Robert Greene ON: The Laws of Mastery, Power and Human Nature & Harnessing Your Dark Side For Good

1. 0:00 – 2:47

   Intro

   1. RGRobert Greene0:00

      When you're excited about a project, when you feel alive and energized, then time is a much different experience than when you're bored. So you can create your relationship to time, right? So I'm not ready. Well, there's a strategy for that. You should always take action a little bit before you are ready is the advice I give. Several months before you're ready, go ahead and do it. Try it, because you're gonna rise to the occasion.

   2. JSJay Shetty0:29

      [upbeat music] Hey, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every single one of you who come back every week to listen, learn, and grow. Now, you know that the podcast is just an excuse for me to reach out to amazing people, incredible minds, and the people that I want to sit down with the most and pick their brain. And today's guest is someone that I've wanted to do that with for a long, long time. I remember reading his books years ago. We've been in touch for quite some time to try and get this scheduled, and today I'm so grateful because he's made the effort to be here physically present with us in the studio. He's none other than Robert Greene, the author of some of my favorite books. We have The Laws of Human Nature. His new book that's out right now called The Daily Laws. I highly recommend that you go and grab your copy. And of course, uh, the greatest one of all time, in my opinion, The 48 Laws of Power. So we're gonna be diving into these three books today, and Robert himself, and I hope that you'll all be making notes. This is one that you want your notebook out for. It's one that you want to get your pen and pencil out for, and I'm so grateful. Robert, thank you so much for being here.

   3. RGRobert Greene1:48

      Thank you so much for having me, Jay. My pleasure.

   4. JSJay Shetty1:50

      No, it's an honor to have you here, honestly. And-

   5. RGRobert Greene1:52

      I've been looking forward to it.

   6. JSJay Shetty1:53

      Me too. Me too. So, I mean, I'll, I'll tell everyone the story. Me and Robert were about to record three or four months back, and we both had a friendly conversation, and I think you were asking me where I live, and I was saying I live in LA and I, I live in Hollywood, and you were saying you live in Los Feliz. And we were like, "Well, we, we're, we're, like, 15 minutes away." And so we said, "Let's do it in person." And I'm so happy that we made that possible and all the effort you took to be here, so thank you.

   7. RGRobert Greene2:19

      Yeah. Yeah, my pleasure. I love getting out of the house, so it's actually fun for me.

   8. JSJay Shetty2:22

      Amazing. Well, you know, your work is legendary. It's, you know, to, to say it's a bestselling book or anything is an understatement. Your work has impacted the way people think and live and make decisions, and people look to your books as law books and textbooks. They don't see them as, uh, just storybooks or a quick read. They're, they're reference books almost. And

2. 2:47 – 7:01

   Figuring people out is a form of power

   1. JSJay Shetty2:47

      I guess my biggest question to start off is, where did your obsession with power come from?

   2. RGRobert Greene2:54

      You know, I guess it's, you'd have to go back to my early childhood. Um, maybe, you know, I felt as a child a little bit helpless around my parents in some ways. I was a very sensitive boy. I still have that, that issue. They were great parents, but they weren't the most overtly affectionate, and so I was always kind of wondering and observing them and trying to be careful around them, that I didn't do anything to upset them. So I became kind of an observer of people, and my main thing was, as sort of a protective device, to not be hurt and to be able to have a degree of control over the people around me so I didn't feel like I was, you know, gonna get yelled at or something like that. And then as I entered the work world, um, you know, I kind of... It was sort of a rude awakening for me because I had studied, you know, literature and languages. My major was ancient Greek and, you know, things that are completely impractical in this world, and then I entered the work world with all of my dreams, my illusions, my fancies, and it's like slapped in the face. This is not what I expected. I had many different jobs. I lived in New York. I did journalism. Then I lived in Europe. I traveled around 'cause I couldn't really find out what I wanted to do. I worked in a hotel in Paris. I taught English in Barcelona. I did construction work in Greece, on an island in Greece. I worked in a television company in London. You name it, I did it. And I had all kinds of bosses. I saw all kinds of power games and manipulations going on. And so taking that knowledge from my childhood, observing people, seeing how they operate, seeing what's really going on behind their minds, 'cause people wear masks. They don't tell you what they're thinking. They don't want to admit that they want power, that they want to control you or manipulate you in some way. And so I was always kind of a decipherer of people and what their real thoughts were. And to me, figuring people out is a form of power. And then I worked in Hollywood, which is kind of the ultimate power environment, you know. Because nobody in Hollywood wants to admit that their goal is power. They want to make it, "Oh, we're about art, we're about creativity, liberal causes," blah, blah, blah. But really, they wanted power. It was the most power-hungry environment I had ever witnessed. I observed a kind of a double face think quality going on. On the one hand, they would present this front to their employees, to everyone else, but really, they were practicing all of these games, these kind of power games going on. And so that's what sort of inspired my first book, The 48 Laws of Power, because my, my sympathies are more on the side of the underdog. I don't have a sympathy for a Hollywood executive, for a Michael Ovitz, for a CEO of a company. I have sympathy for the poor guy like myself who is thrown into these environments, doesn't understand them, is a bit naive, right? Doesn't know the rules of power that these generally white men, at least back in that era, seemed to know instinctively. And so I wanted to, like, reveal To everyone what goes on behind closed doors, the real games of power that people play. So it's not that I'm obsessed with it, but I feel like p- people like myself are often too naive. They don't understand what they're about to get into. They don't understand how rough and brutal the world can be, and I actually wanted to kind of help them and reveal the kinds of things that I learned the hard way.

   3. JSJay Shetty6:29

      I love that learning journey because so much of what we seek are the gifts and gaps from our parents. You know?

   4. RGRobert Greene6:37

      Yeah.

   5. JSJay Shetty6:37

      Whether they-

   6. RGRobert Greene6:38

      Yeah

   7. JSJay Shetty6:38

      ... give us a gift and we chase that gift, or they h- they have a gap in their parenting, we try and fill that gap. And it's amazing how everything seems to really, really stem from that. Where ... How do you define power in the way you guide people in this book towards power? Because I think power has changed. Power has shifted. Its meaning has evolved,

3. 7:01 – 10:55

   The misconception of having power

   1. JSJay Shetty7:01

      and I wanted to know what you define as power.

   2. RGRobert Greene7:04

      Well, people have this misconception of power. They think it has to do with, you know, CEOs and presidents, and it's kind of ugly and dirty. I have a much different conception of it. It's something that has to do with your daily life. Now, I have the idea that much in our lives we cannot control. You can throw a number out, 95%. You can't control disease. You can't control the people that you meet. It's by chance that you met your wife and you fell in love and you ended up marrying her. You kind of fall into jobs. There's much in life that is way beyond your control, but there's a margin that you can control, right? And it's mostly about your relationships. It has to do with your children, your spouse, your partners, your colleagues at work, your bosses. And the feeling that you have no control over them, that they can do whatever they want, that y- you have an idea and you want to sell it to them, or you want somebody to stop their annoying behavior, and you have ... can't control them, they're completely oblivious, they won't listen to anything you say, is to me the worst feeling for a human being to have, right? We're animals that need that sense of I can influence my environment. I can influence the people around me. And the sense of helplessness is a very, very primal feeling. It's like when you take an animal, I don't know if you have dogs or cats, and you put them on their belly. They feel exposed. They feel terrified, and that's when they attack you. Well, that position is like being on our belly. I can't control my teenage son. He's into drugs. My husband or my wife isn't listening to me. Ugh. My boss is doing ... You know, you want the ability to be able to at least defend yourself or to have some influence or power over them. It's a small margin because there's much you can't control. But to the degree that you can have some of that power, and you can ... And then there's one other aspect, probably the most important aspect that I'm forgetting here, is power over yourself. Self-mastery, right? Because a lot of the problems that you have in life, you can't really control yourself. You're, you're subject to all these emotions, these moods, these things that grab you, that obsess you, that possess you. Your mind is ... has these recurrent thoughts. You have no self-control, and it drives you crazy. You have a habit you want to get rid of. You take some program, some class, and three months later you're back at it. Ah. You know, what is it? So the sense that you can control yourself to a degree and the sense that you can have some influence over people is power, and the more you have it, the greater the feeling you have because you can get ... avoid that helplessness that makes all of us kind of crazy.

   3. JSJay Shetty9:42

      Yeah, I really love how you grounded that definition of power in self-mastery because that seems to be where everything else loses control. You know? It's like if we're out of control, then everything seems out of control. And so, so much of our lust or envy or greed or anger has the ability to distract and derail us completely when there's no self-power.

   4. RGRobert Greene10:10

      Right.

   5. JSJay Shetty10:11

      And, uh, why do you think it is? You mentioned that ... Why do you think it is that we all have an ... And I can relate to this, and I think, you know, when you referred to yourself as, as someone who struggled and, you know, couldn't figure it out and was surprised by what happened, and, you know, I, I would say the same that, you know, I grew up, uh, being bullied for being overweight, and I was the o- one of few Indian people in my entire area that I grew up in in London.

   6. RGRobert Greene10:36

      Where, where in London?

   7. JSJay Shetty10:37

      I, I was in North London, so majority area of Tottenham and Wood Green.

   8. RGRobert Greene10:41

      Tottenham. Sure.

   9. JSJay Shetty10:41

      Which, yeah, which are not considered South Asian areas generally. And when I look back at that time in my life, I also feel like I at one point in my life was an underdog. And

4. 10:55 – 16:32

   Nobody thinks of power in a positive sense

   1. JSJay Shetty10:55

      why do you think it is that so many underdogs have such a negative view of power? I feel like so many people today, whether they consider themselves underdogs or not, when we think of words like power or influence, we think of them as negative things. We think of them as being, as you said, like dirty or toxic or plagued. Why is that, and how do you healthily transform your belief around power?

   2. RGRobert Greene11:21

      Well, that was sort of what I wrote the book about, but a lot of it comes from our culture, which I think plays a very often a very negative role in our lives. It teaches us the wrong kinds of lessons. And so back in the days when it was television, now it's whatever you watch and whatever medium, you know, all of the villains in the world were these power-hungry people in, in black coats with cars with the, with the windows kind of blacked out, you know, and doing all sorts of evil, ugly things. That's what we think of as power. It's like a cultural trope that we've all digested, you know, this kind of Machiavellian character who's out to kind of destroy people. Nobody thinks of power in a positive sense, and it's maddening. It drives me crazy. It's incredibly hypocritical When self-help books are written and they're trying to say that power or ambition or influence are ugly things, when the writer himself or herself is actually a very powerful person who has influence, who has control, it's awful. It drove me crazy. It's why I wrote the book, you know? So I try and tell people, "Look, who's one of the great saints that we hold up in our culture?" Mahatma Gandhi, right? I certainly venerate him. He's an amazing person, and I read very deeply about Gandhi, and I wrote about him in m- my third book, The Strategies of War. And his goal was to throw the English out of India so they could finally experience inde- independence because the people had been subjugated for so long that they had forgotten what it meant to be human, in a way, right? A very noble goal. But he realized quickly on how difficult it would be, so he had to be strategic. And so he had things like the Salt March, where he very much plotted in advance that he knew, using his method of civil disobedience, where once the police came out, you were not to fight. You were to accept them. If they beat you, you accepted it. You never fought. No violence. But he knew that the m- that, back in the day before television, that the media, the newspapers, would cover their, their English p- bobbies or whomever they were beating these, these people up. And it would play horribly in England because people in England thought that they were very liberal and open-minded, that they weren't these horrifying i- imperialists. He was strategic. He knew that he g- had to get maximum publicity for very ugly confrontations. Years later, Martin Luther King, another icon who also practiced civil disobedience, d- utilized the same tactics in his campaigns in Selma and Montgomery. At one point, it was very controversial. He had children at the age of 13, 14 involved in this march, and that they would get beaten up. People were, in his group, castigated for this. How could you be like that? He knew that that would play on television now to the white audiences around America. They'd be horrified. If you want power in this w- if you are fighting for a cause, if you want some kind of justice, you have to be strategic. You have to think like that. You have to think in terms of power. People just don't give themselves up. You know, if we have the Me Too movement now, men are not just gonna give up all their control in a place like Hollywood. You have to hit them. You have to be strong. You have to be forceful. It's a power game, and I can't stand people who are naive, who think that just being themselves, just being virtuous, is gonna get what they want in life. If you're gonna fight for something, you have to be able to meet the enemy on their terms of power. So that's sort of how I like to explain to p- there's nothing unhealthy about Gandhi or, or MLK as far as I know.

   3. JSJay Shetty15:01

      Yeah, no. Thank you so much for sharing that perspective. I, it d- I definitely feel very aligned with that. I've often said to people when people have asked me, like, "Jay, how have you created what you've created, or how are you building your work and businesses?" And I've always said that, to me, sincerity and strategy have to go together.

   4. RGRobert Greene15:20

      Sure.

   5. JSJay Shetty15:20

      That, uh, data and intuition have to go together. Like, it's, you can't have one or the other. And so to only be sincere and loving and compassionate and kind, well, actually, a lot may not happen. And to only be strategic and influential-

   6. RGRobert Greene15:37

      Definitely

   7. JSJay Shetty15:37

      ... and powerful, you may end up-

   8. RGRobert Greene15:39

      Lose your soul

   9. JSJay Shetty15:39

      ... lose your so- exact- well beautifully said. Like, you lose your soul. But when you have two together, and it is a fine balance, and it is a... You're always juggling both, and you don't get the perfect amount. You're always in percentages and proportions. But the idea that you, you can't ignore this side. There's a beautiful quote you reminded me of from Martin Luther King, where he said, "Those who love peace need to learn to organize themselves as well as those who love war."

   10. RGRobert Greene16:06

       Right.

   11. JSJay Shetty16:07

       And I think that's wh-

   12. RGRobert Greene16:08

       That's beautiful. Yeah

   13. JSJay Shetty16:08

       ... yeah, and I think that's what we're saying, that... And that's what I saw when I first started to share the messages I'd learned from living as a monk and the Vedas and that tradition. For me, it was, if I'm not strategic about this or if I'm not focused or organized about this-

   14. RGRobert Greene16:25

       Right

   15. JSJay Shetty16:25

       ... then I might as well give up now-

   16. RGRobert Greene16:27

       Yeah

   17. JSJay Shetty16:27

       ... because it's not gonna spread itself.

   18. RGRobert Greene16:29

       No.

   19. JSJay Shetty16:30

       And so I'm, I'm really happy to hear your perspective

5. 16:32 – 20:24

   The person who talks less usually has the most influence

   1. JSJay Shetty16:32

      on that. How do the laws become things that you use versus getting lost in what we just said of losing your soul in power now driving you? Because I almost feel like when you start using the rule, uh, the laws, you end up feeling a sense of power, and then that power can consume you often. It can become toxic. Some people start that way. They start with an agenda, and they utilize the powers wrongly. But what to speak of someone who starts off in a more noble cause, but then now the laws are using them versus them using the laws?

   2. RGRobert Greene17:05

      Well, you have to understand there's an offensive and a defensive side to the laws.

   3. JSJay Shetty17:09

      Mm-hmm.

   4. RGRobert Greene17:09

      Okay? And I always tell people who have these kind of compunctions about crush your enemy totally, "I don't wanna do that." Well, neither do I, okay? So if you're reading a law and it kind of triggers this, "Ah, I can't do that," then it's not something you should do anyway.

   5. JSJay Shetty17:25

      Mm.

   6. RGRobert Greene17:26

      It's gonna, it's not gonna fit your way of doing. You have a certain style, a certain belief system, certain values. I'm not telling you to go outside your values. But look at that law, which is probably the ugliest in the whole book, crush your enemy totally, and understand that in the business world, that law prevails 95% of the time. When a company like Google or any tech company has an enemy, their mo- their goal is to get rid of them completely, to buy them out, so they have no competitors, right? Look at Amazon, but even smaller businesses dealing with rivals. It's a dynamic in the business world, so you need to be aware of it and not be naive. You don't have to practice it, but you need to be aware of it. Other laws are just simply trying to show you what p- how, you know, we're a- we're animals that kind of- Base our opinions a lot on what we see and perceive. We don't often think too deeply. We kind of take people based on their appearances. So there's a law of power in there called always say less than necessary. Very kind of common sense law. And the idea is that if you're in a meeting with people, that man or woman who talks less generally has an aura of power, particularly a boss. They seem enigmatic, mysterious. And when they do something, say something, everybody's hanging on their words. What did that mean? What did s- whereas people who talk a lot give the impression that they're weak. They signal weakness. They can't control themselves. So if they can't control themselves, how can they control anything in the business world, right? So we sense that in people. So be aware of that. You're probably talking too much in a lot of circumstances, and maybe you can control that. And so this is kind of a way of defending yourself in an environment where people will tend to see you as weak if you can't have any self-control, right? So there are l- if you see that a law that's ugly, that makes you skin crawl, you don't wanna do it, I have no problem with that. I... There are a lot of laws I don't practice in there. But you need to be aware of them. You need to be aware that other people are practicing them so that you don't become their victim. Then there are other laws that, yes, you should practice, right? Like appealing to people's self-interest when you're trying to influence them or, or, um, despise the free lunch where you learn to pay for things and be generous with your time and your money for people. So it depends on the law. But I hate it when people say, "Oh, what an evil book." Those are people who haven't read it, because a l- half the laws, or more than half, have nothing evil about them, and the other half are about opening your eyes. I never say you have to practice this. I'm just making you aware of reality of what goes on in the world.

   7. JSJay Shetty20:09

      Is it possible to... And, and I agree with you fully. I, I think if you read the book, you, you can't see it as an evil book or a controlling or manipulative book at all. You know, that's n- and you can tell clearly it's not your intention. It's not who you are. Like, and I, and that's what I want to ask

6. 20:24 – 23:51

   The people without self control are often greedy

   1. JSJay Shetty20:24

      you. How, how much of a role does intention play in some of this work? Because I, I wonder if you thought about that when you were writing it. Do you think about it now in terms of how your intention fits in with a law or your reason why you're doing it, the cause behind the law that you're using? Does that impact or affect the quality of the effectiveness of the law? Does it make a law work better? Does it, does it have any power? Does intention have any power?

   2. RGRobert Greene20:56

      You mean if your intention is for something good or for something evil?

   3. JSJay Shetty21:00

      Correct.

   4. RGRobert Greene21:00

      Or-

   5. JSJay Shetty21:00

      Correct.

   6. RGRobert Greene21:01

      Well, it depends. Unfortunately, in the world today, and, you know, I've had this experience, and we read about it in the news, a lot of people who have a dark side, whom we might consider rather immoral in their behavior, get pretty damn far.

   7. JSJay Shetty21:16

      Mm-hmm.

   8. RGRobert Greene21:16

      Right?

   9. JSJay Shetty21:16

      Yeah.

   10. RGRobert Greene21:17

       And they use these laws, and they don't pay any consequences. So there's no kind of ultimate justice in this world, although there might be in a religious sense. I don't deny that at all. But in a secular world, there's no consequences to pay for it. So people, if they have a law, if they s- do crush your enemy totally, and that's their goal, they might end up being even better at it than somebody who doesn't really wanna go there but then kind of tries it half-heartedly, right?

   11. JSJay Shetty21:43

       Mm-hmm.

   12. RGRobert Greene21:43

       So, um, I'm not here to say that justice and goodness always prevails. But the people who have those kind of intentions, the true sharks in the world, they don't need my book, right? They know it. It's in their DNA. They grew up at the age of five or six, seven. It's already been implanted in them, and I write about that in my last book, The Laws of Human Nature. You can see that in certain people at a very early age. The great therapist, um, psychoanalyst Melanie Klein identified the greedy baby at the age of six months-

   13. JSJay Shetty22:18

       Wow

   14. RGRobert Greene22:18

       ... that was already sucking so hard on the mother's breast, and she saw that this, this type of baby turned into pe- the type that was actually very aggressive-

   15. JSJay Shetty22:27

       Wow

   16. RGRobert Greene22:27

       ... in life. So it's inbred very early on. People like that have patterns of behavior they cannot control. But those people with those kind of intentions who are very manipulative, I believe very firmly they don't get... Ultimately, they hit a wall. They piss so many people off. They don't know the soft side of power. They have no self-control because all they know is grab, grab, grab, push, push, push. They don't know when to yield. They don't know when to step back, right? They've only learned one way, and so that becomes their downfall.

   17. JSJay Shetty23:00

       What I'm hearing from you is that the intention, it's, in one sense, could, could weaken it if it, if it wasn't used effectively. But, you know, you're also saying that if someone does have a positive intention or a good intention, then it is likely that they may be happier with that power to some degree-

   18. RGRobert Greene23:18

       Definitely. Oh, definitely

   19. JSJay Shetty23:19

       ... I'm hearing. Yeah. And I think that's what I find so fascinating.

   20. RGRobert Greene23:21

       I see, I see what you mean, yeah.

   21. JSJay Shetty23:22

       Right? There's, like, yeah, it's the relationship... I, I guess we both know a lot of powerful people who would consider themselves to be not happy.

   22. RGRobert Greene23:29

       Yeah.

   23. JSJay Shetty23:30

       And, and I, I ask myself then what is the role of power in the world? Uh, because I feel like a lot of people in your situation when they didn't feel any power at home or they didn't feel a sense of significance at home, often power or significance become pursuits for pleasure and for happiness. But power doesn't

7. 23:51 – 27:14

   Learn the art of insinuation and persuasion

   1. JSJay Shetty23:51

      lead to happiness. What, what does power lead to?

   2. RGRobert Greene23:53

      Well, I'm not sure I completely agree with that-

   3. JSJay Shetty23:55

      Oh, okay

   4. RGRobert Greene23:56

      ... because under the way I've defined power, where you feel like... Okay, so let's say you have a spouse who has a very annoying pattern of behavior, all right? And in my books I train you being direct and yelling at them never works.

   5. JSJay Shetty24:11

      Yes.

   6. RGRobert Greene24:11

      Never works.

   7. JSJay Shetty24:12

      Yes.

   8. RGRobert Greene24:12

      You have to learn this, the, the art of insinuation, of persuasion, which often is stepping back, which often involves teaching them a lesson, mirroring their behavior, right? And so your intention ... is not u- ugly or, or bad. It's that you, you can't live with this person unless they-

   9. JSJay Shetty24:30

      Yes

   10. RGRobert Greene24:31

       ... alter their behavior, right? And so you, you think about it, you strategize a little bit, you take some steps, and it works.

   11. JSJay Shetty24:40

       Yes, got it.

   12. RGRobert Greene24:41

       All right?

   13. JSJay Shetty24:41

       I understand, yes.

   14. RGRobert Greene24:42

       So in a relationship, often that, you know, can spell into some degree of power. Or let's say, um, you ha- you're in a nasty divorce case and there's a child involved, and your emotions are to screw that man or woman who is so mean to you, and you're gonna have this nasty fight. And then you realize, "Oh my God, this child that I love is really gonna suffer from it." And then you step back and you go, "No, I have to not just react. It's gonna g- it's gonna lead to some- an uglier cycle of battles. I need to be a little bit more strategic about this. I need to pursue this in a softer way," right? And so you end up feeling better about yourself. So I'm not saying all of the laws are gonna make you feel better about yourself, but the degree that you can control your environment, where you're not helpless at work or in a relationship or with your children, will give you a degree of happiness. It won't fulfill you the way... Maybe that's the difference here. It will give you a sense of satisfaction. It will relieve that anxiety. It won't make you fulfilled the way your career will if it's done properly, but it will l- help you lose that continual gnawing anxiety that you can't change people, that you can't change yourself. So I do think there is an element of happiness, however you wanna define-

   15. JSJay Shetty26:01

       Yeah, no, no, no

   16. RGRobert Greene26:02

       ... involved with power.

   17. JSJay Shetty26:03

       No, and I think, I think that's why, going back to your definition of power, and that's why I asked, asked you that earlier on. That's- that's exactly it, that when I was referring to my point, I was saying that when people have a negative intention and their definition of power is warped, then power can end up feeling dissatisfying when you get there because it, it didn't really get you what you wanted.

   18. RGRobert Greene26:25

       Right. Right.

   19. JSJay Shetty26:26

       Because you couldn't force someone to love you, or you couldn't force this person. But, but actually, when it was done in a, in the way you're saying, like when you realize that actually if I don't exert this power, I'm actually using this power to save this situation, to, to enable this situation to improve. I think-

   20. RGRobert Greene26:42

       Right

   21. JSJay Shetty26:42

       ... that's, if, if we... Yeah, I think that's what I was, uh, uh, pointing to. And so, yeah, we're on the same page. There's one, a couple of, uh, laws that I love that I wanted to pick out for you, so to just mention a bit because I think these are, um, really, really interesting. So this one is Law 29: Plan all the way to the end.

   22. RGRobert Greene27:04

       Right.

   23. JSJay Shetty27:05

       And I wanted to ask you how one actually does that, and I know you talk about it in the book, which I w- I wanna s-

   24. RGRobert Greene27:10

       [laughs]

   25. JSJay Shetty27:11

       ... for people. But for, for today's conversation, I'd

8. 27:14 – 36:51

   What does it mean to plan the end?

   1. JSJay Shetty27:14

      love to know how do you plan to the end when sometimes it's really hard to know what's next and what the end is? And I think so many people today are, you know, in jobs for less time. They're, uh, moving quicker. There's so many more opportunities, new technologies. How do we l- what does it mean to plan to the end?

   2. RGRobert Greene27:32

      Well, it's a thought process. So y- as you, as you w- point out well enough, that things come up that you can't foresee, circumstances, things change, and the ending that you planned for doesn't happen the way you want it to. That's fine. But to the degree that you go through a mental process and you think about the ending and you have a goal in mind, you're gonna be much more effective in life. So when something comes up, you're planning to go here and it forces you that way, you're better prepared to take that circumstance and make it maybe veer a little closer to the point that you want, right? So people... The, the main point of that law is that we are all go around with these dreams and these thoughts and these plans that are so vague. "I'm gonna write a book. I'm gonna direct a movie. I'm gonna start a tech startup that's gonna make billions of dollars," blah, blah, blah. And then we maybe go through a kind of half-hearted process. "Yeah, my book's gonna be about this. Yeah, my business will be about like that," right? And then you don't really plan deeply enough. You don't think, because your plans are, are infected with wishes.

   3. JSJay Shetty28:39

      Yes.

   4. RGRobert Greene28:40

      Right?

   5. JSJay Shetty28:40

      Yes.

   6. RGRobert Greene28:40

      And to me, the, the kind of, um, the model of that is the invasion of Iraq by all of these extremely prudent, strategic men like Dick Cheney, et cetera. They thought that, that we would be greeted as liberators with people with flowers in their hand, and then lo and behold, whoa, this nasty, nasty war in which hundreds of thousands of people are killed ensued. They didn't realize that their plans were infected with their dreams, with what I call the rosy scenario. So when you're gonna go sell this movie that you want to, you're imagining that people already love it. You've already convinced yourself. But you don't realize that people are cold, they're indifferent. So if you plan to the end, if you think about the goal, you think about the other people-

   7. JSJay Shetty29:28

      Yeah

   8. RGRobert Greene29:28

      ... you think about steps A, B, C, D, E to get there, you're more concrete. And then when things come up, as Mike Tyson said, [lips smack] "Everyone has a plan until you get hit in the face," right?

   9. JSJay Shetty29:40

      [laughs]

   10. RGRobert Greene29:40

       Okay, you get hit in the face. Yeah, all right, I gotta change my plan a little bit.

   11. JSJay Shetty29:44

       Yes.

   12. RGRobert Greene29:45

       You're able to adapt. But if you're not thinking clearly about the end, you're in deep, deep doo-doo.

   13. JSJay Shetty29:51

       Yes.

   14. RGRobert Greene29:51

       That book will never get written, or if it d- if you do start it, no one's gonna be interested in it, et cetera. You have to plan more deeply.

   15. JSJay Shetty29:59

       Mm-hmm.

   16. RGRobert Greene29:59

       And the closer you can visualize the ending and be realistic, the greater your chances of success. That's sort of the meaning behind that.

   17. JSJay Shetty30:06

       Yeah, no, that's, I, I, that makes complete sense, and I, I think we've, we've almost lost that ability today. I mean, I, I-

   18. RGRobert Greene30:14

       Ugh

   19. JSJay Shetty30:14

       ... I, yeah, I've, I've rarely hear that, and that's why I wanted to pick that one because I feel like today, and I guess [laughs] I could see you nodding for anyone who's not watching the podcast right now, I'm seeing wrong. Uh, yeah, it's the idea we've lost that today. There's so much of like, "Oh, well, just try this for a second, and try this for a moment, and give this a go," and it's almost like when you don't pl- you're so right. Not only do you not get it done, I feel like the hurdles seem much bigger-

   20. RGRobert Greene30:37

       Yeah

   21. JSJay Shetty30:37

       ... because you just didn't comprehend them.

   22. RGRobert Greene30:39

       Right. Right.

   23. JSJay Shetty30:40

       But today when people, people would s- argue, and, and that's what I'm intrigued, I would love to hear your p- opinion. A lot of people would say, "But Robert, if I comprehend them, then I just get disenthused or, or I get, I feel limited and I just feel like it's overwhelming-

   24. RGRobert Greene30:54

       Discouraged.

   25. JSJay Shetty30:55

       Discouraged. That's the word I was looking for. Yes, discouraged. I feel so discouraged and overwhelmed, and it's too much for me. So how do you think of, about the end but avoid that feeling? Well, I guess you don't, you can't avoid that feeling, but you work through it.

   26. RGRobert Greene31:08

       Well, I, I mean, do you want just the dream? Do you just want the, the vision-

   27. JSJay Shetty31:13

       Mm

   28. RGRobert Greene31:13

       ... of the, of the great thing you're gonna a- achieve, or do you want the reality?

   29. JSJay Shetty31:16

       Mm.

   30. RGRobert Greene31:17

       Right? And so, you know, if you're going to, let's say you're, you, you want to write a book. I know that's very lazy of me-
9. 36:51 – 42:25

   How do you master the art of timing?

   1. JSJay Shetty36:52

      how do you master the art of timing? What does, what does that mean?

   2. RGRobert Greene36:56

      Well, in, in an abstract philosophical sense, let's pull back a second.

   3. JSJay Shetty37:00

      Yeah.

   4. RGRobert Greene37:00

      Time is a human construct. Time does not exist. In the universe, it's eternal. There's no clocks. There's no beginning or end. It's just one massive thing of time that goes on forever, right?

   5. JSJay Shetty37:13

      Mm-hmm.

   6. RGRobert Greene37:14

      We humans have created time, so it's subjective, it's psychological. So you know the experience that when you were a child, a year seemed like a million years. Oh my God.

   7. JSJay Shetty37:25

      Mm-hmm.

   8. RGRobert Greene37:25

      Now a year goes like, like that.

   9. JSJay Shetty37:27

      Oh, they're so fun.

   10. RGRobert Greene37:27

       It's subjective, right? So you have to understand that first, okay? So when you're excited about a project, when you feel alive and energized, then time is a much different experience than when you're bored. So you can create your relationship to time, right?

   11. JSJay Shetty37:46

       Mm-hmm.

   12. RGRobert Greene37:46

       So I'm not ready. Well, there's a strategy for that. You should always take action a little bit before you are ready, is the advice I give. So if you're not ready and it's really a huge task, okay, maybe wait a little bit. Take steps to get closer to being ready. But several months before you're ready, go ahead and do it. Try it, because you're gonna rise to the occasion. If you feel like you're almost ready and then you start, you go, "But I better work harder because I know that I can do this." Whereas if you think, "I can never do it," you'll just give up. You don't wanna give up, right? So I have in the book many examples of people who forced time. I call it forcing time. So I talk about Julius Caesar and the famous crossing the Rubicon, right? He had an army of only, like, 5,000, and facing Pompey, his arch enemy, who had an army of hundreds of thousands. And to cross the river means he's starting a war. And everyone's saying, "It's insane. Don't do it. You'll never make it." And he goes, "Uh, the die is cast," and he crossed the Rubicon. The war was on. And he knew that doing that, he would have to think every moment, give it every, all of his intense thinking, and he'd have to reach the conclusion, and he ended up pulling off one of the greatest military victories in history. Look at Barack Obama, a senator who'd only been in office for one term. It's 2007 or so, and he decides to run for president. Everyone thinks you're insane. You're not ready for it. No one's gonna believe you. You're not, you don't have enough weight behind you. He goes, "Doing this step will force me to work harder to gain that energy." Yes, if he was a state representative, it wouldn't have been time to force it and try and make it happen. But he'd already had enough preparation, just enough, that he knew if he took that step, something would happen. The energy, the excitement, people would catch it. It would be infectious, and it would work, and look what it did for him. So you can be over-ready.

   13. JSJay Shetty39:51

       Mm-hmm.

   14. RGRobert Greene39:52

       You should always take action just a little bit before you think that you're, you're ready for it, right? So, um, and then the other thing is to realize that y- with time is that you wanna feel like you're in control of the time that you have.

   15. JSJay Shetty40:07

       Yes.

   16. RGRobert Greene40:07

       Right? So I call it alive time versus dead time. Dead time is where you work for other people, you have no control over it, your time is not your own. It's their time. They possess you. You're almost literally their slave, right? And alive time is that your own. You're your master of it. You control it. So when you work for yourself, which I think is the best position in the world to be in, although it's not for everybody, you kind of control your own time. Every moment is alive. It's precious, right? So for me, I practice this in my meditation, in my daily life, particularly since I almost lost my life a couple years ago, is every moment is so valuable to me. That time, I may be... I could be dead tomorrow, and you have to think that way. And if you think that your time is limited, that you have things to accomplish, businesses to start, books to write, podcasts to start, right? You're gonna force yourself. You're gonna find the energy if you realize your time is short, and you have to kind of force it in a way and not be sitting back on your heels and continually wait- waiting. So I tell people, "If you have a dream, maybe stop waiting so much. Maybe throw yourself across that river and go and take the action. And if you fail, you will have learned 80,000 times more than you would have learned in business school." You start that tech startup, it fails, don't worry about your reputation. You h- you learned the m- incredible things in it. So don't be afraid of failure and be willing to always kind of force the time. That's sort of one of the, the art of it.

   17. JSJay Shetty41:41

       Yeah. No, that's really well articulated and explained. What, what changed your-- You, you mentioned there, what changed for you between knowing time was limited and then experiencing it and actually feeling with it? Like, because I think that's, there's... I guess there's very few people who have that experience because for some people it literally ends up being the end from a physical standpoint. Uh, but to almost have... Yeah, what does that feel like? Be- because I think you're someone who already knew that.

   18. RGRobert Greene42:13

       Yeah.

   19. JSJay Shetty42:13

       You knew that. You lived like that. You wrote this book. Like, you already lived like time is limited, I have to write books. You write phenomenal books and, and lots of them. Yeah, what changed? What changed in that knowing that

10. 42:25 – 47:46

    The story of the checkered shirt

    1. JSJay Shetty42:25

       theoretically-

    2. RGRobert Greene42:25

       Are you talking about my stroke?

    3. JSJay Shetty42:26

       Yes, yes, yes, yes. Sorry, yeah.

    4. RGRobert Greene42:28

       Well, I'll end up, um, see-

    5. JSJay Shetty42:29

       I wasn't trying to be cryptic. [laughs]

    6. RGRobert Greene42:30

       So you see this shirt that I'm wearing?

    7. JSJay Shetty42:32

       Yeah.

    8. RGRobert Greene42:32

       Do you see a kind of a weird little jagged line across it?

    9. JSJay Shetty42:35

       I see it.

    10. RGRobert Greene42:36

        Okay, well this is the shirt that I was wearing when I had my stroke.

    11. JSJay Shetty42:39

        Oh, wow.

    12. RGRobert Greene42:39

        Right? And, um, I was with my wife. We were driving home and she saw, "Whoa, Robert, your, your face is all weird. You're slurring." She was freaking out. She said, "Pull over." And that's the last thing I remember. I went unconscious. And the ambulance came, and they took scissors and they cut the shirt right around there. They ripped it off me. They threw it in a bag. Then they, like, put something in to help- Give oxygen to my brain, 'cause it had stopped going, flowing to my brain. So months later, I asked my wife, "Whatever happened to that shirt? I loved it." 'Cause she'd given it to me, like, two months before for my birthday. "I loved that shirt." She told me the story, and I was like, "Oh, man." And then finally I said, "Can you, like, sew it together again?" 'Cause she's a good sewer. She said, "Yeah, okay." And so she did. And so I wear it, and it reminds me, because when I was this close to dying, there was a feeling inside that I had, right? It was a feeling that I... It's weird. It was almost a taste in my mouth, and there was a feeling in my bones, a kind of a softness like I was melting from the inside out, and I could literally feel myself, um, moving away from life in that moment just before I went unconscious, right? So reminding of it with things like sewing. Now when I wear this shirt, it's like a memento mori. I can re-experience that feeling. And it's so ironic because two months before, I wrote the last chapter of Human Nature about confronting your mortality. It's not the same. It's abstract. This is visceral. This is real. And people who've had much more powerful near-death experiences than I am know that you don't emerge from that ever the same. It changes you, right? So now I... It was an intellectual concept. So now when I hear the birds chirping, I look out my window, the sun is shining, I, like, almost wanna cry. I'm here to see it, and I came that close to never seeing it again, you know? Or people are irritating me. No, I could be dead, and they don't irrit- I love them, and I can overlook them because they're also mortal. They're also gonna die. They also have fears. It just changes you emotionally from the inside out. So how can people do that who haven't experienced death? It's not easy, but you have to make the leap from an intellectual abstract concept to something visceral and emotional, right? So even before my stroke, I meditate every morning. I would always have a practice of meditating on that moment when I'm gonna die. I imagine myself, it's an afternoon, the sun is shining, and this is my last day on Earth. You know, and I can even make myself kinda cry as I do that. And I would make myself, it's something real, 'cause we go around and we live in a culture where death has no meaning. We don't see the food that we're eating being, the animals being killed. People die in hospitals, cloistered away. Whereas our ancestors, they saw it on the street. They saw the animals being killed. It had a presence. You live in this abstract world where nothing is real, where your mortality is just like something you don't even process. Get over that. Jump over that and make that leap. Make it something emotional and visceral. It's not gloomy. It's not morbid. It's liberating, because when you think about your death and it becomes real, you realize, "I don't have this much time. I better work harder. I better appreciate the people in my life. I better love them more. I better appreciate every moment that I'm alive." And it just opens you up in so many ways. So it's one thing to have it in intellectual, so it's another thing to make it more visceral, and that's what I'm kind of advocating.

    13. JSJay Shetty46:23

        That's what I love. That's a beautiful transition into, you know, the, your new book, that's how called The Daily Laws, because that's a daily habit, right? Like, that's the only, to, to make that law feel real, you need to practice it daily, especially if you've not had a near-death experience. Uh, and I know that I've practiced that death meditation often in my life when, I, I don't do it every day. I do it more when I'm making a big decision. It really helps me make big decisions. I remember when I was working in the corporate world but really wanted to be doing what I do today, and sitting there and asking myself, like, "How will I feel about this in, you know, on my deathbed?"

    14. RGRobert Greene47:04

        That's very interesting. I never thought, that's very-

    15. JSJay Shetty47:06

        Yeah

    16. RGRobert Greene47:06

        ... I like that.

    17. JSJay Shetty47:06

        Yeah, I was like, "If I stay in the corporate world, how will I feel about this when I'm 80 or 90 or 100, whatever it is?"

    18. RGRobert Greene47:12

        That's a great, that's a brilliant strategy.

    19. JSJay Shetty47:13

        Yeah. And then how will I feel about this if I tried and failed? And how will I feel about it if I tried and it works?

    20. RGRobert Greene47:19

        Yeah, I love that.

    21. JSJay Shetty47:20

        And every part of me was just like, "You have to try this. Like, even if it fails, you'll, you'll be so upset at yourself for being 90 and about to die and, and you didn't try." And so I love that, and, and I, and that's why I love the, the fact that you've taken out the daily laws. What have been some of your daily life changes since that moment? You told us about that beautiful meditation. Have there been other things? Obviously, looking at the birds with the sun.

11. 47:46 – 52:07

    Having empathy for others

    1. JSJay Shetty47:46

       What else has changed daily for you, I wonder?

    2. RGRobert Greene47:49

       Well, um, a bit of humility.

    3. JSJay Shetty47:52

       Wow. Wow.

    4. RGRobert Greene47:52

       So, um, first of all, um, you know, I look at people now who are old or who have a disability, and I understand them on a much deeper level. I have much greater empathy for people, not just with a disability, but people who've lost their job, who are poor, who have no control over their lives. I have greater empathy for them because in the months afterwards, I had no control over my body. I couldn't walk. I still walk in a very kind of wonky way, right? I was dependent on other people. I was dependent on my wife. I was dependent on healthcare give- caregivers, on therapists, et cetera. And that feeling of dependence is not something I like because I saw, I like s- somebody who really values independence. So I had to deal with myself. I had to get over my kind of radical individualism, my radical sense of being totally independent, 'cause I was dependent on other people, and I really could empathize with others who have that feeling of dependency. It's not a good feeling. You have to cal- you have to learn to accept it in some way, and it's not easy. And so I learned that there were some negative qualities that I had, that I had to confront, like my impatience Yeah, whenever I had a problem or a health issue, I would push past it, man. Okay, I, my, I broke my leg. Well, I'm gonna do therapy, so in two months I'm gonna be out, and I did it, right? It doesn't work for this. You can't push past your way. Your, my brain was damaged. I can't push past it. I have to accept it, and that's not easy for someone who's used to just pushing past things like that. So I had to deal with qualities that aren't really, to me, very good. Like, I think patience is a good thing. I think it's a virtue, and I think it's positive, and being able to accept certain things you can't control. So I had to learn certain things about myself. I had to learn that some of the ideas I had were intellectual, where I do f- have empathy for people, but it wasn't as visceral as it is now, you know? And then on a day-to-day basis, I've had to, like, control my impatience. And my wife can attest I s- often lose it. So I'm no saint, and I don't prepent, pretend to be. There'll be days where I'm like, "Goddammit, I can't pick up my toothbrush. It's driving me crazy." Other days it's like, "Come on, you can do... It's okay. Calm yourself down. Things are okay, right? Everything's gonna be all right." So I've had to deal with my own issues on a very visceral, real level, and deal with them in a way I've never had to do before. So it's, it's an ongoing process.

    5. JSJay Shetty50:27

       Yeah. That's such a special answer. Thank you for sharing that. Like, to get into your head with, with what it feels like, and humility is such a incredible quality, and the hardest to learn and the most painful to, to go through. And I, I remember when we were talking about sickness and health, and I, as, as, uh, young monks, one of our duties or roles would be to take elderly monks to the hospital when they had to get checked. And it was part of that routine to make you see that, because we were, like, 21 years old and thought we were superhuman-

    6. RGRobert Greene51:01

       [laughs]

    7. JSJay Shetty51:01

       ... because, because we were like, "Ah, sleep, who needs to sleep?"

    8. RGRobert Greene51:04

       [laughs] Yeah.

    9. JSJay Shetty51:05

       "Ah," you know, like, "Eat food? Who needs food?" Like-

    10. RGRobert Greene51:07

        Right

    11. JSJay Shetty51:07

        ... and you thought so highly of yourself, only to realize that it w- you were just lucky because of your age.

    12. RGRobert Greene51:14

        Right.

    13. JSJay Shetty51:14

        It was just the age of the body that you were winning on. It wasn't anything else.

    14. RGRobert Greene51:18

        Right.

    15. JSJay Shetty51:18

        It wasn't that you were more self-mastered or disciplined.

    16. RGRobert Greene51:21

        Right.

    17. JSJay Shetty51:22

        Uh, and, and being humbled in that way was such a, you know, to, to witness what you're saying, like, all of these things have been hidden in society. They're invisible.

    18. RGRobert Greene51:32

        Yeah.

    19. JSJay Shetty51:32

        And when pain becomes invisible, we become worse at dealing with it [laughs] because-

    20. RGRobert Greene51:36

        Exactly. That's so true

    21. JSJay Shetty51:37

        ... w- we become immune to it. We never see it, so how do we know how to deal with it? And so I'm, I'm grateful that you're sharing so authentically your pain and what you're going through, because, you know, it'd be very easy for you to say, "Oh, yeah, I'm, I'm just living all my messages." And, and, you know-

    22. RGRobert Greene51:53

        No, I'm not

    23. JSJay Shetty51:54

        ... just all of us fail to live our own m- like, as in it's not fail, it's just, it's just hard. Like-

    24. RGRobert Greene51:59

        Yeah

    25. JSJay Shetty51:59

        ... you know, I, I think about it. So with The Daily Laws, you've got 366 meditations. Uh, you said you meditate

12. 52:07 – 55:29

    Zen Buddhism meditation

    1. JSJay Shetty52:07

       daily. What's been your daily meditation practice? And, and does it change? Has it stayed the same? Or-

    2. RGRobert Greene52:12

       Oh, I have a very boring daily meditation practice.

    3. JSJay Shetty52:14

       [laughs]

    4. RGRobert Greene52:14

       I do s-

    5. JSJay Shetty52:15

       I wanna hear it

    6. RGRobert Greene52:15

       ... I do Zen Buddhism.

    7. JSJay Shetty52:17

       Yes.

    8. RGRobert Greene52:17

       Okay. I've been doing it now for 11 years every single morning. I can remember the day I started. And, um, it's basically ex- you sit on a, it's called zazen. You sit on these pillows, and you're trying to empty your mind, right? And, you know, you have a process. You learn things from masters. I've gone to a Zen center here in Los Angeles. I read a lot of books. But it's a completely non-intellectual process.

    9. JSJay Shetty52:45

       [laughs]

    10. RGRobert Greene52:46

        Right? You can't think your way to enlightenment. It will never happen, and that's the problem I have and everybody has. "Oh, this is what I need to do," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

    11. JSJay Shetty52:55

        Yeah.

    12. RGRobert Greene52:55

        You can't do it. It's like a, this paradox. They describe it in Zen as this red hot ball that you've swallowed, and you can't get rid of it. You can't throw it up. It's there, it's stuck inside of you. The paradox is thinking won't get it you there. So how do I get there? So I, I, I'm not gonna reveal the whole thing, but I, th- I have things called a c- a koan, which is like, um, like, it's like a little parable, and it's a very famous koan in Buddhism. It's, it, basically it says, this one monk asks the Zen master, "Does a dog have Buddha nature?" And the monk, and, and the master replies, "Mu." And mu in Japanese means nothing or no, but it really means nothing. And it's like, whoa, it's nothing. In other words, you can't answer the question. Yes and no have no meaning, right? Because in Buddhism, there is no discrimination. The discriminating mind is the ultimate form of samsara.

    13. JSJay Shetty53:57

        Mm-hmm.

    14. RGRobert Greene53:57

        So you need to, like, get rid of that and meditate on mu. So for five years now, I've been meditating on mu, only mu. What does it mean? And it, you have no idea the richness that will flow from one little syllable like that and meditating it on every day. So my meditation is not exciting. It's not variety. It's the same thing every day, right? And there are steps I- involved in it. It's a physical, emotional process less than an intellectual one. But that's to give you an idea about it.

    15. JSJay Shetty54:32

        Yeah. No, it's, it's beautiful to hear about it. And, uh, yeah, I l- I love the idea of, I remember the monks that I used to live with would always say that, you know, this, whatever you call it, enlightenment or revelation, whatever, whatever y- word you want to give it, it's something that's received, not achieved. They would always repeat that to us. It's received, not achieved.

    16. RGRobert Greene54:52

        Yeah.

    17. JSJay Shetty54:52

        And, and you know, as we're all trying to achieve it.

    18. RGRobert Greene54:55

        [laughs]

    19. JSJay Shetty54:55

        Like, I wanna have it, and I wanna find it. What do I have to do? What do I have to think?

    20. RGRobert Greene54:58

        Yeah.

    21. JSJay Shetty54:59

        And, and just knowing that it was received gave me so much liberation-

    22. RGRobert Greene55:03

        Right

    23. JSJay Shetty55:03

        ... in and of itself.

    24. RGRobert Greene55:04

        Right.

    25. JSJay Shetty55:05

        Knowing that it would be received, you know, as I continue the path.

    26. RGRobert Greene55:09

        Right.

    27. JSJay Shetty55:09

        Uh, and it would be revealed as well as I continue.

    28. RGRobert Greene55:12

        Right.

    29. JSJay Shetty55:12

        So no, thank you for sharing. I, I love it. I love hearing about people's daily meditation practices. I wanted to pick out a couple of the daily laws, because What this book beautifully does for everyone is it literally goes through every day of the year, so you can open it out on that day. Why do you think it was important to

13. 55:29 – 58:32

    What gets you what you want is your daily habits

    1. JSJay Shetty55:29

       do that? Why was it important to have something for July 1st or, you know, why was it important to have August 20th or whatever it may be?

    2. RGRobert Greene55:38

       Well, um, we talked about a little bit earlier about having micro goals.

    3. JSJay Shetty55:42

       Mm-hmm.

    4. RGRobert Greene55:43

       So, um, we all have ambitions. We all have dreams and goals and desires that we want, and our culture fills us with these kind of vague hopes and dreams. I'm gonna be this, I'm gonna be that. But really what gets you to where you want are habits, are daily habits. There are negative habits that you can't get rid of, smoking, drinking, you know, online porn, whatever your daily habit is, you can't get rid of it. But there are other habits that like discipline, like working every day, like taking steps to get, reach your goals that are immensely liberating, and you can get rid of your bad habits through developing positive habits, right? So the goal here is to focus less on the giant dreams and on the everyday process of changing your thinking. You know, I, I spend a lot of time thinking about how does change occur within a person, right?

    5. JSJay Shetty56:40

       Yeah, me too. Yeah.

    6. RGRobert Greene56:41

       Because we all experience from ourselves that change rarely happens quickly as we like. We step back, we, we, we, we revert to our old habits, et cetera. What involves, what kind of consciousness do we have to go through the steps to literally change our way of thinking? It requires hitting at the roots of things. It requires how you think every single day about simple, basic things in, in your life, right? It's not grand dreams, it's the day-to-day thoughts that consume you, that obsess you, right? So that's what the book is about. Every day is a meditation, and it's kind of structured in the beginning to help you go through your career. Mostly things from mastery about finding your life's purpose, your life, what I call your life's task, and how to achieve, you know, a level of mastery in whatever you do. Then I kind of take you through the 48 laws of power in dealing with toxic people, which we inevitably have. No, you're never gonna go through life without facing toxic, negative people-

    7. JSJay Shetty57:48

       Mm-hmm

    8. RGRobert Greene57:48

       ... and how you deal with them. And it takes you through how to have influence and be able to persuade people. And finally it ends with learning about human nature, et cetera. And the last month, December, is a so- is, is inspired by the book that I'm currently writing about the sublime.

    9. JSJay Shetty58:05

       Yeah.

    10. RGRobert Greene58:06

        About opening your eyes to the insanity of just being alive right now in this world that we live in. So that's kind of the process. It goes every day focusing your mind on a thought that hopefully will plant little seeds inside of you.

    11. JSJay Shetty58:21

        Let's talk about the heart of that, the middle of that, which was like dealing with toxic people. That's actually a question I get asked so often, so I'm glad I get to defer to you in this scenario and put you to the task.

14. 58:32 – 1:08:15

    The most toxic people are of narcissistic characteristics

    1. JSJay Shetty58:32

       But the idea of like people, I hear this all the time, "Jay, I'm stuck in a toxic family. My workplace is toxic. I..." You know, and, and some people are honest enough to say, "Jay, I'm, my mind is just toxic. Like it's not even other people."

    2. RGRobert Greene58:45

       Right.

    3. JSJay Shetty58:46

       Where do you start? Where, where do you, where do you guide people in that journey?

    4. RGRobert Greene58:50

       Yeah, it's obviously something I've been thinking about and dealing with for my whole life, particularly in all my different jobs. I'd had a lot of bosses that we would qualify as the psychotic boss, where no matter what you do, that never pleases them kind of thing. And the best lesson of all, so we can say the different kind of toxic type of people, most often they're of the narcissistic variety.

    5. JSJay Shetty59:13

       Mm-hmm.

    6. RGRobert Greene59:14

       They're people who are grandiose. They're people who are aggressive, passive aggressive, who feel a lot of envy. There's like deep-rooted insecurities on and on. There are many types. But the main thing that you want in li- to develop in life is the ability to, to detect them before you get involved with them. Because the way toxic people have learned, they've learned strategies since they were six or seven years old of how to get power, and they embroil you in dramas. They get into your emotions, right? They entangle themselves in, in your life. They don't come at you saying, "I'm toxic. I'm a narcissist. Get away from me." They know how to appear charming. They know how to be interested in you. They know how to be moderately pleasing, et cetera. They can be, they can even be charismatic. You get involved with them, and then it starts to come out, and it's too late because you're emotionally entangled with them. They've got their roots inside of you, and you're, you're sucked into their dramas, and it's really hard to get out, particularly in an intimate relationship. That's the worst of all. The best thing you want to develop in life is the radar to detect them before you get involved with them.

    7. JSJay Shetty1:00:23

       Mm-hmm.

    8. RGRobert Greene1:00:24

       And it requires a change in how you perceive people. So it doesn't mean... I don't want people to become paranoid thinking everybody out there that I'm dealing with could be toxic-

    9. JSJay Shetty1:00:33

       Yeah

    10. RGRobert Greene1:00:33

        ... 'cause it's only like 5% of the population or whatever is truly like that. But you wanna be able to see the signs beforehand, right?

    11. JSJay Shetty1:00:43

        Yeah.

    12. RGRobert Greene1:00:43

        And you don't wanna judge people based on their words, based on their charming personality, based on their glittering resume. You wanna be able to judge their character, what's deep, deep inside of them, right? The things that they're not, are not so visible at first glance, right? So you have to train how you think about people. You have to observe their patterns in life before you met them. If this person you're about to get involved in a relationship tells you, "All of my wives and girlfriends in the past, they were just such blah, blah, blah, blah, blah," and then you, you hear that they, they only lasted a year or so and it was always their fault, your antenna should go up. Something is wrong here. This person isn't revealing the truth. That's probably coming from something within. In my 48 Laws of Power, I talk about infection, where there are people who have an infecting power on you. They're surrounded by all kinds of drama. They're, they continually present themselves as the victim of other people, whereas in fact, they're the ones that constantly draw this drama to them because that's how they survive. And you're gonna find yourself involved with them, and it's gonna be horrible to get out of the relationship. You're gonna feel guilty. So develop the power to recognize them before you get involved. And I have in The Laws of Human Nature tons of advice about that, paying attention to people's nonverbal cues, to a narcissist tends to have a very animated face, but a kind of a deadness in their eyes. They're, they're kind of listening to you, but you can hear that they're actually thinking about themselves or they're, they're h- they're not really connecting to you through the eyes. The, the face is alive, but the eyes are dead, right? There are signs, nonverbal cues that will show you that you're dealing with someone who's not... I hate the words like sociopathic, psychopathic, but who is, you know, generally very inner self-directed, right?

    13. JSJay Shetty1:02:41

        Mm-hmm.

    14. RGRobert Greene1:02:41

        The other thing I have to say is it's easy to judge and say, "Oh, the narcissist, the toxic people," but we all have these qualities.

    15. JSJay Shetty1:02:49

        Yes.

    16. RGRobert Greene1:02:50

        We all have narcissistic qualities. We all can be passive-aggressive, right? So some of it you can recognize in yourself, and there are ways, the ways to get out of it. But the main thing is to not get involved with these people. If you're involved, let's say you have a spouse or whatever, the best power you can get is the ability to withdraw your emotions from the moment, and God knows that is not easy. It's a day-to-day thing. It's a daily process where you have to tell yourself these little kind of scripts that you tell yourself. "It's not me. It has nothing to do with me. It's not personal. They have issues from early childhood that have given them these toxic patterns in life. They're trying to make me feel guilty, but it's nothing to do with me. It's not personal," over and over and over and over again every single time, so you have the ability to detach yourself emotionally from them on a daily basis. If you're in a job and you have a toxic colleague or a toxic boss, if you can get away from them, if you can quit your job, if you can move to another part of the office, do it because it's worth it. It's not worth collecting 10,000 extra dollars a year bec- with this boss 'cause it's gonna damage you emotionally. It's gonna take you years to recover. Three years with a toxic boss, you may never recover. So if you can, quit the job. Nothing, it, no, no, no job is worth that kind of abuse. It's gonna hurt you. It's gonna damage you, right? And the same in a relationship as well. If you can't get out, you have to develop a habit of detachment and not taking things personally. And oddly enough, when people sense that in you, like a toxic person senses that they can't push your buttons, it has a powerful effect on them. I'm not saying it's gonna cure them, but they thrive on the ability to push your buttons.

    17. JSJay Shetty1:04:46

        Mm.

    18. RGRobert Greene1:04:47

        To see you getting upset and angry just makes them so excited in a perverted way. The fact that you're not, that you're not taking it personally, that you're calm, that you're centered, that you're thinking to yourself, "It's not personal, it's not personal," it's gonna have a powerful effect on them. It may not end the dynamic, but it will have more of an effect that you want than constantly falling for their ploys and their games and getting emotionally sucked into their, into their dramas.

    19. JSJay Shetty1:05:14

        Yeah, it's almost like you see the, you see the magic trick, right? Like you... Or you're seeing like the, the puppet strings.

    20. RGRobert Greene1:05:24

        Yeah, yeah.

    21. JSJay Shetty1:05:24

        And you go, "I'm gonna cut these strings off now," like, you know. And, and that's, like you're saying, it doesn't necessarily solve it, but that person's well aware now that that's not going to work on you.

    22. RGRobert Greene1:05:37

        Right, right.

    23. JSJay Shetty1:05:37

        And, and you're so right that that reactivity we have with people, that it's like they want that drama. They seek that drama because that's what gives them their sense of significance. And so you're right that it may not stop that, but it definitely makes them think, and it definitely makes them check themselves and question.

    24. RGRobert Greene1:05:55

        They're used to getting away with things. They're used to people not seeing through them. And just repeat to yourself, toxic people do not announce themselves. They do not wear little horns on their head saying, "I'm, I'm s- devilish," or whatever. They disguise it. So a person who is overly charming on that first encounter, who's so nice, who's listening to you, who wants to help you and please you, that's not natural because we've all developed a habit of being slightly wary of strangers. And I've learned through my consulting work and my own experience that that person who's trying too hard on the first encounter, they're generally, um, hiding something. They're generally conceding intentions that they don't wanna give out, right? Their method of throwing dust in your eyes is to appear the opposite of what they are, and you're gonna fall for that. So when people try too hard with one quality or reveal too much of a single quality, they're often concealing the opposite, so be aware of that as well.

    25. JSJay Shetty1:07:00

        Yeah, and that's, and that's what you're saying. Like it's so hard to know whether someone is a... got an agenda or someone who's just truly nice. Like it, it becomes hard to, it becomes hard to suggest. I, I remember when, uh, there was someone I was building a relationship with and, and I said to them, I was like, you know, I, I've just really got along with them, and they talk about this all the time now, and I, I said something like, "You know, I, I think, I, I think we'd be really good friends." And they said that they'd never heard anyone say that to them because it just seemed so, like, lame to some degree to say that to someone. But I've always lived that way, so I've always been someone who like, I will tell you exactly what I'm thinking right now.

    26. RGRobert Greene1:07:41

        Right.

    27. JSJay Shetty1:07:42

        I will in, in that sense, not exactly what I'm thinking right now, but exactly what I'm feeling in a relationship. I, I've always enjoyed communicating because I saw people communicate so badly about who they wanted to be friends with and spend time with. I was just like, "I wanna tell this person that I wanna spend time with them, and if they don't wanna spend time with me, I wanna hear it now too," because I don't wanna go home thinking about... And that's how I was when I started dating. It was like I- if I was attracted to someone, I would always tell them because I actually preferred the failure than the idea of them not knowing and us missing out on an opportunity to have a relationship. So

15. 1:08:15 – 1:11:40

    It doesn’t to be a little bit wary of someone

    1. JSJay Shetty1:08:15

       I guess my question is, is there a way of knowing if there's some sincerity or, or, or is that just an energetic, intuitive thing that comes with time?

    2. RGRobert Greene1:08:22

       You know, this is why I have a chapter on nonverbal communication-

    3. JSJay Shetty1:08:26

       Yes

    4. RGRobert Greene1:08:26

       ... in The Laws of Human Nature. We're, we're, we have an animal part of us, right, where we feel certain things about people on that first encounter or second encounter that's not rational, that's intuitive.

    5. JSJay Shetty1:08:41

       Mm-hmm.

    6. RGRobert Greene1:08:42

       And then we don't trust it.

    7. JSJay Shetty1:08:43

       Yes.

    8. RGRobert Greene1:08:44

       Right? And often it happens in a, in a microsecond, in a flash. You meet somebody and you sense a chemistry or something a little bit wrong, right? Okay. But with you, if I met somebody like you who seems very genuine and sincere and I can read it in your face and I feel it, I don't need to be wary. But particularly with women dealing with men, because quite frankly the more dangerous toxic type will be men.

    9. JSJay Shetty1:09:11

       Right, right, right. Got it, got it, got it.

    10. RGRobert Greene1:09:13

        Women will often have an intuition, a sense of something isn't quite right, but they don't trust it and they go on.

    11. JSJay Shetty1:09:19

        Got it.

    12. RGRobert Greene1:09:19

        But we all have that feeling. Trust it. And you could be wrong, but it w- doesn't hurt to be a little bit wary of someone.

    13. JSJay Shetty1:09:26

        Mm.

    14. RGRobert Greene1:09:27

        It doesn't mean if someone is being like you and friendly, "I wanna be your friend," that you have to go running away immediately.

    15. JSJay Shetty1:09:33

        [laughs] Yeah.

    16. RGRobert Greene1:09:34

        It just means maybe-

    17. JSJay Shetty1:09:36

        Just gotta be careful

    18. RGRobert Greene1:09:36

        ... there's an ulterior motive here.

    19. JSJay Shetty1:09:37

        Yes.

    20. RGRobert Greene1:09:38

        I'm reading body language that tells me, no, that they're sincere. I can let down my guard. But there'll be a tiny percentage of me which in the days to come wants to see-

    21. JSJay Shetty1:09:48

        Yeah

    22. RGRobert Greene1:09:48

        ... what's real.

    23. JSJay Shetty1:09:48

        If they truly... Yes, which is fair.

    24. RGRobert Greene1:09:50

        Because there are people, like, it's a, it's a comm- classic case of envy where a person who is envious of you becomes your friend. That's where most envy relationships occur is between friends, right? And they, they make a point of being your friend. They're very friendly.

    25. JSJay Shetty1:10:10

        Oh, yes.

    26. RGRobert Greene1:10:10

        They love you. They wanna help you.

    27. JSJay Shetty1:10:11

        Yes, yes, yes.

    28. RGRobert Greene1:10:11

        They wanna assist you. Wow, this is great 'cause we never get enough of that in life. And then six months down the road they start turning against you, start doing things that completely confuse you. Now, probably in your first encounters you could have detected something about them already.

    29. JSJay Shetty1:10:29

        Yeah.

    30. RGRobert Greene1:10:29

        But people can be tricky. So, you know, with, with you I would kind of sense a, a complete sincerity and I would let down my guard. But there are other people that you have to be a little bit wary of. It doesn't mean that you cut off contact, but you have a little bit of distance. And the moment you see behavior that kind of contradicts that initial impression-
16. 1:11:40 – 1:16:49

    Inability to adapt to circumstances destroy our own power

    1. JSJay Shetty1:11:40

       and... What are the ways we destroy our own power?

    2. RGRobert Greene1:11:44

       Generally by not having the ability to adapt to circumstances.

    3. JSJay Shetty1:11:48

       Mm.

    4. RGRobert Greene1:11:49

       Okay? So you go through life, and if you're successful or have some success, you kind of depend on certain skills, certain strategies that get you where you want to be.

    5. JSJay Shetty1:12:00

       Mm-hmm.

    6. RGRobert Greene1:12:00

       And then you find yourself in a position that's new and circumstances that are new and you keep doing the same thing over again-

    7. JSJay Shetty1:12:07

       Yeah

    8. RGRobert Greene1:12:08

       ... and it doesn't work.

    9. JSJay Shetty1:12:09

       Mm-hmm.

    10. RGRobert Greene1:12:09

        And you get angry and you get frustrated and you blame other people. "This guy's not listening to me. This isn't working." It's because you're not adapting, right? So you need to have this, it's, it's a kind of a Zen or it's, it's Asian strategy mindset of every circumstance is different. You have to have a sense of flow.

    11. JSJay Shetty1:12:30

        Mm.

    12. RGRobert Greene1:12:30

        Every encou- thing that you encounter, every problem is new.

    13. JSJay Shetty1:12:33

        Mm-hmm.

    14. RGRobert Greene1:12:34

        What worked in the past won't work again. I need to adapt. I need to be able to flow and be fluid and adaptable.

    15. JSJay Shetty1:12:42

        Mm.

    16. RGRobert Greene1:12:42

        That's the main thing that trips people up. It's the wall they continually hit, and I've seen it time and again in business with CEOs. I was on the ch- uh, board of directors of a, a publicly traded company, and people who are very powerful get to a position by being very aggressive, by being very charming, by being blah, blah, blah, blah. And then they reach a managerial level where they have a huge company, and those skills don't apply anymore.

    17. JSJay Shetty1:13:08

        Mm-hmm.

    18. RGRobert Greene1:13:09

        And they keep trying to push those same buttons and it gets them in trouble and they hit a wall. So your ability to adapt and alter your s- thinking dependent on your circumstances will make you not hit those walls. I think that's the main thing. And then the other thing that happens is grandiosity kicks in. I have a chapter in, in Human Nature about the gr- about grandiosity, and basically what happens is success is very, very dangerous.

    19. JSJay Shetty1:13:37

        Mm.

    20. RGRobert Greene1:13:37

        Success is much more dangerous than failure. Failure makes you look at yourself. When I failed with my body and my, after my stroke, I had to look at my own limitations.

    21. JSJay Shetty1:13:49

        Mm.

    22. RGRobert Greene1:13:49

        Whereas success is like a drug. It's like a continual hit of coke or whatever. Wow, I'm a god. People love me. Everything I say is wonderful. Everyone's going around thinking, "God, you're so great, Robert." One, ya da da da. And slowly your feet raising low, higher and higher off the ground, you lose contact with reality, and boom, you fall down because you don't realize that success often has a great degree of luck. You're discounting the luck involved. You're discounting the role of other people that helped you to get there. You think it's all about you, right? So you take actions that aren't calibrated to the, to reality because you think you, you, you have the Midas touch, and you don't. So those are some of the main barriers to power, I think.

    23. JSJay Shetty1:14:36

        Got it. Yeah, those are great answers. Those are, those are absolutely brilliant. I loved what you said earlier about thinking everything, every situation is new, having fresh eyes and fresh ears to, to, to look at a problem, to hear a problem, and you reminded me of a beautiful Zen story. I'm sure you know it, of the... I'll, I'll pa- I'll be- I'll do the quick version. But the idea of the ge- the person who wants to qua- cross a river, so they build a raft. The raft helps them cross the river. Now they carry the raft wherever they go, and now they come up to a wooded forest-

    24. RGRobert Greene1:15:07

        [laughs]

    25. JSJay Shetty1:15:07

        ... and they're trying to get through, and the raft won't let them get through. And they realize they have to let go of the raft if they wanna go through the forest.

    26. RGRobert Greene1:15:14

        Yeah, I never thought of that.

    27. JSJay Shetty1:15:15

        And yeah.

    28. RGRobert Greene1:15:15

        So that's great.

    29. JSJay Shetty1:15:16

        Yeah, the idea-

    30. RGRobert Greene1:15:16

        That's really perfect
17. 1:16:49 – 1:19:40

    With success, you become conservative

    1. RGRobert Greene1:16:49

       Well, um, you know, the temptation I had after the success of my first book, The 48 Laws, was to kind of keep repeating it-

    2. JSJay Shetty1:16:56

       Yeah

    3. RGRobert Greene1:16:56

       ... to do a 48 Laws of Power number two, which is what a lot of writers end up doing because they're worried about taking on something different. They've kind of created their audience. They better just sort of keep to it. With success, you become conservative.

    4. JSJay Shetty1:17:09

       Mm.

    5. RGRobert Greene1:17:09

       I better just do what's working, right? And then, but times change. There's a zeitgeist. There's a spirit of the times. People have moved on, but you haven't.

    6. JSJay Shetty1:17:20

       Yeah.

    7. RGRobert Greene1:17:21

       And your n- your 48 Laws of Power number two won't work.

    8. JSJay Shetty1:17:24

       Yeah.

    9. RGRobert Greene1:17:25

       You know? So you need to change, and I do that with every book that I write.

    10. JSJay Shetty1:17:28

        Yes.

    11. RGRobert Greene1:17:28

        Each book has to be different. It has to reflect the spirit of the times. It has to be a challenge. I have to learn new skills. I have to go outside of my comfort zone.

    12. JSJay Shetty1:17:37

        Mm-hmm.

    13. RGRobert Greene1:17:37

        So I think that's sort of s- a similar thing.

    14. JSJay Shetty1:17:39

        Yeah, definitely. And I, I think I saw that because I looked, again, what we were talking about earlier, when you study the people you admire in any field or the companies or whatever it may be, you see that. You see that constant renewal.

    15. RGRobert Greene1:17:53

        Right.

    16. JSJay Shetty1:17:53

        And initially, it's very uncomfortable for the audience as well. It's uncomfortable for the community-

    17. RGRobert Greene1:18:00

        Right

    18. JSJay Shetty1:18:00

        ... because they're not used to changing, and they're not used to seeing people grow in that way.

    19. RGRobert Greene1:18:05

        Right.

    20. JSJay Shetty1:18:05

        And, and I think that discomfort is both on the behalf of the individual who's trying to grow and be more of themselves and, and it's there for the community too, and, but, but it gives birth to something phenomenal. Like you're saying, the, the conservative approach would have never got you there.

    21. RGRobert Greene1:18:21

        Right.

    22. JSJay Shetty1:18:21

        And so I, I love that idea, and yeah, just it's, it's been a fun time for me trying to figure... Like, I'm almost enjoying feeling like I'm at the beginning of my journey again.

    23. RGRobert Greene1:18:32

        Wow.

    24. JSJay Shetty1:18:32

        And there's some, there's some joy in that because-

    25. RGRobert Greene1:18:34

        That's really great.

    26. JSJay Shetty1:18:35

        Yeah, there's some sacredness and specialness of like, "Oh, I, I forgot how this felt," you know?

    27. RGRobert Greene1:18:40

        You have to write a book on that.

    28. JSJay Shetty1:18:41

        [laughs]

    29. RGRobert Greene1:18:41

        That's your book. That's your next book.

    30. JSJay Shetty1:18:43

        I'm writing my next one already, so this one may have to be-
18. 1:19:40 – 1:25:00

    People’s mind is locked in the conventional view of the world

    1. JSJay Shetty1:19:40

       Robert, I wanted to ask you, is there anything that you feel you haven't shared or something that's on your mind or intuitively in your heart that you're like, "Jay, I have to share this on your podcast," or anything right now that's calling you?

    2. RGRobert Greene1:19:50

       Well, the book that I'm working on, The Law of the Sublime-

    3. JSJay Shetty1:19:54

       Mm-hmm

    4. RGRobert Greene1:19:55

       Which is taking a long time. It's probably gonna be three years away or so, maybe more. So it's almost a little bit too much to tease people with it now.

    5. JSJay Shetty1:20:03

       [laughs]

    6. RGRobert Greene1:20:04

       But it's something that's, that's very important to me because back in 2005, 2006, I had meant to write a book on The Sublime. It's a concept that fascinates me, and I got derailed by other projects. I did a book with 50 Cent.

    7. JSJay Shetty1:20:18

       Yes. It was a fantastic book.

    8. RGRobert Greene1:20:19

       I did, I did Mastery, Human Nature, and then I had my stroke. And the last chapter of The Human Nature is about the sublime, about confronting mortality. And so I go, "This is the time to write this book," because it's means so much to me.

    9. JSJay Shetty1:20:34

       Mm-hmm.

    10. RGRobert Greene1:20:34

        And it's been brewing in me for 16 years, so there's something very, you know, personal about it. And the idea is, I think a problem that a lot of people face today is that their minds are locked. They have only one way of thinking about things. They've become so conventional, and r- I know it's something... I'm not being judgmental 'cause I have the same problem. So rigid about this is the way the world is, this is how things have to be, this is how, how my life has to be, this is what meaning is, this is where value is in life. And I, I compare it to, like, a circle. And being a social animal, our thoughts have to sort of stay within the circle of what ideas are accepted, of what behavior is accepted, of what conventions and codes there are. And the sublime is what lies just outside that circle, what isn't really something you're supposed to think, isn't s- s- something you're supposed to do, isn't a behavior or a value you necessarily are encouraged to have. But when your mind touches it, tickles it a little bit, you're like, "Whoa," it jolts you alive. There's another way of thinking. There's another way of being in this world. How exciting, right? And that's what makes people search for transcendental experiences.

    11. JSJay Shetty1:21:50

        Mm-hmm.

    12. RGRobert Greene1:21:51

        What Maslow called peak experiences. That's why they climb mountains and almost get close to death and falling, because it gives them that jolt of being alive. It shakes them up. And so the, the m- ultimate thing be- outside that circle is death itself. It's the ultimate unknown, right? And the word sublime means up to the threshold of a door.

    13. JSJay Shetty1:22:15

        Wow.

    14. RGRobert Greene1:22:15

        And that door is the door to death itself. And so when you peek at it and you look at it, that's the ultimate in a sublime thought, right? Okay, so that's kind of the model. But I have these different categories, and I wanna make you, the reader, aware that you take so much for granted. And I don't want this to be in a Pollyannish way, 'cause the sublime has an element of terror and darkness and fear involved, because death is the, is the paradigm here. But you don't realize in your day-to-day life... I've just written these first two chapters, and they're in The Daily Laws, so you'll see about them. I've given you some excerpts from the new book. But it's insane that you live in a world n- the way it is right now. If you study the history of the cosmos and how unlikely it is that the Earth ended up being the way it is, and how rare it is that there may not be life on other planets, if there is, the rarity of the life that we know of, the, the prog- the animals, the evolution, the technology that we have. And then if you look at the course of evolution and how improbable it is that humans ever evolved, even existed, if an asteroid hadn't hit the planet 60-some million years ago, dinosaurs would still be around, on and on and on, multiplied by the 70,000 generations of Homo sapiens that preceded you. If one of... So let's say your parents had never met, you would not be here, Jay. You'd, maybe you'd be combined in something else. Okay? And, and think of the narrow possibility that your parents hadn't met. Multiply that by 70,000 other generations trailing all the way to the first Homo sapiens. It's astronomical. The odds that you exist, that you're breathing, that you're looking at a world with plants and animals, et cetera, is staggering-

    15. JSJay Shetty1:24:08

        Yeah

    16. RGRobert Greene1:24:09

        ... and you never think about it. So I'm trying to make you think about things that you never think about in this book, and I want you to completely alter and make that going beyond the circle sort of more of a daily occurrence for you. So that's what's on my mind a lot right now.

    17. JSJay Shetty1:24:23

        Yeah. I love that. Well, I look forward to that. I purposely didn't dive into it too much because I know-

    18. RGRobert Greene1:24:28

        That's all right

    19. JSJay Shetty1:24:28

        ... we, we need to wait for it, and I, I hope we get to have another conversation when that comes out. But, uh, no, we look forward to that, and I, I, I couldn't agree with you more. The inconceivable is, is such a beautiful meditation in and of itself, to meditate on the inconceivable nature of where we are and what's possible and what's around us, and it needs to be part of our daily life for that, uh, entrance into the, the splendor and, and how sublime it can be. So yeah, I love that, and, and we look forward to that.

19. 1:25:00 – 1:28:47

    Robert on Final Five

    1. JSJay Shetty1:25:00

       Uh, Robert, we end every On Purpose interview with a Final Five. These are the Fast Five-

    2. RGRobert Greene1:25:05

       Oh, dear

    3. JSJay Shetty1:25:05

       ... rapid-fire round.

    4. RGRobert Greene1:25:06

       Oh, good. I hope I can-

    5. JSJay Shetty1:25:07

       So answers have to be one word to one sentence maximum. Uh, I may go off on a tangent, but let's see. So Robert Greene, these are your Final Five. The first question is, what is the best advice you've ever received?

    6. RGRobert Greene1:25:20

       I remember, uh, years ago my brother-in-law said something about learning to watch the grass grow.

    7. JSJay Shetty1:25:29

       Mm.

    8. RGRobert Greene1:25:29

       Basically the idea of o- things only happen over time.

    9. JSJay Shetty1:25:34

       Yeah.

    10. RGRobert Greene1:25:34

        And I was 21 at the time, and I wasn't listening, and I've learned since then that the most beautiful things occur slowly and with patience. And if you can sit there and watch the grass grow, that's, that's pretty great.

    11. JSJay Shetty1:25:48

        That's beautiful. Uh, what's the worst advice you've received?

    12. RGRobert Greene1:25:52

        Uh, you need to capitalize on, on the 48 Laws of Power and make a lot of money.

    13. JSJay Shetty1:25:57

        [laughs]

    14. RGRobert Greene1:25:58

        Which I ignored.

    15. JSJay Shetty1:25:59

        [laughs] That's brilliant. That's a great answer. That's a great answer. Uh, third question, what's your current purpose?

    16. RGRobert Greene1:26:07

        I have certain books I want to write that are very, mean a lot to me and I want to l- create them before I die.

    17. JSJay Shetty1:26:14

        Hmm.

    18. RGRobert Greene1:26:14

        Because I know that my life is short.

    19. JSJay Shetty1:26:16

        Mm-hmm.

    20. RGRobert Greene1:26:17

        I may not have as much time as I want, so that's to realize all the books that I wanted to write.

    21. JSJay Shetty1:26:22

        Question number four is, uh, what's something that other people value that you don't?

    22. RGRobert Greene1:26:27

        It's gonna sound, uh, not right, but I'll say it anyway. It's m- money. I mean, I have, I- it's easy for me to say 'cause I have enough of it and I'm comfortable, but it's never been my goal.

    23. JSJay Shetty1:26:38

        Hmm.

    24. RGRobert Greene1:26:39

        It's never ruled my life.

    25. JSJay Shetty1:26:40

        I relate.

    26. RGRobert Greene1:26:41

        Doing what I want to do, all that money means to me is freedom to do what I want to do.

    27. JSJay Shetty1:26:46

        Yeah.

    28. RGRobert Greene1:26:46

        I never focus on what I can do to increase my bank account.

    29. JSJay Shetty1:26:51

        Yeah.

    30. RGRobert Greene1:26:51

        So, um, I, I don't really value it and, and it drives my mother crazy for instance. [laughs]

Episode duration: 1:28:47