "Robert, you're quite a narcissist. You didn't think of yourself that way, but you have all of these classic tendencies that you're writing about in the book." It was painful. But in order to come to understand narcissism in other people, I had to sort of understand it in myself. So step number one is I need this knowledge. I'm actually not very good with dealing with people. It's caused me problems. Go back and review the problems and mistakes you've made, mistakes I've made as well many, many times. And then when you realize that you want this knowledge, then you begin by looking inward. But if you think that, that it's 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 mean anything to you.
- 7:01 – 11:55
How to get rid of qualities we don’t like about ourselves
- RGRobert Greene
You have to feel that pain that you've been through in life, and it's kind of an ongoing pain. It's one that I still have even though I wrote the book, where I misread people, where I inadvertently hurt them when I 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, that this turns up motivate you then to become better at understanding other people.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What if you find things in yourself, like you said, that you don't like? You find narcissism in yourself. You find darkness in yourself. What are we meant to do with that? Are we meant to heal it, resolve it?
- RGRobert Greene
You're meant to look at it. You're meant to confront it. Um, I mean, I, I have in the book a quote from the great writer Anton Chekhov that, "People can't begin to change themselves until they know who they are, until they understand themselves," right? So we all wanna change. We all wanna be better at ourselves, but until we know who we are, until we realize our flaws and our weaknesses. So the main law of human nature, if I could summarize it, is 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 are aggressive or passive-aggressive. They're the ones who feel envy. They're the ones who are irrational. But me, no. No, I'm a paragon of virtue. I'm always moral. I'm always good. I'm always smart, etc. So it’s... The, the point isn't to beat yourself up and go, "Damn it, I'm an awful human being." We're all humans, come from the same source. We all have the same ancestors. Our... 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 doesn't have narcissism, that doesn't have self-absorption. So realizing that you're connected to all these people, that we all have these flaws and weaknesses is actually not a bad thing. It's a good thing. And then by examining yourself deeply, you can begin to change some of these things. You know, it's just like you... I, I don't go like, "Oh, damn it, I'm a narcissist. I'm, I'm self-absorbed. I think a lot about myself. I love talking about myself," which is something I'm afraid I do like to do, right? The point isn't, "Well, oh, well, I'm just depressed. There's nothing I can do." Once I'm aware of it, I can begin to change it. But if I'm always repressing it, 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 change them? How can you deal with them? How can you become a better person? How can you change those qualities that you don't want? One of the most important things in the laws of human nature is that you have patterns, that you are compulsive. It comes from your character, these patterns that you see in your intimate relationships. You always fall for the wrong person, or you sometimes 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 they're good patterns, but we tend to repeat over and over and over again these, these, uh, compulsive behavior. Being aware of these patterns and being aware of these things, you can now begin to... You c- have the power to change them.
- SBSteven Bartlett
A lot of people m- climb the mountain of awareness, and they get... I was thinking about people in my life that have climbed the mountain of awareness, and in my own life. Hill- things that I'm aware of, darkness, uh, within me that I'm aware of, or challenges or patterns I'm aware of, taking the next step from... So I think becoming aware is painful, and then doing something about it is difficult. It, it's painful because there's a lot of cognitive dissonance associated with figuring out that you're not who you want to be, you know? And then doing something about it requires breaking what feels like old neurological pathways in my brain, you know, trigger... You think about the habit cycle. How do I... Breaking that is difficult.
- RGRobert Greene
Uh, I look at it very differently, I'm afraid. So I think actually it's worse when you're not aware of who you are, 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. You're wearing this mask. You're not authentic. You're behaving in the world as if you're somebody else and you're 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 that you are. You're not authentic. And coming to terms with some of these dark qualities is actually a very enlightening experience. It's actually could be euphoric. You go, "I am an animal. I'm not this saint. I'm not this paragon that I thought I was. I'm an animal with flaws. I can embrace that." We're all like 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 dark side of human nature. Everybody has a shadow side. I have it. You have it, right?
- 11:55 – 15:29
Where does our dark side come from?
- RGRobert Greene
And seeing that shadow side, which is something you've been repressing since childhood, and dealing with it and confronting with it is actually one of the most wonderful experiences you can have in life because repressing all of these things is what is making you miserable in life. But...... coming to terms with who you are and being aware of it is actually w- liberating, you know?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Wh- where does it come from, our dark side? What you talk about in chapter nine of the book.
- RGRobert Greene
Well, I think it comes from, uh, childhood. So when you're a child, when you're three or four years old, you're like this complete person. I compare it to, like, this round ball. You have good qualities, you have loving qualities, you love your parents perhaps, you love your siblings perhaps, but you also have these other darker qualities. These kind of aggressive impulses. You, sometimes you hit people, sometimes you say nasty things, right? But you're a complete person, it's natural, it's who you are, it's how you were born. It's like a round ball and it's complete. And then slowly, year by year, month by month, you have to cut off that dark side, that back side of yours. In school, y- you're told, "Don't ever show that part of you." Your parents are, "Come on, you gotta be nice. You gotta get along. We want- wanna be proud of you." All of those aggressive impulses that you have, all of those feelings where you, th- where you felt envy about somebody, whatever, you wished you had what your- your brother or sister had, so they all go underground, right? You force them down, you don't want to deal with them, but they're still there, because you're a human being. Those emotions don't leave 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 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 situation, you're only showing people that bright happy side, the good side, and you're doing the damnedest to conceal all of that dark energy inside of you. And then suddenly, because you're not aware of it, it comes out in explosions. Very typical thing is, you suddenly get angry and you burst out with an angry email or you yell at somebody or you say something kind of nasty, and then you look back and you go, "Where did that come from? That- I didn't- that's not really me. I'm not really like that. I- I feel ashamed about that." But what 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 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 nasty and aggressive. That won't work. But you have to find ways to take that energy, because that dark side contains a lot of energy, a lot of power, and use it and channel it into ways that are productive. So I happen to be someone who has a fair amount of aggression, I have to admit. I'm extremely competitive, right? Even in card games, I don't like losing. So I've channeled it into my books. I take all of that energy and I put it into making the best books that I can, into ambition. So if you're ambitious, channeling that energy into becoming the best and beating the competition is- is- is a productive way of using that dark energy. If you feel angry about a cause
- 15:29 – 27:54
How to pursue that thing you’ve always wanted to do
- RGRobert Greene
or something that pisses you off about the world, some injustices, instead of whining about it, et cetera, you go out and you do something. You do something, you- you- you- you get involved in a movement or whatever. You channel that energy into something productive. That's the way to deal with the dark side, and that's ... You can't go throughout life imagining that you're this saint, because you're not. You have these qualities.
- SBSteven Bartlett
In your book about the strategies of war, the second strategy of war that you write about is do not fight the last war, and when I read that, what I understood it to kind of mean was about not being rigid. H- you know, how does one dismantle their, the prison of convention that they live in? So for that lawyer or for that person that's working in the financial district who is, you know, 47 and they're a lawy- uh, they're a- a stockbroker and they're miserable, um, they have somewhat been imprisoned by 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 of our own identities so that we can live our most fulfilling lives. 'Cause even me, you know, there's, and probably even you, I've created this perception of who I am and I'm, like, following the instructions every day.
- RGRobert Greene
Yeah, it's a trap, you know, you can't fall into that. So one of the laws of power that I have, one that I think is very important, I think it's, uh, 25 or 26, I don't remember the number, is recreate yourself. So the moment people start, um, uh, know who you are, they- they- they- they identify, they create your identity, "Oh, Robert Greene is this person who writes these dark, Machiavellian, manipulative books," then I'm trapped. I'm trapped by their perception of me and I always have to be like a little dog performing for them, right? And I don't want to fall into that trap. You have to recreate yourself. You have to use your personality and who you are as clay that you are molding. You're like an artist, and so you- you change yourself. For each person, it's different. So for me, it means I don't write 48 Laws of Power part two, I write now a book that's not like The 48 Laws of Power at all. For you, it's doing your podcast but changing it up, or maybe you do a different podcast, or maybe you do, you go into a different career center. Maybe you become a- a CEO or- or an entrepreneur in a different direction. I was recently on Andrew Hu- Huberman's podcast, right? One of the most successful podcasts besides yours in the world, and, um, he ... I don't wanna, uh, uh,
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- RGRobert Greene
... it's gonna sound like bragging, but he, the book Mastery helped him a lot because he was a professor, I believe, at Stanford. I hope I- I have it right. Everything was going well, he was on a fast track in- in neuroscience, but he was miserable.... he hated the politicking, he hated all the bullshit that you have to go through in academia. And then he read the book and he goes... I 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 to recreate myself." He decided to go into podcasting to take all of his knowledge about science and neuroscience and bring it into a different medium. And so that's, that's extremely powerful because if he had stayed in academia, he would have gone down the path that we're talking about. It sounds a little sexier than being in finance and you're 47, but being stuck in academia when it doesn't fit you with all the nasty politics that go on in universities, et cetera, 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 other people tell you who you are.
- SBSteven Bartlett
In the case of Andrew Huberman, he transitioned from an academic to a podcaster. It's quite a feat because there's lots of forces that h- try and hold our existing identity in place, a lot of people, and t- to sort of cross the chasm, get past all of that force that says, "No, we want you to stay with us, Andrew. We want you to be an academic. Who'd you think you are being a podcaster?" You know, that, that, that force I'm so intrigued by because everyone regardless of where they are now, if they're gonna try and venture to somewhere else, a better place, they're gonna encounter that. Um, how does one work through that? What is that? How do we understand that force that's trying to keep us down?
- RGRobert Greene
It usually happens when you're successful, (clears throat) that people start giving you these identities that kind of define who you are. And if you're okay with it, that's fine, you know? If it doesn't... But I'm a big believer in listening to your own pain and listening to your own 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 go, "What is the source of it?" Normally, the first thing you'll do is you'll blame other people, you'll blame the world, you'll blame your, your spouse, your children, whatever, right? And you won't really look at what it is, why you're frustrated. And if you look at it deeply enough and you go, "I'm really frustrated because I'm not enjoying my work. I'm making money, I'm going there every day and I'm going through the motions, and I'm successful and people admire me, but I'm not happy. I'm frustrated, I'm upset." You've gotta lean into that pain. You've gotta lead in- lean into what frustrates you and go, "I can't go on another five years like this." Because the mind and the body are tied in... there's no difference. Th- they're all, we're all one, we're all a unity. And so when you start having these frustrations, these desires that are not, you're not acting upon, it creates physical problems. You're not aware of why suddenly your blood pressure is rising, why suddenly your back is having pain like I'm having right now. It's all interconnected. And when you're not doing something that you, that you're not engaged with, your whole being goes out of whack. Everything doesn't work. You've gotta listen to it and you've gotta understand it, and you've gotta go, "I want some joy and some excitement in my life. I want a challenge." It takes some fearlessness because leaving a prestigious job at Stanford where you've got money... I don't know if he had tenure or not, or perhaps he did. You know, it takes some guts because you're leaving something that, that, that's, that you know that's, that it's a convention, that's stable, et cetera, et cetera. But you've gotta go, "It's not worth the price. It's not who I am. I'm gonna suffer for it down the road." And so, you know, let's say he decided to go into podcasting and it failed. All right, so be it then. He learns that and he, he's somebody who's very smart. He would've figured out another way, another direction to go in. If my book, The 48 Laws of Power, hadn't been a success, I don't know what would've happened to me, but hopefully I would've figured out another way to go, you know? 'Cause I also had to drop a career direction that I was going in. But you've gotta try. You've gotta be able to try and you've gotta go t- say to yourself, it's actually a great thing in your 30s, let's say, to go, "I need something new. I need something completely different. I need a new challenge. I'm gonna drop this and I'm gonna start something." You won't believe the energy that will suddenly rise up in you, right? You'll suddenly feel invigorated. You'll suddenly feel youthful again. "I'm not stuck in this thing. I can try something else."
- SBSteven Bartlett
I'm so intrigued by two things within that.
- RGRobert Greene
(clears throat)
- SBSteven Bartlett
One of them was, going back to the case of Andrew who left Stanford and became a podcaster, was my brain... You said, um, he's an intelligent guy, he would've figured it out if he'd failed. My brain also was saying he could have always gone back, and there's a real illusion sometimes I think in most of our lives where we don't realize that if we mess up in this thing, as I think Jeff Bezos calls it, this is probably a type two decision where we can walk back through the door. But it's this sort of illusion that we're gonna really lose something great if we fail that stops us 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 in their lives where they go, "Jo- I'm just so sick of this" to change? Can someone change before they get there?
- RGRobert Greene
Unfortunately not. Sometimes the bottom (clears throat) has to drop out before you 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, feeling like you're suffering and that you need a change and that if you go on this way bad things are gonna happen is the greatest motivator of all. Because if you're moderately discontented with your job, you're gonna constantly be justifying it to yourself going, "Uh, it's all 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. 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? It's those moments where sh- "Damn it, I hate this. I can't go on. You know, I'm, I'm heading to suicide. I'm heading to depression. I'm heading to drinking. I'm hitting bottom. I don't like where I'm 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 frustration to say, "I need to make a major change in my life." You know? The other thing I say is, in the same book you were quoting in the- in- in about- about warfare, I have what's called the death ground strategy, where you feel like ... So he's going into podcasting, and if you go in with the attitude, "Well, if I fail, I'll just go scurrying back to Stanford," that's a recipe for failure in itself already. Your attitude is already half-assed. 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 work, I'm not going back." It gives you the energy, the motivation, the desire to actually make it successful. But if you're always going through life kind of with half measures, going, "Well, if I start 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 gonna put your full energy into it. You're not gonna give all of yourself into it, and it's probably gonna fail.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's really, um ... (sighs) It's so true. Um, it reminded me of something I was reading in one of the psychology journals about a study they did with participants where they asked them to do a puzzle and offered them a delicious snack as a reward. And then in one 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 the way, the same snack is also available in the vending machine down the hall." And then the people in the second group where they had a plan B were less committed to doing the puzzle, spent less time trying to solve it, and did worse on the puzzle.
- RGRobert Greene
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
And it's this idea that a plan B actually psychologically does distract you-
- RGRobert Greene
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... from your plan A.
- RGRobert Greene
Yeah. We're, we're animals, right? We have, we have a certain nature, which is what I talk about in, in Human Nature. And our o- our earliest ancestors, to go back to something I was talking about, our brilliance or the power of our species is we are actually very physically weak compared to, like, chimpanzees and cheetahs and lions, et cetera, et cetera. But we use our brain and feeling the necessity, feeling that we're gonna die unless we don't solve these problems, right? "If we don't use our brains, if we don't create tools, if we don't work together as a team, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna die, we won't survive," is what makes us inventive. It's what makes us creative. S- it's almost like a barometric pressure. I like ... That's the metaphor I like to use.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What's that?
- RGRobert Greene
When you feel that pressure inside of you and it's very h- heavy, like in- like weather that's very, you know, heavy and thick, you're motivated. You feel it. "I've gotta get up in the morning. I've gotta do this. I've gotta accomplish this." When that pressure goes away and w- and you don't feel any pressure in your life, you can do anything and there's no consequences for it, you'll just waste time. You'll waste years. You'll waste
- 27:54 – 29:47
The unseen importance of creating a sense of urgency
- RGRobert Greene
months. You'll never accomplish anything. You give somebody a deadline, right? They'll accomplish in two months what would take somebody two years to do without a deadline. It's that necessity. It's that sense of, "There's this, there's this sword at my back. I've gotta get it done." It makes you get things done. It gives you the energy. It's get rich or die trying, to quote somebody.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs) You, you talk about that in the strat- um, the book about the Strategies of War, that chapter four, well, l- strategy number four is about creating a sense of urgency and desperation, 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 urgent and a little bit desperate." And even if they feign that desperation to galvanize people, there's something about creating urgency and desperation in your life that ha- is an incredible tailwind. Is there any practical ways that you think the average person can create a- a r- the required sense of urgency in their life so they can get things done?
- RGRobert Greene
Well, it's kind of like a level here. So, you need challenges in your life. That's what, that's sort of what the death ground is about. You're challenged. You better rise up to it. If the challenge is too great, if you're s- if, if you're like, "I'm, I'm 24 and I've never written a book, but I'm gonna write the best book ever," you're, you're gonna fail 'cause it, it's too far above you. You're never gonna reach it. If it's too low, you're never gonna have the energy. It's too easy. It's not gonna motivate you. But there's a sweet spot. I don't know. I'm just, you know, just drawing it here. It'd be, like, here where it's a challenge, it's above what you can do, can do right now. It's not so far above that you can't possibly do it, but it's enough of a challenge to mean, "God, I better get my act together. I better f- get the energy to get together. I better, you know, change w-
- 29:47 – 36:17
How to know if you’re following a false purpose
- RGRobert Greene
my habits. I've gotta get up earlier. I've gotta work harder." It's not like I have to get up at 4:00 and force myself and work, et cetera. I can get up at 6:00, 6:30, an hour earlier, and I'm gonna meet this challenge that's a little bit above my level. That's a powerful way of motivating yourself. You need challenges. You need constant challenges in life or you're gonna, or you're gonna stagnate. It's just the law of nature.
- SBSteven Bartlett
You talk about false purpose as well.
- RGRobert Greene
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What is false purpose and how do we know the difference?
- RGRobert Greene
Your purpose in life is something that you're born with. It's like your destiny. This is what you were meant to accomplish. This was what you were meant to be, what- which you were meant to do. And when we were going through, we were talking about that...... in terms of your childhood, et cetera. Right? But we humans are not born with that purpose engraved in our heads. We don't wake up when we're seven going, "That's my purpose." If it were that easy, it would be that simple, right? But because we don't have any direction ... You know, animals don't wake up in the morning, if they're not nocturnal, and go, "What am I gonna do today? I can go here, I can hunt for this animal, I can hunt 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 automatic almost. Okay. We don't have that. We have to find our purpose and because it's so deep and it's so important, that if we don't find it through this authentic process I'm talking about, we'll find it somewhere else because we need a purpose in life. We need something to live for. What will that be? It will be drugs. It 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 anger and vent all of my frustrations. You know? It'll be on and on and on. It's something that has nothing to do with who you are personally, but it's something that you can believe in and can give you a sense of purpose but it's not really who you are. It's like a drug. 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 what I mean by false purpose.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And when we find our purpose, if we are able to and lucky enough to discover it, what's the variance in what someone's capable of that's found their purs- purpose versus someone that hasn't, do you think? Like, what's the difference in how they show up, how they deliver the results they create, the impact they have?
- RGRobert Greene
When you find your 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 whatever you need to find. Thing, good things will come to you. I know that sounds woo-woo. I know that sounds mystical, but I definitely believe it. Right? And so it's not like you have to try so hard. Yes, you have to learn skills. Yes, you have to apply yourself. Yes, you have to work hard, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, but things just go so much more smoothly when you have it. So for instance, one thing that happens when you have a sense of purpose, and I hate to ... Uh, it's something that I feel, um, so I, I know my narcissism is coming out again. Um, I know what I don't want and 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, "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 Power. Let's do this. Let's do that. Let's make a game." I'm not interested. It's not my purpose. No, I don't want it. If I didn't have that radar, I'd be spreading myself out into eight different venues and I'd be, you know ... All of my energy would be, would be scattered. I wouldn't have that focus and I'd probably end up being pretty miserable because I would have lost my purpose. But when you have a sense of purpose, it's like, "No, I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna do ... I wanna do this." Yeah, it can be rigid. You have to be a little bit flexible. So if somebody comes to me and goes, "Robert, what about this?" I'm open to it. "That sounds moderately interesting. All right, maybe I'll try it." You know? And I, and I do open things, things like that. I'm gonna be doing, in a month, I'm gonna be recording a, a French version of, you know, the MasterClass.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- RGRobert Greene
There's a French 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 in it and it interests me. It's a challenge. Being able to say no is so important and, and it's so empowering, and that's what a sense of purpose will give you, t- uh, among other things.
- SBSteven Bartlett
There's a quote that says something like, "Distractions come dressed up as opportunities," and to even know what a distraction is, you first must understand what your goal and what your purpose is, or else it's impossible to distinguish between a distraction, "Robert, go, let's go start a game," (laughs) or an opportunity, which is, sounds much more like that Mastermind thing. When I think about this all the time, you know, the, the more clear I am on the goal and what my purpose is, the much easier it is to understand what a distraction is first-
- RGRobert Greene
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... as an opportunity 'cause they do look the same when they come into my inbox. (laughs)
- RGRobert Greene
Yes. Well, the other thing I do is I kind of game it out. So somebody comes to me (clears throat) and they go, "Let's do a television show, The 48 Laws of Power." And believe me, (clears throat) I've been through that about 85 times, people coming to me that ... And we have even attempted it, but I go, "I've worked in Hollywood, I've worked in television before, before I made my books. I know the process. I know how miserable it can be. I know how you have no power. I'm a writer now where I write books and I have all the power. I have all the control. You go into Hollywood, you go into television or film, 85, uh, you know, 800 other people join in and they all have their ideas and they change this, that, and the other. You have no power." And, and it's meetings and meetings and meetings and talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. I game it out and I go, "I don't wanna get into that trap. I don't wanna be spending a year having meeting after meeting after meeting, hearing about this possibility, having it changed by this producer." I game it out and I go, "No, I don't wanna do it."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Can you do that when you're younger? Can a 21-year-old-
- RGRobert Greene
No.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... no?
- RGRobert Greene
It takes a lot of, it takes a fair amount of experience in life because when you're 21, everything looks great and exciting. "Man, yeah, I'll do that. Why not? Yeah, it'll
- 36:17 – 40:14
Should a young person just be saying yes to everything?
- RGRobert Greene
be fun. I'll meet some, I'll meet some hot girls. I'll do this, that, and the other great, you know?" Et cetera, et cetera. You know, you, you don't, you don't have that radar. You, you, everything looks exciting and enticing. It takes the pain, I keep bre- going back to that, of things that you wasted your time and then things that failed and things that you didn't like to teach you the ability to say no and to save your energy for what you really love.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Should a young person just be saying yes to everything?
- RGRobert Greene
You know, the problem that we have is everything is, has to be this way or that way. It 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. 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 20s are the best years of your life. Um, actually I think the 30s are, but let's just say for, for f- arguments like your 20s. You're young, you probably look pretty good. You're healthy. You know, you've got all these things going on for you. I want you 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 the rest of your life. So you need fun, you need adventure, you need some looseness. You know, you want some experiences but it has to have some direction to it. It can't just be, "I'm gonna write poetry. I'm gonna do rock and roll. I'm gonna go and learn chemistry. I'm gonna, you know, become, you know, this, that, and 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 being successful because what you want to happen is, you're 30 years old now. You've let, your 20s are behind you. It's usually a time of reckoning where you go, "Shit, I'm not so young anymore. Okay. You know, I'm getting older. All right. I've had my fun. I've had adventure. I'm ready for something serious and I've learned some real skills in life." I've, for me personally, I learned how to write, um, or whatever it is. You didn't just go try 80 different things. You, you, you kind of had four or five that you did, you, you experimented with. "All right. Now I know what I love. Now I can go down that path." And in Mastery, I, I often tell the story to people of one of the masters I interviewed was Paul Graham, who is the man who started Y Combinator. You've probably heard of Y Combinator. He was somebody who got into AI when he was, like, 18, 19 years old. He was, like, at MIT I believe, right? Back in the late '70s when nobody was even thinking about it. Okay. He was a hacker 'cause his father was, was a scientist who had computers back in the '70s, and he learned how to hack early on. Okay. So he went down the process of going into academia, of l- of, of going into programs of comput- com- computer programming, et cetera, et cetera. And he was on a track just like Huberman at MIT to become a professor, to become proficient in it, and he hated it. It was soul-sucking. He didn't like the politics, he didn't like dealing with the people, he didn't like academia. So he quit and he became a painter because that's ... He loved design and he loved visuals. He comes back to New York. He's living in a loft. He's painting. He's, he's happy but he's not making any money. And then he hears an advertisement on the radio for I, I think it was maybe Netscape, one of the earliest, um, you know, internet whatever you call it. And they're saying, "The future in c- in, in, for computers is being able to sell, buy and sell products on the internet." He ends up creating the first, I think what the prototype for all the things that we have now. Yahoo ended up buying it for, like, $5 million do- and then the l- rest is history. He spent his 20s trying
- 40:14 – 43:06
How to manage other people that get in the way of what we want to do
- RGRobert Greene
something out, learning real skills. He went somewhere else learning something that he loved and then he's 30 and he combines the two together and he's, he's a classic example because he, he gets very bored easily. So y- Y Combinator is worth billions of dollars, extremely successful. He sells it and gets into something else 'cause he likes writing, et cetera. He's always ... He's kind of a prototype for a lot of what we're talking about.
- SBSteven Bartlett
We've spoken a lot about self-awareness and self and all those kinds of things. What about other people? 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 wanna become exceptional at understanding the human nature of other people and using it in my favor, w- where do I start there? What are the, the sort of foundations of being great at using other people's human nature to my advantage? That sounds very narcissistic and very, uh, awful but it's, it's-
- RGRobert Greene
It's-
- SBSteven Bartlett
... it is what it is.
- RGRobert Greene
Part is it is what it is.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- RGRobert Greene
Exactly. People, as I say, the main mistake we make in dealing with other people and it's, and it's a common mistake that I make as well, is we take the appearances for reality. We take their masks for how they appear to us, for their politeness, for their smiles, for their saying, "Oh, I loved you," et cetera, for the reality. And we have to learn that, to look behind people's masks. We have to learn what's really, really going on behind them. And we have to learn some basics about human nature. People like to believe that they're essentially good. You know, saintly, virtuous, however you wanna do it. People want to believe that they're intelligent. They're ... You never wanna feel like, "I'm not stupid. I'm intelligent." And the other third thing is that they're, uh, that they're willpower, that they're in control of their lives. They do things because they decided to do it. To tell, to make people feel insecure about their intelligence, 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 they choose to but because they were forced to or because they d- they're not aware of themselves, they hate that. They're gonna hate you. They're gonna resent you. They're gonna resist you. Knowing some basics about people like that gives you the power to use that for influence, for persuasion. Okay. Understanding envy in the human world. And on social media, envy is just an ex- is like a nuclear bomb. It's just exploded, our tendency to feel envy, to compare ourselves to other people.... you've gotta use that for power. There's great power in that, in a marketing pub- publicity sense. Virality, what- getting other people to be interested in what other people are doing. That's how things sell themselves. If you try and tell people what they should buy
- 43:06 – 51:51
Do we have to lie to be successful?
- RGRobert Greene
as opposed to, "Look at what other people are doing, I wanna join in on that," right? Knowing about these basic qualities in human nature, about how we like to compare ourselves, how we have these certain opinions about ourselves, et cetera, et cetera, gives you all this power to take that human nature and use it for whatever purposes you want. For good or uns- fortunately some people use it for bad.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do we have to lie to be successful? And I say this because, through reading some of your work, I- I heard sentences such as, "You should keep your true intentions hidden in social situations." Um, you say a lot about, like, kind of cloaking yourself in various ways. You talk about showing 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 it's a little bit of a difficult question, but do we have to lie?
- RGRobert Greene
Look, Steven. Being a human being means we lie, right? The moment you open your mouth and you speak, you are essentially not telling the truth. You know what doesn't lie? Body language, non-verbal communication. The way you smile, the look in your eyes. You can't lie about that. But children, three or four years old, are already learning to craft what they say f- to mommy or daddy to get what they want. They're very clever. They're very strategic, right? They know that if they, if they say that they, what they 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 be an actor. A social animal like we are, we are actors in life. Get over this idea about guilting about- about it. I'm so sick of that. We are actors. We are descended from chimpanzees. Chimpanzees are consummate actors. Read the literature on that. They know how to deceive incredibly well and they don't even have language to deceive, right? So we are actors. The moment you go out in the public, you're not telling people, "Oh, you're fat. You're ugly. Your writing sucks. You- duh-duh-duh-duh-duh. I don't like what you're wearing." You never do that. You're an actor. When you see your father, you act a certain way. When you see a little kid, you act a certain way. When you see a little kitty cat, you have a certain tone in your voice. When you t- deal with your boss, the person who pays for the- for your pockets, I don't know if there is such person, you wear- you act a different way. You're constantly changing how- who you are and how you a- one moment you're Robert De Niro, the next moment you're, I don't 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 people not recognizing this fact that we are all actors, that we are constantly deceiving. Yes, there are differences, there are qualities of lying. You know, I understand that. There's Donald Trump lying and there's the lying of the everyday white lies in which we have to say certain things to get ahead, et cetera, et cetera. There are degrees, I understand that. And some lying could be very harmful and- and very counterproductive in the end. But the moment you enter the world and the moment you open your mouth, you are in some ways already an actor and you are already using forms of deception.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why can't we be our true selves?
- RGRobert Greene
Because it would irritate oth- people, because it would grate, you know? I don't know about you, but I appreciate politeness, right? I go somewhere and I know someone's being polite, I know that they're not necessarily meaning it, but it's nice. Right? It's kind of smooth. It kind of makes everything sort of smooth. If people weren't polite, it'd all be grating and like two pieces of metal constantly hitting each other. It'd be so annoying you'd wanna kill yourself or you'd wanna kill people. You'd become a ki- a murderer. You know? Social life depends on that kind of smoothness, those interactions, so we need that to some degree. If we were just always telling people what we really thought, our- our world would collapse tomorrow.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What about showing our weakness? I've got this quote from you that says, "If you are weak and ask for little, little is what you will get. But if you act strong, making firm, even outrageous demands, you will create the opposite impression. People will think that you are confident and that it must be based on something real. You will earn their respect, which in turn will translate to real leverage."
- RGRobert Greene
Well, it's- it's about certain situations, so I don't want you to apply that idea to everything in life. And some people make the mistake when they read The 48 Laws of Power. They think, "Wow, I'm gonna use that everywhere." No. It applies to certain situations. So let's say you're negotiating, and I know I dealt with this myself. I'm actually a fairly timid person by nature, but I've learned to cultivate the opposite. So if you're negotiating a price for what you want for your time, for your services, and you're not very confident and you kind of ask for a little, that's what you're gonna get because people aren't gonna... They're assuming that you're- that you're not really up to the task. You say, "Uh, all right, $20,000 is 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 in it, they're gonna go, "Wow, that person is- is confident." And if they turn you down, that's fine because somebody else will give you that price. If you- you set your own value by what you believe about yourself. If you think that you're worthless...... if you're not very good at it, other people pick that up.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Uh, w- as you were talking, I was thinking about, um, Adam Neumann from WeWork, and this conversation I heard with him and the founder of SoftBank in the back of a taxi where-
- RGRobert Greene
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
... Adam Neumann's asking for a billion and then the owner of SoftBank, this very eccentric Chinese, very rich Asian man goes, "Do you know what, Adam? The only problem with you is that you're not ambitious enough."
- RGRobert Greene
Ugh.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And he writes him a check, I believe, for like, 5 or 10 billion dollars in the back of this taxi after tw- like something like 12 minutes of being with him. And I always thought about that and thought, "Jesus, what if I just started asking life for way more? If I just multiplied all of these emails that I send and requests I make by 10, what would happen to my life over the course of 10 years?"
- RGRobert Greene
Well, yeah. Um, probably y- you probably would've gotten a lot more than you got in, without asking for that. Um, yeah, because w- w- we, we, we're creatures that, as I said before, we look at the appearances of things. Look, it's, it's very s- very easy metaphor here. You go into a social situation like a party and you go up to somebody who's kind of nervous and insecure and anxious, and I'm not criticizing that because we all have insecurities, I have many of them myself, but you go up to somebody like that and it makes you feel kind of nervous and insecure, right? And you're kind of fumbling for words and a kind of goes, bit of awkwardness happens. Reverse that and you go up to somebody else and they're kind of confident, they look you in the eye, you know, their voice is strong, their body language is strong, they connect to you. Whoa, you think, it brings y- out that part of you, is like that. You might be intimidated but it also might bring out your own kind of confident self. I remember being around 50 Cent, who's a very charismatic, confident to the point of, um, ridiculousness, and it was very infectious. I felt that way after being 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 contagious effects by people. So if you project strength and confidence, you know? And I understand it's a little different for women, which is n- v- an interesting subject because sometimes projecting that for a woman will rub the wrong way because people will think that... And it's a terrible qual- thing about us, that, that women are judged by a s- different standard, or that'll seem like they're a bitch or something like that. So I understand there are nuances here and that the game is different for women as it is for people of other ethnicities as well, you know? So it's not just one way or the other.
- 51:51 – 54:32
How to read someone's body language
- RGRobert Greene
But to the degree th- even for the woman, that you've, have this air of confidence, that you believe in what you're doing, that you believe you're worth it, it projects itself to other people. You don't have to scream and shout and you don't have to demand $10 billion, but if you feel confident, if you feel you're worth this amount of money, it'll project outward to other people.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Body language.
- RGRobert Greene
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I'm gonna talk about that. Does it... D- you know, you said earlier it's one of the things we can't lie about. Is there anything that you still look for in, today, when you're trying to un- read someone, their body language? Are there certain cues, is there postures or...
- RGRobert Greene
Well, you know, you, you gotta, in reading non-verbal communication, it's a different form of intelligence. It's not algorithms, it's not formulaic. It's human, it's emotional, it's empathetic. It's a reading without words. It's attuning yourself to other people. So I attune myself to people's emotions, to the vibe that they give off, in an overall sense. A gestalt is one thing that I like to do. So if I had to give it a word I would say anxious, or I would have to say outgoing and extroverted, or I would have to say impatient or whatever. There's an energy that kind of defines them. It's a word and that word is not q- precise, but there is an overall feel that I get from a person. And then I'm always looking at specifics. It's not like I'm sitting there consciously in my head going through a checklist. I'm just feeling certain things and I'm feeling that the eyes are kind of dead. They're not engaging with me. And you can't put that into words but you know the feeling. So when someone's looking at you but they're not really looking at you, you know what that feels like, don't you?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- RGRobert Greene
And a lot of psychopathic people, a lot of narcissists do that. So part of their face pretends to be 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 what they can get out of you, they're seeing you as an object, right? Eyes are hard to lie. They tell you something. Now actors, very skilled actors, can kind of create some of these impressions but one thing that they can't fake is the tone in their voice. And actors will tell you that it's the hardest thing to actually consciously control. So the voice
- 54:32 – 56:51
A smile says loads about how someone feels about you
- RGRobert Greene
of a person tells you a lot about their confidence levels, tells you a lot about, you know, how, just about their general emotional tone, about their character, about who they are. It's very difficult to fake and when it's hesitant, when it's, like, stammering, when it's not... You know, you could kind of sense something from people's voice and it's very hard to fake. And then the smile. The smile-... tells you a h- hundred different things if you know how to read it. There's the authentic smile, which I'm not gonna fake right now but... (laughs) Well, I just...
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- RGRobert Greene
It lights up the whole face, you know? Like, you really feel joy. You ca- you, don't, can't fake it. Your eyes go up, your cheeks go up. Everything kind of connects together, right? The fake smile is... (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- RGRobert Greene
You know?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. That's we've all seen the fake smile. Just when the mouth goes up and the rest of the face doesn't bother.
- RGRobert Greene
Stephen, I really like you.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- RGRobert Greene
You're really, you're wonderful. You know? Most of the time, most smiles are fake. But you can kind of, when you see the genuine smile and you go, "That's what caused the genuine smile," you should become aware of that. And then body language tells you a lot. Like, if somebody, when they're talking to you and you're standing up at a, at a party, is their body kind of facing another direction while they're talking to you? Are they kind of looking out that way while they're talking to you? That means they're not really interested in you. They're not really engaged in you, right? Also, when you catch people by surprise 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 office and you don't know whether they're a snake or that they're actually genuinely y- your friend, but you suspect it could go either way. You kind of approach them from an angle, right? And you surprise them, and you come up to them and you go... And they look at you. And for a second, you detect what we call a micro-expression of, of disdain, and then they put on the smile. That micro-expression, which scientists, psychologists have studied, lasts for like, less than a second, much less than a second.
- 56:51 – 57:18
People's personalities are contagious
- RGRobert Greene
You have to be able to read it. But it reveals whether they actually like you or they're totally false. They can't fake it. So if you come just straight on, they'll, "Oh, hi, Stephen. I love... Great to see you." If you come and they, "Oh..." They, they kind of pretend and they try and act, and you, you can get clues like that. There's so many ways to read body language. It's such a fascinating subject. I could go on for hours about it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
How important is it, you know, you're talking about colleagues
- 57:18 – 1:06:42
Frenemies, what they mean and how to spot one
- SBSteven Bartlett
and team members there, and earlier you said that people are contagious. How important do you think it is to the success of our lives? And I pause there because success means, it's a personal thing, it's a professional thing, to surround ourselves with the right group of people and to be intentional about that?
- RGRobert Greene
It's very important. Um, I have a chapter in, (clears throat) excuse me, in The 48 Laws of Power about infection. And, um, I think it's an experience many of us have had, where you're around somebody who seems at first glance to be very interesting, and they, they, they become your friend maybe. They're very dramatic, and they have all these stories to tell, and they seem almost slightly larger than life. And you engage with them, and then you become friends. And then slowly, slowly, slowly, it becomes clear that, that they're a little bit nuts, right? They're always talking about how this person screwed them, how that person screwed them, how this boyfriend or girlfriend was so awful and so nasty. And you re- you're going to realize, is this true or is it maybe they're that the pro- they are the problem? But now they're your friend and now you're emotionally attached to them, 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, "Goddammit, I wanna get away from this person, but I can't." They've infected you with their negative energy and it gets under your skin. And so, uh, you have to avoid people like that. You have to read, before you get involved with them, that they are a drama queen or a drama king, 'cause there are just as many men out there who have this quality. You have to see that they are... that they play the victim of a- of everybody else, but actually, they kind of bring it onto themselves. Some people are genuinely unfortunate. Bad things have happened to them and it's not their fault. I'm never saying, it's a misconception about that chapter, that you should avoid everybody who's unfortunate. There are people, and a lot of people out there, whose circumstances have put, made them, you know, in their s- their- their- w- what- what's going on. It's not their fault, right? But then there are other people you have to recognize that the bad things that happened to them are things that they have brought on because they have this infecting power. It comes from a deep insecurity. You don't want them in your life. Being around insecure people will make you insecure. Being around confident people who kind of know what they're doing, who've got their act together, who are trying to make things and accomplish things, because there's so many people out there who talk and talk and talk but never do anything. Being around people who do things, who get things done, who've made a business, who've made this, that, or the other, they're gold to be around 'cause they'll infect you with their positive energy.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Frenemies.
- RGRobert Greene
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Do we all have frenemies and how do we spot frenemies?
- RGRobert Greene
Well, hopefully, we all don't have them. But, um, in The Laws of Human Nature and in, in several of my books, I talk about the phenomenon of envy, which is a very, very powerful human trait. It has roots, very ancient roots. We know that in hunter-gatherer societies from thousands of years ago, envy was a real problem. And so they created all kinds of rituals to avoid envy, where the moment somebody in a tribe received a gift, they had to give it to other members so they wouldn't face envy. Because facing envy, you could be murdered for it. So you learned all of these rituals. And we've noticed that chimpanzees feel envy. You give some, one of the higher-up chimps, 'cause they're very hierarchical, a grape...... and all of a sudden, all the other chimps are very, wanting that grape as well and they feel envy and et cetera, et cetera. So it's an extremely human emotion. The thing that we don't realize though, that the people most likely to feel envy... First of all, we all feel envy. We're all comparing ourselves to other people. I feel it all the time. Right now, I envy Ryan Holiday because he's, you know, so 30 years younger, he's sold so 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 s- small degrees of envy. But there are people... I call it passive envy, but active envy means people act on it. They do something to hurt you. They sabotage you in some way. Frenemies are the classic scenario. So somebody who feels envious of you ends up befriending you. And consciously, they may not even be aware of that. They think, "Well, I would do want to like them." But unconsciously, they feel envy, they think that you have success that you don't necessarily de- des- deserve, that you have what they want, right? They become your friend and they, they charm you, et cetera, et cetera. And then lo and behold, you start noticing all kinds of behavior that's very ugly that you weren't expecting 'cause you're... They're your friend. They start saying bitchy comments that get under your skin, that make you feel insecure. They take things from you. They act in ways that are hurtful. But because they're your friend, your first instinct is to blame 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," et cetera, et cetera. So I believe behind the frenemies phenomenon is this, this phenomena of envy where the person secretly wants what you have and they're becoming your friend so that they can wound you. And what's best to do is to recognize that. And one common sign of a frenemy, of somebody who's befriending you be- out of envy is they're in a rush to be your friend. Normally, we like to take it a little bit slow. We just don't let anybody into our lives. We like to vet them a little bit beforehand, right? We don't trust everybody. But the person who feels envy is like, "I love you. You're fantastic. I wanna be your friend. We gotta hang out. Let's go out for dinner the next night," et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. They're in a hurry. That's a sign that something else is going on because that's not natural.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What about when friends become frenemies? Because sometimes through the process of us changing-
- RGRobert Greene
Yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... we might inspire that envy.
- RGRobert Greene
Yes, like your status changes. We've all had to deal with that. I've had to deal with that as well. You have success and you, you came from a background where you, where th- where you weren't so successful and your friends are still there and they envy you and they're not very nice to you. And, uh, you know, it's a... It's not a good quality and I've, I've, I've al- I understand the quality, I understand where it comes from and I've, I wrote about it in Human Nature where we're all aware of the, of this, of the what we call schadenfreude. Schadenfreude means you take pleasure in other people's pain. So you hear a friend didn't get the job 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? Uh, and, uh, we all f- go through that, right? The opposite is mitfreude. It's an expression that Nietzsche coined which means you feel joy for other people. I like to try and qu- cultivate some of the higher qualities in life. So if something good happens to somebody, I've... My first thought is I might 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 has happened, right? But it's not natural. So when somebody that you know and you've known for a long time has success in life, your first thought is to be, "They didn't deserve it. They kinda cheated their way into it." Okay, as we talked about in the very beginning, you confront that ugly emotion in yourself and you go, "That's not who I wanna be," and you go, "I'm gonna make myself feel the opposite. I'm gonna make myself feel happy for their success." It's not natural and most people don't go through that, and I know personally from people I knew before I had any success in life, they're the ones that give me the fewest amount of compliments for my books. They never read my books in the first place. They're very spare with their, with what they say. They've got a pinched look on their face. Whereas people I've never met before in my life give me all kinds of compliments.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why is that?
- RGRobert Greene
Because they're envious. They're upset.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Are you th- are you threatening them because they see themselves like you because they knew you and you're where f- you're from where they were from so you're even more threatening? You're holding up a mirror to them in a way that makes them feel even more uncomfortable.
- RGRobert Greene
Well, they're not gonna s- feel that way. So what people will go through in that sense is... And this is how I, I, I, I, I think it through, "Oh, Robert sold himself out. He wrote a book that's evil, that's nasty, that's manipulative. I didn't think he was like that. I thought he was this nice person. Oh, I don't like
- 1:06:42 – 1:09:25
What's the most controversial point from your book?
- RGRobert Greene
his book. It's ugly." They'll go through that process. They'll stay my friend because we've had years and years together. Uh, it's very, very common, at least I know that. They go... They do that with my books even though my later books aren't like The 48 Laws of Power, they still have it in their brain that this guy w- who used to be so sweet and nice wrote these nasty, evil, manipulative, Machiavellian books. He sold out.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What is it at the heart of The 48 Laws of Power that some people are-... triggered by? Like, what is the- what- what was the single most triggering concept or the most, um, controversial or the concept that people just had a surface level allergic reaction to on sight without even really reading it, they just, "Oh, uh, I don't know."
- RGRobert Greene
Yeah, they read the back of the book. They read the names of the laws and they go, "Oh, that's- that's ugly." And a lot of times they've had to deal with ugly people in their lives and so that's when I see- I see the authentic disgust reaction and I understand it, that they had to deal with someone who was very manipulative and they find it disgusting. Of course, when I get to have a rational discussion with them and I calm down their emotional reaction, I said, "Look, if you had The 48 Laws of Power before this person manipulated you, they would've never been able to manipulate you. That 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 tricks people are playing on you, right? They know they're posing as a friend and acting like a spy, right? They're concealing their intentions, you know, etc., etc., etc. It's showing you all of these tricks, okay?" But that's when they calm down and they're able to say that. But the idea that we're not angels, that we don't all have the- the best intentions in life, that I'm writing a manual, they think, for how to manipulate, how to deceive, how to con people, triggers people very much. A lot of people who've- who've- who've suffered in life, who've had a lot of pain understand that there's irony in the book. They don't read it the same way. They read it knowing, "Yeah, I've had this happen. This is what people are like. I'm okay with it. I'm cool with it." And I must say, I don't know if this will come off wrong, but a lot of the readers who responded most positively to The 48 Laws of Power early on were African Americans, people like 50, people in the hip-hop business, etc. They didn't have any illusions about human nature, about how good we are, because they've seen this side all
- 1:09:25 – 1:12:29
Does equality exist when we all strive for power?
- RGRobert Greene
throughout their lives, right? 50 said when he got into the record business, he was shocked at how political people were, how manipulative they were. So, they- they weren't having that same reaction. They weren't having the guilty reaction like, "Oh, that- I don't wanna 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 think, what a lot of what triggered people.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It's funny 'cause I was speaking to a CIA age- agent recently, and he said something at the end of our conversation to me. He said, "Do you know, one of the things I've come to learn from being in the CIA is that I no longer believe that equality is possible." And he c- he su-
- RGRobert Greene
Equality?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Equality, yeah, because that's just not the way that the human world works and we all pretend we want equality. We all 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 about hierarchies and power and getting ahead, even the- the sheer nature of being a politician is campaigning to get into a position of, you know, o- objective power. And I wanted- wanted to know what you thought about that.
- RGRobert Greene
Well, I mean, there's some truth to it in the sense of there's something in our nature that is hierarchical that has deep roots in us. But I do believe in one form of equality, um, and that is everybody at their birth has the possibility for following the path that I talk about in Mastery, for being great, for fulfilling their destiny, for being the unique individual that they are at birth. So everybody is born with a- a DNA that'll never be replicated in the past or in the future, right? There is a uniqueness about every person and- and there's a uniqueness about your parents, about your background, about your early years, right? And that uniqueness is a seed that if you pla- if you cultivate it and you- and you use it and you know your purpose and you- you mine it for power... In- in- in Mastery, I interviewed, one of the master I interviewed was a woman named Temple Grandin who was born with severe autism. At the age of two, she was about to be committed to a hospital for the rest of her life. She was- she was, like, almost, like, in a walking coma. S- for some reason, they got her a teacher to teach her language and she started emerging a little bit, and then slowly she blossomed and she realized bec- it was something common to a lot of autistic people, that she had an incredible connection to animals and a lot of autistic people have that. She couldn't connect to people. They were so tricky and deceptive. She- she didn't know how to deal with them. But animals, give her a horse, a dog, a cow, she felt like she was one of them. She ended up following that path and becoming a high level animal behavioral scientist who, um... She was born with autism about to be committed to a hospital and yet she achieved
- 1:12:29 – 1:18:11
Becoming the best, what it really means
- RGRobert Greene
incredible success in life as a scientist. I do honestly, and I'm not faking, I do honestly believe that everyone has that potential. But it- it's not equal in the outcomes of that. There are a lot of peop- the majority of people don't follow that path. But I do believe everybody has that potential.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is that potential, like, objective greatness? Or is it our own subjective greatness? I- I can become the greatest version of Steven. Or do you believe that everyone could become great in the context of, you know, the very best in the world, like, you know, Steve-
- RGRobert Greene
No.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... Jobs or-
- RGRobert Greene
No. They're not gonna be. You don't have to be the very best in- in the world. I mean, I...Uh, when I- when Mastery came out, we were- uh, the New York Times wanted to do a story about my house in the home section. Okay, well, why? But all right. I never get any publicity from mainstream media, so okay, fine. So I had to quickly upgrade my house 'cause they were gonna come over with photo- pho- photographers. And we got a man over to do the tile work on my patio, which looked like hell. And I- I told people, "This guy was a true master." He wasn't, like, making six figures. Nobody would ever write an article about him. He will die and no one will ever know that, but I could see in the quiet quality and how well he understood it and- and the care that he took in it and how much he enjoyed, you know, creating a beautiful effect with the tile work that he was a master. It doesn't 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. Some people, it's just being a great parent. They're very social, they're very empathetic, and they're not maybe gonna become an extremely successful finance person, but they're really good at raising their children and they put- they put a lot of effort and care into it. That's fantastic. 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 is what I was meant to accomplish and I'm f- I'm following it and I'm happy what I do, I feel fulfilled by my work and I can go on doing it, I take it seriously, I care about it, I do believe that- that anybody can have that level of- of power in their life.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I think I struggle with that, if I'm being honest.
- RGRobert Greene
Yeah, please.
- SBSteven Bartlett
On- on a personal level. I struggle with, um, enough being enough. And also, I think I've grown up in the generation where there's so much comparison everywhere we look when we 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 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, that desperation. So maybe I should never believe I'm there yet. But then also I wonder am I going to defer happiness off into the future because I think it's behind some kind of accomplishment or job title or, you know, success in my life? And, uh, you know, when I hear about that tiler, I go- that person that was tiling your, um, patio, I'm really jealous because they sound contempt with much less than would make me contempt. What is the correct- correct answer? Is it to be the happy tiler who's tiling the patio or is it to be the, um, impatient Steve Jobs that's striving for the personal computer?
- RGRobert Greene
Well, it depends on who you are. We're all individuals. We all have our- our unique energies. It's the fact that you engage, you love, that you're emotionally connected to it, that it gives you a sense of fulfillment, that you're not looking over your shoulder, "Oh, I- I could be doing this instead," I'm fine with that. Uh, it doesn't have to be the Steve Jobs who's continually dissatisfied, who's Faustian, who always has to have more. I'm not against that either. I don't know why we have to be so judgemental. If people are following the path and they are in love with what they do and they have a genuine connection to it, I'm not gonna judge because they're not famous or because they're not trying to be the greatest, the Michael Jordan of tiling or whatever, et cetera. I think it's fine. And you, you're not happy. You wanna- you wanna crush it. You wanna be- have the number one podcast. That's fine as well. Why can't we have, you know, that kind of diversity in our world?
- SBSteven Bartlett
The most important thing for both those types of people, the- the people that have that sort of insatiable sense of ambition but also the people that are contempt with whatever they're doing in their lives, from what I heard there is they both love what they're doing, uh, and they both have those cool components that you described earlier, like they both feel the challenge in their work still. And that challenge might be, "Okay, I'm gonna do a bigger patio today," or it might be, "I'm gonna launch a billion dollar business tomorrow for someone else." And it's really about those cool components of, like, challenge, meaning, purpose.
- RGRobert Greene
Yeah. Yeah, because, um, what you don't want is you don't wanna be in your 50s, in your 60s facing death, you know, 'cause your days are numbered, who knows how long you're gonna live? And you're gonna go, "Damn it, I could've done something with my life. When I was a child, I had these dreams. I thought I was gonna be really great at it and I never realized
- 1:18:11 – 1:24:49
Is death a motivator for you?
- RGRobert Greene
it. I went off on these other paths. I was lost. I thought I was happy, but- but I never really fulfilled any of those childhood dreams or those fantasies." You know, it's a terrible, terrible feeling and I want people to avoid that. As long as it's something that engages you, that's connected to that child that you were, it's something that you love and that you- you can create these challenges for you.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is death a motivator for you?
- RGRobert Greene
Well, um, it certainly is now. (laughs) You know, 'cause, um, my days are- are literally numbered. Y- you reach a certain age and you know you can literally count the numbers, uh, of the days that might be left to you, and I nearly died several years ago with my stroke. I came this close to dying, you know? I was driving my car and if my wife hadn't suddenly seen something, I wouldn't be talking to you here right now. Either I would've crashed and died or I would've had such bad brain damage that I'd be a vegetable. So I know about death. I feel it in my body every day I wake up.... I do my morning meditation. I'm aware there's a practice that I have in my meditation where this could be my last thought. I could die 10 seconds from now. What do I want in my head in those last seconds? Do I wanna have some petty little thought about somebody who did this or said that? Or do I wanna have something else greater in my head? I'm constantly aware of my mortality and with the book that I'm writing, it's always, it's always in my mind because frankly, I'm aware that I might die before I finish the book. So now, I've written two-thirds of it. If I die tomorrow, the book can be published, and that's okay. I can live with that. But, uh, you know, I'm in a hurry to get it done because I know it could happen at any moment, you know, and it almost happened to me. So I'm continually aware of it, but not in a bad sense. In a way of, it kind of makes- gives meaning to my life. It makes me aware of how, you know, valuable each moment is and how things that everybody... I look out my window, I see people doing things that I can't do anymore. And I go, "They take it all for granted." They walk around unaware of their mortality, of how their body could break down any day now. I'm aware of it, so I'm not gonna feel envy because I- my mind is at a different level. I'm aware of the, of the ephemeral nature of life and it makes everything kind of beautiful to me. It makes me appreciate everything around me. I don't mean to be too saccharine about this, 'cause 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 lot of that darkness. But I believe the awareness of death is, is a beautiful, beautiful thing. It's- it's- it's- it's- it makes everything intense and makes everything aglow.
- SBSteven Bartlett
With that awareness, if you were my age, I've just turned 31.
- RGRobert Greene
Wow, you're a kid.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- RGRobert Greene
(laughs) Jesus Christ, man. I hate you. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- RGRobert Greene
When I was 31, I was The Biggest Loser. That's amazing.
- SBSteven Bartlett
If I could transplant that awareness from your head to my head-
- RGRobert Greene
It's hard. It's hard.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... that you've got from the life you've lived, but also from that stroke incident and the perspective of your mortality that it gave you and the ephemerality of life that it showed you, how would you think I would live my life differently? How would you have lived your life differently when you were 31?
- RGRobert Greene
Uh, you know, I- I make a point of, I never go through that exercise because, um, I believe in something called amor fati, which means love of your fate. Everything happened for a purpose. I wouldn't have done anything differently if I had to go back because it all led to the right things. So if I'd been in a hurry when I was 22 to be successful as a writer, I would have never been able to write the books that I wrote. It would have all gone askew. Who knows where I would have ended up. I'm very, very happy with... I don't regret anything. But if you're young, what often happens is, because your life, the pattern of your 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 two-thirds woven so I can see all of these patterns that you can't see in your life. But at your stage, you know, you tend to think, "I've got all this time ahead of me. I'm so young. I've- I could do this. I can- I can go travel here. I can do this business and that business," et cetera, et cetera. You don't feel that sense of urgency. You don't realize that tomorrow you could be hit by a car, tomorrow you could suddenly be diagnosed with cancer. People are dying now in their 30s and 40s. I read, unfortunately, when you get older, a bad habit is you start reading the obituary pages. (laughs) I don't know why. Um, and you start reading about people, a lot of people who are in their 40s and 50s are dying left, right, and center today for various reasons. It can happen and what it does to you is it says, "I only have so much time. I wanted to accomplish this one thing that I've been putting off." Okay, you wrote your book. Maybe there's something else that you've always wanted to do but you have never done and you're kind of putting it off. A sense of urgency, a sense that your time is relatively short is a good thing. The other thing is it makes, as I said, it makes everything a little more intense, a little more aglow is the word I like to use. So I used to swim like three days a week and I would swim long distances and I loved it. It was my greatest therapy. I just love getting out of my head and just going, being in the water, okay? But I never appreciated it until now when I can't do it. So I want you to appreciate you going to the gym, d- d- having your health, 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 all this stuff for granted.
- 1:24:49 – 1:27:01
The importance of relationships
- RGRobert Greene
They think that I'm privileged because I have this success at a... You know, when you're young, you have all these privileges. You have your health. You have all the things that are gonna, could be taken away from you. Don't take for granted these things in your life that you have that are not gonna last forever. Think in those terms and think of, of how m- more intense everything around you becomes when you have that mindset.
Episode duration: 2:00:41
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