The SECRET to Mastering Your DARK SIDE | Robert Greene on The Icons

The number one question I get is from you, especially the younger ones, who say: I really don't understand what my life's task is. I call that teacher, the task of

your

life. Please help me, Robert, you have to be patient, it won't come like a light bulb. in

your

head, ah, I was meant to do this, I was meant to write the 48 Laws of Power, that's not how it works, so I like to tell people to go back to their earliest childhood memories, to the things they they really got them excited before they got confused. with parents and teachers and all those people telling them things Robert Greene is an author and master guide to millions of readers and some of them very high profile.

He has written six international bestsellers that are so powerful they have become legendary. The

icons

of a show where you learn life lessons from those who have achieved iconic success in the places that bring their stories to life my name is Tyler Waite we are in Los Angeles moments from Robert's door I have been waiting for this conversation Robert Greene welcome to

icons

for reason, thanks for having me Tyler, it's a pleasure for us too, yeah, it took a while to set this all up, it makes it so much sweeter when it happens, okay, hopefully, yeah, that's right now, you wrote books.

Now, looking back, a couple of decades ago, you started your career as a book writer and were immediately captivated by them. You began to explore the

dark

er

side

of human nature. What do you think? I followed that path. Well, it's a complicated story. but mostly I had been working in Hollywood before I wrote that first book and that's what drew me to the

dark

er

side

of human nature, to be honest, but overall I saw this kind of paradox or this kind of dichotomy in our culture. where people don't want to talk about that element related to power, to people in power, to politics, particularly to culture, where everything is supposed to revolve around art and everything is so elevated that it is as if it were kind of repressed, you know?

We'll talk about that. sex we'll talk about, you know, any kind of divergent human behavior except power and manipulation, ew, no, I don't want to talk about that and then into this self-help genre that I never imagined falling into, but I guess books tend to soften all those things that it's about, it's almost like we're angels and we're not these kind of power-hungry primates and I just saw it in my experiences in Hollywood and before Hollywood I had like 50 different jobs in every field imaginable, you can, you know, it's possible, you know, I worked in a detective agency, I worked in construction, I taught English, I worked in a hotel in Paris, etc.

I saw all kinds of power moves. I saw a lot. of that dark side in motion, but no one talks about it, perhaps novelists in fiction or perhaps in cinema, we delve into that, but humans are fascinated with what we repress and, therefore, by touching that nerve, that little thing we don't know. I don't really want to talk about it, but we're

secret

ly fascinated. I think that's what led to the success of the book, but I've always been fascinated by the dark side of human nature and now that some time has passed since you wrote. the 48 Laws of Power and obviously you've written several books since then, but that was really the beginning publicly.

Do you look back differently on those tools? Darken your dark side and also maybe play defensively, how do you expect people to receive those tools? Well, people generally bring to anything in life their own psychology, their own mentality, so if you're already a shark type of person, if you're already manipulative, you're probably going to win. I don't really need my book and you probably won't read it, but if you read it, yes, that's how I operate, that's how life is fine, but for most people in this world they are naive like I was when I came in.

In the working world, most people do not understand the 48 Laws of Power. They don't understand that you want to talk less to appear more powerful. They don't understand the dynamic of getting people to come to you instead of always imposing on you. others Etc. and that naivety is what gets you into a lot of trouble in life, right, it got me into a lot of trouble, law number one, never outshine your teacher. I could sit here and cry and tell you all kinds of tragic stories about how I imagined how childish the teacher was and how miserable he made me, so I was one of those people who was a little bit and didn't even understand this kind of

secret

language. , that power that people have in power, so a lot of the book is By opening this world to everyone, right?

It used to be that only white men of a certain age and a certain social background had access to this kind of knowledge and could have that kind of power and it bothered me a little that it was like that. the secret that no one wanted to share I wanted to open up I wanted to put an end to all the hypocrisy I wanted everyone to see that this is how things work behind closed doors Etc. So I wrote the book to reveal these secrets. No, no, I'm not trying to educate the Sharks and try to make people more manipulative.

I'm trying to make you less naïve in your life and that was the purpose behind the book and that's the spirit in which I wrote it. It's interesting to see that this is the spirit that most people adopt. I get a lot of emails from readers and most of the emails are God, you opened my eyes to something I never really thought about. This has really changed the way I see it. people and looking at the world, it doesn't make me paranoid, it just makes me more aware of myself and what other people are doing, so that was kind of the motivation behind the book.

Tell the people here because I think that probably reflects my experience. enough with the book. You know, when you read the title, you might have an impression and try to figure out what this book is helping me with, but then when I picked up the book and started reading it. I probably put myself in that naïve camp as well and felt like this has really helped me decode something that I know has been going on, but I haven't really known how to understand what's been going on and it's great to hear. I've been curious, do you know now that you look back?

What do you think has led you down this path? Well, you know, sometimes in life you just fall into things that I didn't really intend when I was young. I was 18 years old and I dreamed of my future and being a writer, that this would be the type of book I would write, but my experiences in life set me on a particular path. I learned certain lessons and such and, um, I was given this opportunity to write. my first book and I drew on all my experience, all the research I had done, all my thoughts that were going on.

I have to say I was a little old to write my first book and have this career change. when I was almost 30, you know, I had a lot of bad experiences, I had a lot of difficult things that I went through, so that informed me and it kind of channeled itself into this book, it was kind of a mix of circumstances and Good luck and I was able to take advantage of everything I had learned in all my skills in life, so sometimes you find something that feels good, you know, like working in Hollywood. I never felt comfortable, I didn't feel good.

I'm kind of an entrepreneur at heart. I like working for myself. I don't like working for other people. I like to control what I do. Some things are a little negative, but by writing this book I was able to control everything. I was the owner of mine. dominion I didn't have people breathing down my neck changing everything I did I was able to write about what I love a topic that interests me I was able to contribute all my interest to the story I'm basically a failed novelist, so Now I can tell stories my way, etc., It was like a perfect fit and from there I decided to continue in that vein, you know, but I don't want to, I don't want to be in the position where a lot of people make the mistake in life of constantly repeating the same successful formula, so Many writers who have a successful book then read the second part, remake the same idea and recycle things because They think I don't want to disappoint my audience.

I have to continue, you know, pleasing them. They were satisfied with the first one. I have always followed the laws of power that have changed things. Interact with boldness, don't be afraid to do it. Things adapt their strategy differently to circumstances, so each book represents a new challenge for me, a new topic, whether it's seduction or collateral strategy or mastery of a field or human nature, so it represents a challenge, but it also represents what I can use. the type of format I have created suits me so perfectly. I am an extremely lucky and blessed person when I read the newspaper and see how difficult the world is and how tough people are at this particular time. climate of the work world I just get on my knees and pray that I am so lucky and so blessed to have been able to get this type of job perfect for me.

I wonder to what extent that mentality is, I mean, what you bring to it. At the end of that quarter and you're talking about the fact that you know you were working hard, maybe circumstances weren't working out as well as you wanted and then luck came along and like that, these two things came together and maybe you posed it as a challenge and now you know everything he's been going through until he wrote that book. Yes, what would you offer to those? There are many of our viewers who would say they are still in difficult circumstances. and they're waiting for luck to come and they're wondering: you know I have dreams and the dreams don't happen fast enough.

What advice would you give them given that maybe your dream really started to materialize late in your life? At 30, well, it's never too late, it's better to start earlier in life. I mean, I wrote a book Mastery that's on that topic and I try to advise people. It's like the number one question I get is from you, especially younger people sing "Not me." I really don't understand what my life's task is. I call it

mastering

your life's task. Please help me Robert, the sooner you figure it out the better off you will be, but it can happen later in life.

Now I discovered at a young age that I wanted to do it. Writing I didn't know what I wanted to write, but I loved Words and I loved writing, and if I hadn't had that connection when I was eight and through high school and college, I would have been a lost soul and I empathize with a lot of people who don't have that. feeling when they are 8, 18 or 20, but I try to tell people that everyone has it, you just don't listen to yourself and you have lost touch. who you are, the core of your being, you're on social media too much, you listen to what other people tell you, you listen to what your parents told you you should do in life, you listen to what your friends think is cool, interesting. what the culture is about, you know the entertainment industry, etc., you have to eliminate all that, you have to listen to yourself, you have to be a little bold and you have to accept what makes you different.

I say what makes you strange because I know personally that I am a very strange person if you saw me at home, people, he talks like that to his animals, he talks to his shampoo bottle when he showers, that guy is strange, I like him , No, I do not care. weird I use it to my advantage I put it in my books you have weirdness for you whoever you are things you might sometimes be a little embarrassed or uncomfortable with right but you shouldn't be What makes you different what makes you particularly strange if Do you want to use another word is your strength it is your source of power you have lost contact with it let's go back and try to find it and that is the problem or how do you find it well, it is a process you have to be patient, it is not going to turn on like a light bulb in the head ah, I was meant to do this, I was meant to write the 48 Laws of Power, that's not how it works, it takes time to do anything in life, it takes time and hours, patience and work.

I recommend starting a journal and things like that and writing down some of the things that I think are important to you, so I like to tell people to go back to their earliest childhood memories, to the things that really excited them before they were born. mixed with parents and teachers and all these other people telling them things that you know, for me it was words and language, I was just fascinated by the sound of language itself, right, it's like music to me, you had something like that, the book I recommend is A little technical but it's a brilliant book called Howard Gardner's Five Mental Frames.

The point of this book is that there are five forms of intelligence that we normally associate with intellectuals, with our Noam Chomsky with Albert Einstein and he says that no intelligence comes into play. all forms working with your hands is a form of intelligence a carpenter has a high form of intelligence people who refer to using their body athletically that is another form of intelligence there is music there is mathematics there is language you have one of these mental states for the way your brain is wired, you have, you are leaning towards one of them, find out if you are someone who is word oriented and you end up getting into a field that is about math or about numbers for a lot of pain in life, so you have to discover that type of what I call Primordial connection withsome kind ofIn this field, you have to look at the things you love and the things you hate from the beginning of entering the working world.

I discovered that I don't like working for other people. I hate to say it. Some of that maybe maybe. I'm antisocial in my car. I don't know, I hope not, but I don't like working for other people. I don't like all the politics, all the crap you have to put up with. I realized it from the beginning. I just arrived. to be working for myself, so what you don't like is very instructive for you, right, you are seeing things that are very powerful within you that are emotional, they are not intellectual, they are thoughts, they are me. sorry your feelings your emotions your visceral things that you connect with well I have always been fascinated by our early ancestors when I was eight years old I wrote a novel probably the worst novel ever written in the history of humanity and it was about the first beings humans on the planet and it was written from the point of view of a vulture watching these humans arrive, stupid idea, but I was fascinated with the early history of our Origins, Our Roots when I was very young and that topic continues to fascinate me if I ever do it. do.

I read an article about Neanderthals and all the discoveries being made about their DNA. I could read that it is always so fascinating. You have something like that. I know you have it and I'm completely egalitarian. I think everyone has that when I wrote the book Mastery. Is that what this book is about to demonstrate? My point is that everyone has it. I interviewed contemporary Masters and one of them is the woman Temple Grandin, who was born with high-level autism, just when she was going to be hospitalized for her entire life when she was two or two years old.

At three years old she had the good fortune to find the right teacher who brought her out of her shell and eventually she became a highly respected professor of animal research. She is absolutely brilliant. She also studies autism itself if someone with that type of disability. Well, you know, everything is against her, if she can achieve it, she can figure it out and achieve Mastery, then I certainly believe that everyone has that potential, but I know that it is not easy, it is a process and you have to be patient, but there is to do it.

Try hard, I think that's a really useful message for people to hear. I'm talking about that idea of ​​looking for what's unique about you and that might help you figure out exactly what your connection is to something much bigger that feels like a pull. I was having a conversation with our production team this morning and I mentioned that now I essentially talk for a living, but I grew up so shy, so shy, that I didn't talk to anyone outside of my family until I was a teenager and it was always something very unique about from me, you know when you're in that shell at that moment, but it wasn't like I was afraid to speak, there was just something else that was going on inside, but by chasing that, you know something materializes and I think that's a lesson. interesting for people who are listening that you've written about many types of external circumstances, strategy, power of seduction, but it sounds like you know that if you're thinking about what gets in the way of someone pursuing their dreams, it's not necessarily about of the external is ready to start focusing on the internal is that fair, yeah, it's um, that's the starting point and that's what's going to make you happy and fulfilled in life, but you can't ignore the social element, so that in Master's I'm talking about you have to have high levels of skill to achieve those goals that we all want to achieve in our career, etc., and I really believe that fulfilling your professional ambitions will lead you to a great sense of satisfaction in your life, although that It doesn't mean that you can't find that through your family through your children, etc., so the teacher is about your high level of skill, and to do that you have to go through an apprenticeship, you have to learn things a and again.

I've spent my apprenticeship generally was eight to ten years learning to write working in journalism in New York working in Hollywood Etc., so you have to know, maybe you have, maybe you have a mentor to help you, etc., but another skill What you can't ignore is social, we are social animals and there are many people in life who ignore that maybe because they are shy and I was very shy when I was young. It was mostly quite introverted too because they are shy, they just lean in. By their own strength, which is learning something really well, learning mathematics or learning algorithms or learning to write, etc., and they ignore the social because they are afraid of it, but you cannot get ahead in this world as a social animal that depends on others. people. every aspect of life unless you also treat it as another skill, so yes, the process of looking inward is absolutely essential, but you can't disconnect from your teachers, your mentors, your colleagues, you could have all the skills in the world and brilliantly know your life's task. but if you continually push people away by your rude behavior, by your insensitivity, the entire skill level in the world will be completely neutralized by your own mistakes.

Hmm, as you speak, you know that mix between the internal and the external and the fact that we are social. animals I think I'm fascinated by our, you know our ancestors, they all go back to the beginning when we started working. What was this all about? I mean, we talked about achievement and career. I mean, we weren't doing it for money. Money wasn't invented, we were making it for something else and I think that's a really powerful driver in people's lives when you go back to that turning point in writing 48 Laws of Power, that moment in your career, what was it? the story that was happening? your career at that time and how that book came to fruition, well, you know, let's go back now to its origins, go back like 27 years and, you know, I have to delve into rewinding the clock. and I really have to rewind the clock, but you know, I was frustrated, depressed, I even have to admit I had slightly suicidal moments because deep down I knew I could do something.

He was different from other people. I had different experiences, you know, and I knew that there was something I needed to express, that there was a purpose in how my life had turned out, but I couldn't find it. I tried everything I had tried, every way of writing, every effort possible. I imagine it just didn't click, so I was deeply frustrated and frustration tells people a good thing. Negative emotions are trying to teach you something. They are trying to teach you the opposite. Something else is happening. Frustration if it were just there what would be worse than frustration would be losing hope, but frustration is a sign that you haven't given up, you know you can do something but you haven't discovered it, so when you have those kinds of feelings, look at them and there's something positive about that, so I knew there was something I had to do.

I couldn't understand when and under those circumstances I was fed up with Hollywood. I must get out of this world. I hate it. My old friend from university invited me to Italy. I was. He was in Berkeley to go to Italy. He was Benetton. The company was starting a media school there called Fabrica. He said: I will pay you to come to Italy. to help write the catalog that will launch the school as in Italy. I'm there, no joke, no you don't have to pay me. I will, so I went there and it was kind of a miserable, another miserable job.

In Italy nothing is miserable, you know, the food is excellent, you have a cafe, you can create a coffee, excellent wine, everything is beautiful, but the school itself was a little dysfunctional, like so many things in life, and I had the good luck that there was another man there who changed the course of my life I bless him every day his name is yoast elfers he is dutch I am still good friends with him Yost is a book packager who is like a book producer and one day , the happiest day of my life, the complete opposite of The day of my stroke we were walking in Venice, Italy, a beautiful sunny day near Piazza San Marco.

We had a great experience at the library and he walks in with his father, Jackson, for Robert. Do you have an idea for a book? And I just, okay. When I started improvising and what I improvised was basically a book about power and how timeless it is and I said, you know, people don't dress like they did at the court of Louis XIV, they don't look like Machiavelli or César Borge in those They don't stab people with knives, but it's the same story, it's the same story and I told him as an example of this the story of Nicholas Fouquet and Louis XIV, which turns out to be the initial story of the 48 laws of power about how he organized this luxurious party to win over Louis XIV.

Look who Phuket is and it was such a successful party that King Louis thought that his finance minister, Fouquet, was after his job and that the people liked it more than the king. The next day he put it in. imprisoned on false charges and was in prison the rest of his life he never outshone the master he never outshone the king yoast's eyes lit up because I love it he offered to pay me to live while he wrote the book and we would sell it to you I know these things happen in life, so it was lucky that this guy offered me a job, I really met you, but it wasn't luck that I had everything boiling inside me and I was ready for it if he had asked me when I was 24 years old.

I never would have happened. Everything just fit together well. It's like the gods have vanished for me. I don't know to this day. It's a mystery to me, but it's like the biggest mystery of all. I want to take that in so many directions. One of the things that took me by surprise while reading his books was the level of research and even being prepared with a story like that to improvise this idea, but I mean, it's incredible, but I'm curious, if I think back then, I appreciate that you have opened up some of the emotions that you felt at that stage of your life, frustration, depression, even sometimes beyond that, then, you are in that situation, you write this. book, it's starting to catch on and one of the things I find interesting about the 40 Laws of Power and I don't know if it's an urban legend, but there's talk about it being banned in certain prisons and how does that feel when you have it?

You've channeled your life through these circumstances and you've written something that obviously matters to people and is compelling and then it's talked about in unusual ways, like what's your opinion on all that stuff about prison, yeah, you know. I receive emails at least once a week from people in prison. They get more and more these days saying how much the book has helped them, and I'm friends with a lot of rappers now. I'm not. trying to name, but you know, 50 Jeezy cheesy Etc and then I recently met London's most popular rapper when he was on London paper pod or Potter paper anyway um and everyone had been in prison and Rick Ross Etc did some prison time and I have deep empathy for that kind of situation, people try to use the fact that it's banned in prison or that prisoners read it as an accusation against me, as if I'm evil, as if people who are in prison are inherently evil and we have forgotten some central aspects of religion from our Judeo-Christian background for many of us or for all religions what is forgiveness what is the idea of ​​redemption Do we believe that people are inherently irredeemably evil?

There are probably some people like that, yes, but a lot of people in prison, right? They have had terrible circumstances, the quote in the Bible there by the grace of God, come on you and I, if you have been raised where I saw 50 raised in South Side. Queens in the pressurized circumstances raised by a grandmother who is trying to raise 11 grandchildren and her own children, you know you're on the streets of Queens, you know it, and all the drugs there are, you tell me you can't possibly finish. in prison so get rid of your moralizing and your air of superiority oh books in prison therefore it's an evil book therefore Robert's evil these are flesh and blood human beings you could have ended up like them , you already know.

I often imagine what would happen if it had ended. In prison, I often think about that, you know, and people in prison have to do with the man I met at the Potter newspaper in London. God, I wish I could, he was the most incredible person, he's fantastic, he's 31, he was basically raised by the state. foster kid, spent half his life in the prison system up to that point and the guy used the prison library to educate himself which is a common theme in prisons, he's smarter, more together than most people who are out of prison, right?

The harshness of your circumstances often transforms you. People who have it easy in life never have to work hard on themselves, but people who have the worst circumstances crush them or use them to develop themselves. People like 50. People like Malcolm They have always attracted me. to the margins anyway, but what I wear is a badge of honor. I'm afraid I think that's verypowerful. I mean, I agree. I think what's fascinating about books that talk about that really pulls back the curtain on how human nature works. And when I hear you talk about it, it's not like this was offered in terms of you know how you manipulate the world, but it was almost written from a place of compassion like how do we understand what's happening in our own space and when I was researching the laws of human nature, you mention terms like narcissism and you know those who would feel like Oh, that's a term that's out there. about me, no, I don't connect with that, that's not me, that's someone else and this idea, get over it.

I mean, we're all on that spectrum, we all have this connection, this innate drive and when you can embrace it, you can understand it, but when you step back from it, you feel like you know it's easy to have this façade about the world or see the world coming out. of you. That is a very important part of the book. So much so that the most basic and elemental law of human nature is that we deny that we are right, it is always other people. I, oh, I'm not narcissistic, I'm not aggressive, oh, I don't have a dark side, no.

I'm not irrational, no, none of those things are right, so we want to deny it, but it's so incredibly irrational that we all come from the same origins that we can trace it back. They have made it genetically to like a woman, the source of Homo sapiens, like hundreds of thousands of years ago, we were all cut from the same cloth, no matter our culture, no matter our gender, no matter our period in life. History, we all have the same genetic components, we are all developed, we go through the same evolutionary process. Brains are wired the same way, so if some people are deep, what I call deep narcissists, sure, they're toxic and they're difficult, but if some people have that, how come other people don't?

Anything that is not possible must be something within all of us that would make us prone to becoming deep narcissists, but for some people it causes them to fall into that depth, others were able to save us, but aggression is something that is built. in human nature and I try to go through the whole story correctly, so you want to exclude yourself, so I mean, I could. People have posted comments on YouTube about my rants about narcissism. They're doing well, Robert, you're a snake oil salesman, that's absolutely ridiculous. I'm not a narcissist. You know, 0.50.05 percent of people are known to be narcissists.

I can bet you that the person who says that is a narcissist right because the fact that you want to deny that you have this quality is a sign is a sure sign that you have it that you are denying it that you are trying to enlighten yourself look I'm superior I'm the only person in the world on this planet who doesn't I don't have it man you're a narcissist right that's a sure sign of it so stop denying it. The Loss of Human Nature should be a painful book to read. It was a painful book to write because it throws a mirror at you and makes you cum. accept some of your own nooks and crannies that you don't want to investigate, you don't want to accept the fact that you feel envy, but envy is the most common human emotion of all, there is a deep The history of this I analyze in the book.

Our hunter-gatherer ancestors, chimpanzees, are prone to envy. You feel it 50 times a day, especially on social media, you're just denying it. If you deny all these qualities, how can you do it? change yourself, you think you are a Gandhi, but how could you be a Gandhi if you don't like to look at yourself and change yourself properly? The only way you can become good or overcome some of these qualities is by watching. "Seeing reality and then confronting it and then trying to change it, so if I come to terms, what I did was write the book: Yes, Robert, you are a narcissist, you have definite narcissistic tendencies more than you thought, right now." .

I am aware of it and now I can start to change it, accept it, it is a difficult thought. It reminds me that you're talking about some of these negative emotions, a recent conversation on the show with Dan Pink and he was writing. about the power of regret and saying, you know, when you actually embrace those negative emotions, you learn a lot from it, so when you talk about frustration, when you embrace frustration, you recognize that you know there's still something that's guiding me toward good and that has not yet been fulfilled. but it's driving me and some of these characteristics of human nature that make you feel probably uncomfortable but also really enlightening.

One of the things I've heard you talk about before is deception and how you can almost have an idea if someone is deceiving you. with his kind of reaction to certain statements that you said was something that you started to discover through this book, as well as this kind of connection with deception and human nature, well, I have to admit, to be honest, I've always been interested in deception I was probably someone who was pretty good at it when I was 20 years old. You know, I went through a period like that. He wasn't a liar or anything, but he was kind of an actor and I'm not going to go into this. history, but I lived in Paris when I was 21 years old.

I worked in a hotel there as a receptionist to get the job. I had to pretend I was Irish. I'm actually a middle-class Jew from Los Angeles. I've never been to a church in my life, you know, I don't know what a mass is, you're welcome, you know, I had to pretend I was Irish, it's a long time, I'm not going to go into that, but you did it, you did it. for a year, no way. Did I date an Irish girl? Yes, I got another job and another company that is still Irish, that's the next level.

Yes, yes, yes, but it taught me a lot about the art of deception and part of the work, part of being able to achieve it, was that I studied, I was terrified of being one so I started working at the hotel thinking that I speak French because I speak French and no one You'll never know that I'm not actually Irish, but then I realized that the English stay in the hotel. The Irish stay at the hotel and hear this strange ax and know that this guy is a liar. I'm going to be revealed and it's going to be very embarrassing and embarrassing, so luckily across the street there was an Irish pub, you know? those lucky things in life I would go there every day I would study the people there because there were many Irish immigrants in Paris I would study their gestures I am very good at imitating listening to the tone of their voice I looked at how they dress their gestures.

I studied it and got better and better with my accent. At first I had to say good things to people. I spent some time in the States, but then I got so good that I could fool the Irish. I learned to dress. I learned to go to church. I learned all the things that made me look Irish. It's a little embarrassing because it's something you can do when you're 21. I would never do that now. I would never feel comfortable doing it now. I'm revealing it to you here, but it taught me how easy it is to fool people if you have an air of sincerity and conviction, and I tell people that when you look at those around you, particularly politicians or people in the news or in the center of attention and they are so full of conviction, they are so full of sincerity, etc., often they are covering up something else, they are trying to convince themselves of a truth that they know is not true, so that conviction is often a sign of someone who is in a form of self-deception to lead to deception, so the guy in my early history, my initial training to become a different person and be an actor, taught me a lot about the nature human nature and deception, and um, I'm not saying I'm a master at it, but I'm fascinated by con artists and all the manipulation of appearances and creating illusions, and I've studied it very deeply, so I'm not saying I'm a expert, but I understand.

It's pretty good and there aren't these kinds of micro-expressions? I mean, if I told you I got a promotion, you know, if I could really observe how you would react initially, there would be signs, right? You know, in some ways we can, you know, sense deception, well, I've always been very sensitive to those things, so you know, I feel like you can detect from science and from a person's face whether they are sincere or not. . or what really happens behind the mask that they wear and I wrote about that in the laws of human nature we have that ability because so much of human communication is non-verbal, it's an ability that was developed over hundreds of thousands. of years by our ancestors before language was invented reading other people's thoughts so we could get along before we could put things into words we are masters at those who pick up those signals you're just not paying attention you're not learning but It is difficult for the face to lie correctly, it is even more difficult for the voice to lie.

Your voice is the last thing you can use to lie. I know I had my Irish accent, but if someone really noticed, they'd see something like that. going on and that's why it's hard to train your face when you don't really feel Joy when you see that you got a promotion and I'm kind of secretly oh Tyler is doing better than me in life damn yeah that's it great, Tyler, oh that's wonderful, congratulations. the kind of tension there just reveals that oh he's doing better than me, kinda true, whereas wow, Tyler, that's fantastic, I'm so happy for you, there's a different expression on the face, I just didn't make a good job, right? there, but it's a different expression on the face, right, it's spontaneous, the face lights up, you can detect that from a mile, a million miles away, the difference, you're just not paying attention, right, the tone of voice when you are nervous and cramped and the throat closes as a sign of discomfort, anxiety or fear even panic, so someone might be trying to say something full of confidence, but if their voice becomes tense, it is the other feeling the opposite: the voice is very, very It's hard to lie in posture when someone is talking to you but their feet are pointing in a different direction, they don't really want to move away from you, right?

You know how much the eyes are involved, whether they are relaxed or slouched. The sense of power and leadership is all in the body. This is a crazy language and great books much bigger than my own book have been written in an extraordinary chapter on this language of non-verbal behavior. Correct posture. Voice. Facial expression. Etc. and ba y. Actions are a language that is not paid attention to when someone is continually late for an appointment or continually late in delivering the work they are supposed to hand in. That's a sign of passive aggression. This is a sign of some kind of character. fails and if they do it once they will probably do it a second time if they do it a second time something is going on right if their desktop is all messy etc.

These are signs that something is happening internally, pay attention to all these details and you will really notice. will help in life. When you came in today, you know, talking about emotions and just body language, but when you came in today, you know, you sat down and said you know I'm wearing this shirt. I asked you about the shirt because I knew, but no, no, I said you might reveal something about my body language, no, but you know you're wearing a shirt and I'm hoping that maybe you can share the story of this shirt, but you're talking about your The happiest day of your life with the book, but you also know the most difficult day of your life, which was four years ago today, wasn't it, exactly four years, on August 17, 2018?

That's it, but basically it was here in The um. I was with my girlfriend at the time. My wife just had lunch and I was getting in the car to drive home. I'm pulling into traffic and she's seeing all kinds of weird things like me. Her face is falling, my voice is getting really weird and I look a little weird. She starts to go crazy. She stops, she stops and no, I'm fine, I start to get into traffic, I'm driving, she makes me move over. road and then he told me I tried to get out of the car like I was going to do something and then I went into a coma and I don't remember anything else, he called 9-1-1 and luckily we were a The ambulance arrived in five ten minutes and had a blood clot in my neck so blood didn't flow to my brain for a long enough period of time to create damage so that's a stroke and I'm frequently alone in the first place.

In life I swim, I do my stroke. I swam every other day or so alone in the pool. I walked a lot. I rode a bicycle a lot. I'm alone a lot. The fact that he was with her was maybe a five. Percent chance, right, that five percent chance means I'm still alive, right, the fact that she realized very quickly that something was wrong and called them saved me from brain damage that would be permanent. She couldn't talk to you right now. many stroke victims have permanent brain damage. I couldn't write another book. I'm very, very lucky, so I'm sorry, that's the story of the t-shirt, so it's part of my stroke, my brain isn't, it's not all of it.

So to get to me quickly,They took this shirt and they cut it up with scissors and they cut it into pieces, they ripped the shirt off and then they stuck a thing in my neck to open up the blood clot and make some blood flow to my brain, which saved me and a year and a half later I suddenly remembered this t-shirt that I had just been given for my birthday a couple of months before and I remember that I love that show, I really liked it, it's like me and I Finally asked what happened to that shirt and she said A really strange look on her face and she told me the story about the scissors and everything and then I said oh well, let me see it and she went and took this horrible hospital bag and took it out.

I could see she was in pieces and I felt so bad I said I love this shirt, could you sew it? It's back together for me, so you don't want to see that shirt again, yes I do, it's a constant reminder of what happened, you know, it's like what they call a Memento Mori, it's a memory of death, my My own doom, my own mortality, I want that t-shirt. so he lovingly sewed it back together, it looks like a kind of frankenstein, it also looks like maybe haute couture, like Carl Lager felt like he designed it or something, you know, but it's not, but you know, this is his anniversary and , you already know.

It's a very strange kind of series of emotions that go through you because I can still feel that kind of coma. Feeling of being about to die, as if I could feel myself dying at the moment just before the coma occurred, just before falling into a coma and Every now and then it comes to mind at this time of year to remember the day you know Damn, I had such a good life, I was swimming, I was so happy, I didn't know I was so happy, I took it. Of course, I miss all that man. I miss it so much not being able to go on a hike, on the other hand, I'm alive, I'm breathing, I'm talking to you, I'm writing another book, I'm kind. to be able to walk.

I can ride my modified tricycle up the hills of Griffith Park, etc. I have a lot to be grateful for so any kind of mixed emotion like that pain and gratitude creates something very powerful and it's kind of a day for those kinds of strange emotions right now thank you for sharing so one of the things you know that Does it catch your attention when someone reviews your work, do you know these incredible books full of research, must you have some way to stay highly productive even though you have been successful, do you have routines, rituals that help you know during the mornings that you know how be productive every day?

Well, I think to be a writer, but almost to be successful in any field of events, you have to be disciplined and you have to have routines. I call them rituals, things that I repeat every day that feel comfortable to me, that don't seem like boring habits, but are comforting, so I start each morning with a deep meditation. I've been doing a form of Zen meditation for 12 years, it's 45 minutes of sitting on pillows and emptying your mind completely. That's how I started every day and then I usually do some type of exercise right after breakfast. I go out for a bike ride or do some kind of physical therapy work and then I get to work.

Often my best hours are in the afternoon. I try not to exhaust myself, so writing is very intensive, it trains a lot of energy, so I never do more than three or three hours. four hours a day I can't stand it, but in those other periods when I'm not riding, I do a lot of research, I read a lot and then, you know, my time is structured around that and then I have lunch at the same time and then we have dinner, My wife and I watch a movie and then basically go to bed, there isn't much variety, the variety comes from the work itself and the thought enriches me and makes me feel like I'm having an experience but having discipline. and routines are a really, really important thing I think for anyone and you know I've helped people create their own routines in life because you can't necessarily do what other people do, but I think waking up and doing something. like emptying your mind or having some type of meditation practice is an extremely valuable tool.

I started with that, I think in 2013, every day since then, that's how my morning starts too when you talk about helping others create a routine, so someone you know is interested in this. They want to have some kind of morning routine, what do you ask them or how do you approach them to realize that? It all depends on your circumstances, if you work for yourself, if you work at home, that's usually the hardest thing because you have to be very self-disciplined and motivated, so creating an actual literal routine that you write down and schedule is very important, so I recommend meditation as a way to start the day to clear things out.

Empty all the baggage from the previous day and refresh your mind, and then it's up to my work. I talk to people about their energy levels, so I'm not a morning person, right? My wife wakes up and is full of theories. ideas and I'm really in a bad mood and blah blah blah, I ask you, I ask people when you feel the most energy, so people it's in the morning, you know, nine to twelve, some people I'm like me, from four to eight, so let's work. In that first, if you're like me, then in the morning you do things that are routine, like answering emails, like paying bills, or taking care of business matters, and then, now you have time in the afternoon to get things done. creative things.

Personally, I'm also a big believer in taking naps. I take a nap every day. I couldn't get one here, so I yawned before I had tea, but some people aren't nappers. I get it, but it's a great way to recharge in the middle of the day. It just depends on your energy and your work. Also, journaling is very important because, for example, I'm a writer, so I don't want to go anywhere near a journal. because please take that pen away from me if you're not a writer, for spending half an hour every day journaling about your day before you go to bed, etc.

A bedtime ritual is also good, it just depends on who you are. your energy, your individuality and the type of work you do, and then we work out a good ritual routine for them. We have so many young people watching this show, tuning into our content, and they're filled with all kinds of pressures right now. kind of things that are distracting what is your advice for 20 year olds who are out there now dealing with a world that is potentially very different from how you and I grew up, but what is your advice for young people? Well, they're not. too hard on yourself and, um, be patient, so it's kind of a mix where you have to go through a little bit of a dance, so on the one hand, you want to be serious about life, but you're not, the Life doesn't last forever.

Your youth will end in 10 or 12 years. You better believe it. It goes faster than you can imagine. Okay, so take it seriously. OK. So that you can, you want to realize what your life's task is. You want to develop those skills that will make you. So when you're 30, things will fall into place as fortunately they did for me. It's a common story that 3132 is that year when things change for people, but on the other hand you don't want to be so damned. Seriously, so damn, you know, you know you're linear in your thinking. I have to follow this path to earn this amount of money.

Etc., you're young, have fun, have some adventure, have some excitement, but at the same time you also have that sense of discipline and that sense of purpose you can do both at the same time now the circumstances now it's easy for me a boomer I have to admit that to preach to you when you have to go through two you have gone through a pandemic that made what appears to be a recession and then if you are a millennial, you went through another, you went through the 2008 crisis, it is easy for me to preach that you're dealing with really difficult circumstances and there's what they call the great renunciation.

Now it's like that, many people are reconsidering their lives, they don't want to work or do rubbish jobs just to survive and I applaud that, one hundred percent right, that's great, so thinking about working for yourself is the best. position in this world and, although times are difficult, although it may seem like just a dream, there is so much potential for entrepreneurship, for creating your own startup, for creating your own podcast, for following your own path in life, which does not I have to follow other people, it's not like when I was a kid, there were things that were better back then, but they are things that were much worse, right, you have many more options, it's just that you're not going to reach. them, you're not going to be happy in this short time that you have to be alive unless you take it seriously, unless you learn skills and develop, do an apprenticeship when you're 20, etc., so if you can balance those two and still have some fun. and adventurous excitement like I did, I mean, I don't want to present myself as a model, but you know, being an Irishman in Paris when I was in my early 20s, you know I was having adventures, so don't listen to your parents.

I have to be making a hundred thousand dollars when I'm 23 and go to law school and do all these things that are going to exhaust you, so understand that. I guess the main thing I would say is know who you are, know what. You are what you are, you know it deep down, but you love what you hate and what you were meant to create in this world. That is the most important process you can go through. It sounds like you've helped so many people figure it out. that path of life discover your gift what do you think your gift is oh well, I don't know, you know, I don't want to get too wrapped up in myself here about um, you know, because I'm sitting here talking and I'm talking about my own life, but I guess what it was was that I didn't listen to other people at so many defining moments in my life.

I could have gotten discouraged. People could have said, "You understand." Someone told me: Robert. You will never be a good writer in life. You know you need to go to business school. Etc. My parents tried to channel me in one way or another. I was stubborn and rebellious and I did my own thing and that's why I have a different kind of voice than other people, right? And when I look at books, I look for that voice. That voice is someone who is different, who has something different to say, who speaks in a different tone of voice, who has his blood. and his personality in his writings and I don't find it often, but when I do it's a great thing and for me success in life is being who you are.

There is a famous expression by the great ancient Greek poet Pindar about converting. Who you are is a process of becoming who you really are and realizing what that is, so we talked about my queerness before and after, which has allowed me to craft my own message, which is basically about opening your eyes to reality of the world. and how people are, but not me. I can't do that unless I've ignored what other people tried to impose on me before in life so I don't know if I'm answering your question but that kind of was my gift or my message if I have one because I'm telling you I'm not good at nothing else I can't fix things with my hands I'm a terrible dancer I'm totally toned if I can't sing You know, I'm lucky, I found the only thing I'm good at, so I took you 50 jobs, but yeah, yeah, which one Do you think that is your legacy or what do you hope your legacy is?

Well, I hope that is my legacy. You know, I tried to write things that are timeless, so I don't follow trends. I don't write about things that are happening right now in the news, in the newspaper or on the Internet. I write about topics that are I, a classic that goes back thousands of years and is about what humans are really like with our animal nature, etc., so what I hope is that in 20 or 30 years the book will be feel timeless, that that's essentially my legacy that Robert By finding some truth, he runs into the reality of what it means to be a human being and it's still relevant, as opposed to 30 years from now, people are like, man, that book smells like 1998.

That's not relevant at all, I think it's so dated that it would be a big disappointment to me. I won't be here to be disappointed. I will be buried dead, but my legacy. My hope is to come up with some kind of central truth or reality about humans and that will stand the test of time, you know, like Machiavelli 500. years later 5 00 yeah 500 which is almost exactly 500 years after his stuff some of it is dated , but most of it is like wow, that's right, that's crazy, you know? Because he was very down to earth, so if he could even begin to approach me. part of it, I would feel like that would be my legacy, hopefully, that I found the reality of our life in a timeless way and what's next.

Well, I'm doing a very strange book that will probably surprise me and disappoint my readers, but No, okay, it's a book about what I call the sublime and I hinted at it in um. I have a chapter in the book that I did with 50 Cent about death and mortality and that's a chapter called the sublime and then in the laws of human nature, chapter 18 about good fried chicken, mortality is also about the sublime, but essentially it's a different approach for me, it says maybe I hate using the word, but maybe it's almost a more spiritual book, so to speak, and essentially I'm saying that it's so strange to be alive is such a strange thing that 30 000 years ago our ancestors stillthey were basically in the stone age, our Paleolithic ancestors, you know our hunter-gatherers and here we are, look at this world, right? how to get there now with the news telescope, the web telescope that was launched, look at what we are doing, who we are, just to be alive, just to see the world as it is, just to have these powers of Consciousness, it's the journey weirdest thing you could ever be in your life is like this weird 80 year trip if you're lucky to live that long in a fire it's like you're continually high it should be like that you should be continually waking up man.

I'm aware I'm thinking I can look at the moon and be aware of it I can read history how strange we don't have those thoughts that we grow up around we take everything for granted we're immersed in our phones and our little The trivial worlds and all the little scandals and things that are happening today that will be forgotten in three days, etc., were immersed in banality and triviality when the cosmos is so essentially amazing and there are so many aspects of that genius, what an idiot to waste your life reflecting on things that are so unimportant when you're literally surrounded by all this crazy stuff, so every chapter is about the cosmos, it's about evolution, it's about your childhood, because childhood was the most sublime period of your life, it's about our ancient ancestors and pagan religions and how people thought very differently back then.

Now I'm doing a chapter on the brain and how the brain is tension. The human brain is simply the most remarkable thing in the cosmos, perhaps as far as we know. complexity is power is speed what you can create what you can do but we don't think of it that way we take this for granted we believe computers are much more interesting celebrity chapter on the brain I have a chapter on animals and animal consciousness on the The last chapter will be a guess what the last chapter of sublime is about or I mean obviously the topic but where are you going with the last chapter?

Death, death, it's always the last chapter, it's always the last chapter, so, you know, because people have had Near Death Experiences. I had one that wasn't as strong as other people's. There is nothing more sublime than what you see when you like to touch very briefly on the feeling that your life is running away from you. It's a very, very sublime experience, so there's that. What I'm working on is taking a lot of time and I'm trying to hurry up to get the book out because people seem to be interested in it, but that's what I'm working on now, I hope I can do it.

I live to finish it I think I will be, although I think so too I don't think I'll be disappointed I think it sounds very inspiring Yes, Robert, you've written about that. You know so many laws in your books. I'm curious if there are three principles that you think are the most important people to keep in mind and live well. One of them is the law of power that I have lived by. You know, consciously and inadvertently, that it is interaction with boldness, so most people. They are too shy in life They are afraid of failure They are afraid of making mistakes If I never try anything I never have to put up with criticism I never have to put up with people scrutinizing me properly So most people end up being too shy in life and you have to overcome that and you have to learn to be bold with your ideas and with your actions, so I try to make each of my books a kind of statement and impress. people with a strong idea of ​​you know and who are not afraid of criticism or controversy, so boldness has helped me in life and I think it is vitally important in these times.

The second thing is something we've talked about before, but it's knowing who you are, knowing yourself deeply, shining that mirror, looking inside yourself, deep inside yourself, who you are and what makes you different and go through that process in the deepest way possible just to know how to deeply understand what makes you an individual. It separates you from your parents, your siblings and your peers, and it's like having a radar system on you, so I know this about myself and now this person offers me this job, no, that's not who I am, that's not right for me, get out of it. here someone offers me something else yes, that's me, okay, I accept it, it's like an internal radar system that will guide you through life, the third thing is knowing yourself, but it's also knowing people and it seems something easy, but The problem most people have is that we are self-absorbed, we are more interested in our own thoughts and musings and our own ideas, thoughts, ideas and experiences of other people, we will deny it, we will go, we will die kicking and screaming.

To say no, that's not true, but it's true, because you're not listening to other people, you're not really fascinated by other people and I'm saying empathy and the ability to really listen to people and get under their skin and understand them. how they think how they experience the world how it is different to be them and how they are not only is it a great form of therapy because it gets you out of yourself, out of your own absorption and self-absorption, but it is a very powerful tool It will allow you to understand people on a deep level, understand their psychology, so you won't make all kinds of mistakes and you won't say exactly wrong things to say to this person or that person, so you will develop a high level of sensitivity towards people and start. being fascinated by people and their differences in their world and that for me is an extremely important skill in life boldness inaction knowing yourself being fascinated by other people yes, those are three pretty powerful principles what's the best advice you've ever received good , I'm not one to listen to advice, which is a problem, but I managed to get by without that, but I, my girlfriend at the time, now my wife, said, um, it was in the '90s, 1990s, um, not in 1890, and I was in my depressed period of life, right? and uh, I was working in Hollywood and I was miserable.

I was trying to write screenplays and I was also trying to write theater and fiction, etc., and she said, Robert, you can't have it both ways, you can't try to do much. have money and do the things you love, you have to do one thing or another well in life and then things will happen to you, but you're trying to have it both ways, you're trying to be very successful in Hollywood, but you'll also be doing things that They're really important to you and if you're going to be successful in Hollywood you have to learn to do things that aren't as exciting to you personally, so pick one or the other and then when the time comes do it.

In the book I realized the wisdom of that and decided that what matters to me here is not making money, it is not being a bestseller, it is simply writing the best book possible. It was like okay, here I am, this is my only chance in life. if money becomes my motivating factor, it changes everything I do, it changes the way I write, it changes the way I approach it, it makes me more like other people, it takes away that edge and that boldness factor that I was talking, but if I ignore that and just do what I love, I do what excites me, you know, even taking into account that there is an audience that is going to read it, it's not that I completely ignore it, but I do what excites me and it excites me, which reveals everything. that dark side of human nature, etc., and I do it in a way that satisfies me and gets all my juices flowing and my blood flowing, then maybe I make money in the end, so I chose that path that she had reason.

I think people who read the book understand that this was something that meant something to the writer, he put a lot of himself into it, he didn't write this book just to make money. I think people can smell that in creative work. that it was done for money or love, so I often tell people, especially at Creative Ventures, to do what you love and then hopefully the money will come to you if you do it well, so that was something like that as if he had explained it. It was the best advice I ever received, it's powerful, Robert Greene, it was an honor, thank you, I know our audience has been waiting for this conversation for a long time, it's been a real pleasure, oh, thank you, thank you anyway.

I really enjoyed it, the icon is this show and I hope you understand it now, iconic people, iconic places, my name is Tyler, stay tuned for what's coming next.