Habits and Hustle - Episode 142: Robert Greene – Part 2, Critically Acclaimed Author

Episode Date: November 16, 2021

We are so honored to bring Robert Greene back for a second time on Habits and Hustle. For those of you who don’t know, Robert Greene is an American author known for his books on strategy, power, and seduction. He is the man behind the international bestsellers: The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War, The 50th Law (with rapper 50 Cent), Mastery, and The Laws of Human Nature. We had a really special moment during the podcast during which he learned that his newest book, The Daily Laws, became a NY Times Best Seller while we were live! He’s known as one of the greatest writers of our generation and surprisingly, he mentions that he had up to 80 jobs before becoming an author. Youtube Link to This Episode Robert Greene’s Newest Book: The Daily Laws Robert Greene’s Website ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Did you learn something from tuning in today? Please pay it forward and write us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. 📧If you have feedback for the show, please email [e-mail]  📙Get yourself a copy of Jennifer Cohen’s newest book from Habit Nest, Badass Body Goals Journal. ℹ️Habits & Hustle Website 📚Habit Nest Website 📱Follow Jennifer – Instagram – Facebook – Twitter – Jennifer’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Today on Happens in Hustle, we have the one and only Robert Green. Robert is not just a close friend, but he's also the author of numerous New York Times bestsellers, including the 48 laws of power, the artist's deduction, the laws of human nature, the 50th law, the mastery, and his newest New York Times bestseller, which actually happened on the podcast, is the Daily Laws. Robert is just a prolific writer, and in addition to having a strong following

within the business world and a deep following in Washington DC, Robert's books are hailed by everyone from war historians to the biggest musicians in the world, including Jay-Z, Drake, 50 Cent. His work is just fantastic and I really recommend if you have not read one of his books to go and get them. The Daily Laws is a great word to start. It has a lot of a compilation of a ton of his work. I hope you enjoy this podcast. I'm sure you will. Okay guys, so today on the podcast we have a dear friend of mine, Robert Green. He's been on the podcast a couple actually two times twice, but one of them I couldn't air because of the sound. So it was like a whole thing. You never aired it? The second one. No we couldn't

because it was like you were sounding like you sounded like because it was on the it was on virtual. I told me that. I did it. I did so. I'm sure I did. No, I thought I thought maybe like the visuals, the audio, the video didn't work. Something was off, which is why we did it. We did this. The second one was when like right in the middle of the pandemic. Yeah. Never posted it. It's totally gone. All of that brilliance and everything. It's totally wasted. You guys miss a brilliant podcast. I think that we maybe took clips of it and put it on,

but it wasn't the full episode. We had to break it up for sure. It wasn't the full thing, right, Will? Yeah. It was the whole thing. But we tried our best to save. was a long one too because you always give such Amazing nuggets of wisdom and he's rolling his eyes if you're just listening to this which is true by the way You do this is also video rise. It is video of course. Well, um that's that's really sad. I know I thought I told I did tell you I put all the effort into it and it's all gone for good.

Well, it's not gone for good. We took snippets and we posted the snippets of your jewels of information. What was wrong? Was it on my end? I think it was just bad Wi-Fi, wasn't it? It was an internet issue. It was an internet issue. You know what it was, to be honest, it was right when everybody had to go virtual, right?

And so I think the full system was completely like Everything was everyone was on at the same time and and the Wi-Fi was a problem for a little bit That's when it happened. I think so. Yeah But the good news is we have you in person live today for your newest book called The Daily Laws. I didn't even tell everyone just for those of you who don't know who Robert Green is, either you're living under a rock or you haven't been blessed yet by this wisdom. But Robert is legitimately one of the best authors of our time, I feel. He has written the laws of human nature, the 48 laws of power, the art of seduction, mastery, which is one of my personal favorites. And each book

is truly like red like, it's like an encyclopedia, every single one of them. And they're all just massive bestsellers. And I recommend you guys, if you haven't read these books, definitely pick them all up. But in his newest one, the daily laws, he talks, but basically it's concise wisdom for each day of the year, right? So I really see what it is. And they're like digestible life lessons.

And each month we'll send to around a different theme. There's power, seduction, persuasion, strategy, self-control, and the list goes on. So anyway, thank you for coming on the podcast today. Thank you so much for having me, Jen. Hopefully the audio video works this time. I hope so too, because I'm never going to hear the end of it. I'm sure you will not. I know.

They're faced by the way when I said that the second one didn't work out. I swear it's priceless. Oh my god. Priceless. So let's start with like what makes you such an expert on power persuasions, deduction? Because what has been for those again who don't know, like you've written these like very and nor you're these very enormous concepts and writing legit encyclopedias. How did you become the expert, the go-to person that you are able to do this? Well, it wasn't by plan.

It's kind of how you've fallen certain things in life. I don't want to go through the entire story of my life, but prior to writing. But you will. I'll make it very brief. Prior to writing my first book, which I started writing in 1996, you can believe. Wow. You know, I had been a failed screenwriter, a failed novelist, a failed journalist.

And I had had my girlfriend, I counted 60 different jobs at least. And so, you know, that's not any kind of resume for anything legitimate in this world. But I can say this, I had seen so many different weird power games. I had a collection of some of the worst bosses you can imagine. I had great stories to tell about that in political games and I'll come to Mac Yvelian crap going on in offices. The worst jobs. And I read a lot of books. You know, I read a lot of history. And since I was a kid, I've been a very keen observer of people for whatever reason. I don't know if it's genetic

or it's the nature of my household where I grew up. But I've always been a very keen observer of people peaking up their body language, getting a sense of who they really are behind the masks the people wear. So that doesn't qualify. I don't have a PhD. My father once got blessed and he passed away in 2000. I was starting to write the art of seduction. He's going, Robert, what makes you someone who could write a book like that? You don't have a degree in psychology or anything.

And I said, well, dad, I don't know. I'm just going to do it. And if it works, if it sells, that means I know what I'm talking about. Right. So I don't have any qualifications. I don't have a glittering resume with a PhD from Yale in psychology and human behavior and all this other stuff. It's just a function of so many years

of observing people closely, not taking their words or their appearances for reality, always trying to analyze what's really going on. Right. And reading a lot of books. And then as I wrote my books, obviously, this is daily losses my seventh, I learned a lot of reading a lot of books. And then as I wrote my books, obviously this is daily losses my seventh, I learned a lot along the way.

I do a lot of consulting with some very powerful people in different areas. And I was on the board of directors of a publicly traded company. I've had a tons of experience since the book came out. So my knowledge has increased. I'm not good at very many things, Jen. I'm actually really bad.

I can't fix anything around the house. I'm tone deaf. I can't sing. I'm dancing sucks. I'm good at one thing. The one thing that I do is psychology, figuring out people's behavior, strategizing and that kind of thing.

Well, I love that you said that first of all, because it's a great parlay into my first question because you talk about interaction with boldness. And that to me is being bold right there. I, you know, boldness is, you know, is my whole entire thing. I wrote, I did a whole TED talk on it. And what you just explained is exactly that.

You don't even have a PhD. You're not academically trained to be doing this. But it's something that you're super passionate about and deeply interested in, which kind of makes you really good at doing it, right? Because then you're constantly learning and practicing and doing it, you just did it. And then it just took on a life of its own.

Would you say, well, that was in the 48 laws of power, I think. Interaction with boldness. Yeah. How did you describe it in the book? What would you say boldness is to you? And would you say how you entered this whole field was your bold move to change the trajectory of your life? Well, boldness is effective. A lot of the 48 laws of power has to do with kind of deception. I'm afraid to say in manipulation. Right. Most of the law, that's what people always say, right? Not all of them, but majority. No, not even the majority, at least a good portion of them, though.

Oh, okay. Although you might be right, I don't know, I haven't counted. I haven't counted eyes. But so boldness has a very particular effect on people. It's very, it creates drama, right? And we're always, it comes from an out and angle, it's something that's unexpected, right? So if people expect you to do something bold and outrageous, it's not really bold, it doesn't have that effect anymore.

It has to come from a place of kind of surprise of quietness. And then suddenly you enter this action and it has this effect on people. It's like almost like a childlike effect. This kind of surprise, boo, wow, I'm frightened, wow. this guy did something that I didn't expect or this woman, right? It creates a very powerful response. And we are geared as animals. We're human, we're not human, but we're also animals. To respond to that kind of signal that seems like power to us.

It seems like that person, they're concealing even more kind of energy and things behind the scenes. What else can they do, right? It's a kind of a dramatic effect. In the book, I describe one of the great con artists of all time, Count Victor Loustic, and he wanted to create the greatest con of all, which he was going to sell the Eiffel Tower in Paris to a group of industrialists, right?

You can't think of a bigger con game than that. How could anybody who's selling the Eiffel Tower possibly be conning possibly be deceiving its ridiculous? It has to be true, right? And he not only pulled it off once, he went back and pulled it off a second time, right? He kept selling the Eiffel Tower, which he did not own at all.

You know, and I describe that in there because the bigger you think, the bolder you move, the more it appears true and real it has real power behind. So when I wrote the 48 laws of power, you know, I'm not a someone who loves self help necessarily. I find a lot of self-help books a little sentimental, a little bit sugary, a little bit too positive. I'm not that kind of guy, you know. I think people have a dark side. And my experience of power is people can be very controlling, very manipulative.

Not all people, but a lot of times they are. There's a kind of a hidden side to the power, again, that people don't talk about. So I was going to write a book that exposed all of that, right? In as direct and strong a manner as possible. I wasn't going to make it kind of an academic book. I wasn't going to disguise it. I was going to make it like a straight shot of whiskey. I was going to make it really right to the gut, right? I was going to hold anything back. And so I think that's sort of what makes it kind of a cult. People are very interested in it, even if you hate it or you're kind of frightened by it. It has this power.

Right. Because I went so strong in the idea. Also, I think it was so honest and raw, and I think that maybe, and you're the expert, but I feel that sometimes in human nature is to repel something that is so honest, right? Because it makes people look at themselves maybe in a different way. And that's why it hits people that way. Because I know when I would see people like reviewing it, people, you're right. It was such an obviously, such a cult hit that people either are obsessed and love it and like live by it.

Or they're like turned off because it's like, it's mean or it's not like it's showing people in a bad light. But that doesn't mean it's not true, just because it's showing people in a bad light. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Don't you feel like you hear that sometimes? Like, oh, it's negative or? Definitely. Well, a lot of people don't want to face this aspect of human nature.

Yeah. They want to believe that people are basically good and kind. And I'm not denying that there is a very good positive qualities in most people and that we are at heart, you know, there's a lot of instincts in us that are we're co-op, we work with other people, you know, we want to please, we want to get along. So I'm not saying everything is dark and negative, but there's an aspect, particularly in offices, particularly in business, particularly, it's weird after I wrote the 48 laws of power. When I wrote it, I had no idea if it would be successful or not.

Because it's a very, part of the boldness of it is it's different than any other book you've ever seen visually with things on the side with all kinds of little pieces of design work in the centers, you know, images and things like that. It's a very strange book and the structure is strange. It could have been a failure. But I remember my first book to her back in the days when you had book tours. Right. What's that? Yeah. Yeah. Really. I would go to like offices in Washington, DC bureaucracies. And I remember one day of the voice of America doing an interview and this woman came running up to me very kind of quiet and she whispered she goes,, you wrote the 48 loss apparently. Yes, I did. She goes, you have described so perfectly what's going on here at the voice of America. Did you work in a bureau obviously? No, I've never worked anything like that. Then the

same thing happened. I went to San Diego to give a talk for non-profit organization. Mom said, you have described perfectly what goes on in non-profit organizations, you know? Yeah. And then since then, you know, athletes were telling me, or rappers, because they're very popular. Right. And rappers. So in realms where money and power exist, where the power games, where the stakes are high, these games are being played. It's as real as you can get, you know?

Yeah. So what would be in all the, in all the different industries that you worked in? Would you say that the entertainment industry was the most cutthroat, was the most manipulated, like of all? Well, I don't know because I haven't worked in Washington, but I would say or politics. And I have glimpses at what it's like in sports. But I guess that's kind of entertainment. But in sports, but I guess that's kind of entertainment. But the music business,

often when I heard second hand through 50, and through Drake, and people that I've known, is probably the most cutthroat of all, and Hollywood would be close second. And the reason is, is that the metrics for success are a little bit vague, right? I mean, obviously box office and the amount of money you made on a film is the key element here.

But once you get, well, there's so much money involved, right? You're talking millions and millions and millions of dollars are at stake with each film. And people have these incredible egos. They all think that they're artists, that they're great, that they're brilliant. I'm talking about the actors, the director, the producer, the writer, the, you know, all along down the line. They all have these really large egos, right? So you put all that together in this one pot and stood around incredibly

amazing, complex power games are being played. And when I worked in Hollywood, I saw some of that. The music industry is even a little bit more intense because the money that you make from one person, one artist or a band is so astronomical, right? And the whole is, how do we exploit that artist as much as we can and get everything out of them? Right. Now, that game is changing now with YouTube and the internet and everything. But from what I gather, the music business is probably the even darkest, most macchi

of Ellie and business of all. Yeah, I worked in that business for many years. You did? Uh-huh. I used to be at BMG Music. Right. And then I came to LA because it was a job. I went from BMG and then I worked for Immortal Records here, which is part of Sony.

So yeah. So what do you think it's like that? I think you're absolutely spot on. I think when, and I think Hollywood also very similar. I think when you have so much money and power and so many people want to be in that business and the barrier to entry isn't very difficult. Right. Like, there's no qualification, right? Right.

It's just like, who could be the boldest, the baddest, the most, you know, conniving or as aggressive? Then it breeds a certain type of energy, in my opinion. And you're right, like, look at the Britney Spears situation, right? Like, she's a money maker, so they're gonna try to get, and finally, if I worked on the Britney stuff. But-

You worked on the documentary? No, no, no, I worked on, when Britney's first album came out, it was like, the baby hit me one more time. That was a jive record under the BMG umbrella. So that was the album I was working on. But when it became a hit, like everything became all about her. Everything was focused on her. All the money went to her. The amount of people around her. And then like, it's no wonder that this has happened with her now. But I think you're right. I think that's that's really more about it. It's it's so it looks

It's very enticing to the outside world and it looks super calamarious and you see all the money and the blame and everything That it attracts so much attention which then makes it look very much that's the whole You have everything in there. You have seduction power Everything strategy had to stay on top had to on top, had to be on top. Yeah, yeah. So that's my opinion too. So that's why it's actually true. You talk about then despising the free lunch on in that book as well. What does that even mean? Not liking to, like, I thought we all like to have free lunch, right? Go out for lunch, right? What do you mean? Well, the idea is basically anything that's worth having is worth paying for

So when people come up to you and they're gonna give you something for free Like they're gonna offer services to you for free Just because they like you or whatever you better believe that they're expecting something out of you They're not going to announce what they're expecting. Yes. Maybe three weeks, two months down the line, they're going to ask a favor from you. You're going to be a bit surprised by it. We're an expecting that you thought you were just doing, they're just doing this because they liked you.

Right. And then you're going to feel obligated, right? They did this for free. Well, I better do what they asked for, right? Right. So when people, money is not just numbers. Money is an indication of some basic psychology, right? So if people, if they're not willing to offer their services for a price, that means there's

something else going on, right? Because everybody is basically wants money in some level, okay? The other side of it is, is that you want to be using money in as generous a manner as possible. Right. So if you're trying to nickel and dime people, and instead of they want $10,000, you try to get them down to $7,500 or $5,000, you'll get maybe what you want,

but they're not gonna be, their heart isn't gonna be into it, they're gonna be resentful. Right. So being generous and paying for things is a sign of power. be what you want, but they're not going to be their heart isn't going to be into it, they're going to be resentful. Right. So being generous and paying for things is a sign of power. It's a sign that you're confident, and it's a sign that you're generous and spirit in other ways as well. And it's going to pay off in the end.

So look at money as something almost like a bit of psychology. And by always trying to get things for free or get things for less, it reveals something about you that's not very powerful, that shows some basic insecurities. And beware of people that are offering you things for free. I mean, I have that happen all the time. Yeah, like you mean example. Well, things I can't necessarily talk about

because they're ongoing, but I get a lot of people coming to me who want to do research. I'll be your research. You don't have to pay me. I just love it so much. Right. I'll be your assistant. You don't have to pay me because I just want to be there and see how books are made,

et cetera. No, I'm very suspicious of that when people say that kind of thing. Right. This is agenda usually attached that you just, you know the agenda because you're obviously astute in that way. But yeah, no, I hear that. And it's interesting because if you really think about it, people who truly have power, like not just like superficial nonsense power, people who have that, they always pay the bill.

They always pay for things. They don't want to, they don't want to, they feel uncomfortable taking those things for free. But there's a big difference between like it being authentic and being kind of, again, it's like what you talk about. Like people wear masks. They don't really show you who they really are. And so, but I do, I think that's actually very accurate too, because of that reason.

So when we talk about, well, now that we're on that topic, when you talk about people wearing masks and what we're saying, and what to what you're saying, be wary of a free lunch, you have to also be wary of people when you meet them, right? Because you don't really know sometimes who their true intention is. How can somebody learn how to... I guess how would I say this? Basically, how can someone really learn to read someone's real character, their true character, not what they're just showing you, not their salesperson that they're presenting to you.

Well, the first thing you have to do is you have to learn something very basic, which is that you can't take appearances for reality. And it's not easy for us. There's something in our animal nature where we pay attention to how people look, we pay attention to their words to what they give us immediately, right? And people learn over the years, you know, everybody, myself included, how to present a particular facade. They sort of shows our best side, right? Sure. Yeah. So teach yourself in all situations, whether you're hiring somebody, whether you're

meeting somebody for the first time, whether it's somebody in your office that's new there, or whether it's in a romantic relationship, whatever, that there is something else going on behind the mask, the face that they're giving you, the smiles and everything else. They're not telling you everything, right? Because that's just human nature. If we were always honest and brutally honest, nobody would ever have any friends. The whole world would fall apart. We learned to be polite. We learned basic things about etiquette. We don't tell people exactly what we think about the clothes they're wearing, the screenplay they wrote, the hair that they, you know, etc., etc., etc. So get over the idea

that you can judge people by their appearances. It's almost a cliche, but it's built into our nature to immediately judge people, have snap judgments like that. Right. So get the idea is that you have to get is that you have to decipher what's really going on behind the mask that people wear, right? And the main thing, I'm sorry. That's okay. That's your phone.

It's my phone. I'm going to shut the lock. Who's it say? It says Michael Carlisle. It's my agent. I'll call him later. Okay. Hi, Michael. He could be part of the podcast. Um, anyway, um, so you're like Sherlock Holmes, you're like a detective.

You're going to pick up all the little clues that people give out, because people give out clues as to who they are, as to what they're thinking. Right? So you're not going to judge on what they say or what's on their resume. So what you're looking for is who they are deep inside. I call it their character. The word character comes from the ancient Greek. It means something deeply carved, carved very deep. So character is something that's carved so deep inside people from their early childhood,

from their genetics, that it causes them to do things that they're not aware of unconsciously. Certain patterns, it defines who they are, right? And some people have strong character and some people have a weak character. A strong character is somebody who can work well under stress, who can take criticism, who can work well in a team situation, right? Who can kind of subsume their ego and get along with other people, et cetera. Those are signs of a weak character, a strong character. People who are weak can't take any kind of criticism, right? So you hire somebody or you get in a relationship with someone who presents this charming, sweet, angelic, nice, pleasing front, right? And then you discover three or four or five months later

that they have this weak character, right? They crumble as soon as they're stressed. You can't criticize them. Do you know how hard it is to work for somebody, work with somebody, or to have a relationship with someone who can't take any kind of criticism? Yes.

It's horrible, it's horrifying, right? So you need to be able to judge these things before you get involved. And people give off all kinds of signs. So you want to look at their body language, at their nonverbal behavior, because a lot of what humans are communicates through things that are subtle. It's communicated through the eyes, how the mouth, how we

smile when the eyes light up, how the tone of voice that we have our body posture. So people can be talking to you and being very friendly and nice and smiling, but there's a kind of tenseness in them that indicates that it's not completely sincere, but there's something going on, right? Or they're standing, talking to you, and their feet are kind of angled away, and they're kind of looking a lot in the, another direction. There seem to be engaged, but they're actually showing signs that they're not really that interested in you, right? Exactly. Or when you talk to someone, they're looking over your shoulder to see what, who the next person is they can speak with. Right. Right. Can someone aid change their character? Can they get better? Or that's kind of ingrained in who they are.

Well, it's so ingrained that basically I say you can't really change it. I mean, there are things. So some people are born introverts and some people are born extroverts. Right. I happen to be a born introvert. And I have some ext vertendencies. Okay. But I'm essentially an introvert. Right. There's no way I can ever change that. It's impossible. I'm not going to become an extrovert. Right. Because it's my nature.

It's what I like. It's what I'm comfortable with. Right. I don't know how you're going to get over that. It's either a function of genetic, and there are people who believe that that is a genetic component, or it's something for my very early childhood. But I have no control over. There are other qualities that you have really

no control over. But the best thing that you can do is to be aware of them. Right. So to be aware of your patterns, to be aware of who you are, and to like use that and make that your strength and kind of lean into it and kind of accentuate or find a way to use your own character in a better way as opposed to denying it and kind of repressing and trying to tell yourself you're somebody that you're really not. Right. So that's why you became a writer, right? Because like you kind of had self-awareness to know what you were, pretend, what kind of like what you like to do. Are you more, if you're introvert, do you personally, do you like to spend time alone? Do you, are you more, you're more on the quiet side?

Is that kind of like how did you, how did you kind of orchestrate or kind of curate your life to, to kind of match your, I guess, match your character? Well, a writer's life is basically being alone a lot, you know, four hours a day or so, right? You're right for like that time because you always ran on the phone with you. You're like, I got it right now. It's four o'clock. I'm a total fascist when I catch that because. That's good. But yeah, I mean, you kind of find your way to what works if you're successful and like if you reach your goals.

And you know, it's not that I don't like being with people. I can be very social and I'm not being with people and I like interacting with them. But deep down inside, ultimately what gives me the most satisfaction is being alone with my thoughts and using my thoughts and creating something out of them. So, you can go too far in both directions. So, if I'm social all the time, I start to feel a little bit empty, like something's missing. But if I'm alone all the time, that that also can get depressing. But I lean a little bit more towards that.

But an introvert, like myself, it becomes very accustomed to watching people, to observing them, to not necessarily participating so much, but watching them, and figuring out what's really going on. Most writers are essentially introverts. I think it's also the nature of it. I mean, you have someone like a hamming way who was very much out there in the world and was, you know, fighting wars and all this other stuff. But he admits himself that he was very introverted, very shy person. That's how we kind of overcame it. So the nature of stepping back and observing people and not participating is kind of the essence of being a writer.

And it's sort of, it's sort of who I am, I guess. Well, I wasn't gonna say a couple of things. You know, like sometimes you could be, you know, you could be an extrovert, you can seem like an extrovert, but really be an introvert in like, at heart, right? Yeah.

Because it's kind of like, you have to like kind of, for whatever reason. So you can change certain character traits, but other ones are much more ingrained you're saying, right? Like if you're an introvert, you can kind of learn a little bit to be more extrovert and vice versa. But like what kind of character traits are more in your opinion are the ones

that are like super like ingrained in who you are. Like is it like your value system? Is it like what you gravitate to naturally are the ones that are like super ingrained in who you are. Is it like your value system? Is it like what you gravitate to naturally? Like some people could be like kinder naturally, sweeter naturally. Yeah, those are kind of basic things, definitely. I mean, it kind of comes out in your life

through the patterns that you can see going on. It takes like years. It sort of shows up like when you're five or six, you may not be so clear to what the character is, but over time it kind of plays itself out. But certain very basic qualities like how you relate to people, whether you, when you see a stranger coming, whether you're excited about someone new to meet, whether you, when you see a stranger coming, whether you're excited about someone new to meet, or whether you want to go hide and talk about these things that kind of say who you are.

Do you believe deep down inside that you can change, that you can learn new things, that you can improve your skill, or do you think that basically you are who you are, right? So I'm not talking about your character, I'm talking about your knowledge and your skill base. That's for self-awareness though, right? Like it's super important to be self-aware, isn't that of who you are? Can that, and some people are just naturally

better at that than others, right? Do you think you can get bet? Can people can learn to be more self-aware? Well, if I didn't believe that I wouldn't write any of my books, because that's sort of the whole point of the books, is that you become more self-aware. So, yeah, you definitely can. That's the whole game. If you're able to become more aware of who you are and how you view the world and what you think about other people and how you see yourself in the whole social game, then you're going to gain power and success in this world.

So awareness is the key to the whole thing. Everything. Have you, like, how have you changed since writing all of these books and all the research that you've done and everything else? Like, have you seen yourself change at all through? I've aged. I mean, barely. You still look 29 to me.

I slowed down. I have a stroke. Well, that's it. But you're doing fantastic. I'm happy look 29 to me. I slowed down, I have strokes. Well, that's it. But you're doing fantastic, I'm happy to report to people. You would never know by looking at you. You've done an extraordinary job. But that's, but no, it's true. Robert had, how long was a stroke ago?

Like three years ago. Three years ago. And this is, but this is a testament to mindset, right? An extraordinary, like discipline, right? You talk all about discipline in your books. The amount of discipline and mindset that you have to kind of do to get from there to where you are now is really extraordinary.

It's amazing. Yeah. Like, what do you, like you work out every day? Tell us, say your habits, because your habits are extraordinary. Well, you know, it's, so I had a certain sort of life before the stroke, which now in retrospect was a really good life. Yeah.

I would swim like three times a week and I'm talking long distance swimming. I would hike up into the hills where I live, beautiful hikes, or I would bicycle mountain biking, and I would also do Pilates and yoga, and that kind of thing, every single day. My girlfriend will test, I could be sick with the flu, and I still will do some kind of work at every single day. And then the stroke happened, and all of that got thrown away, right?

Can't swim, can't get on a bicycle, can't hike, can't do anything, really. And I'm like an aerobic junkie. If I'm not getting aerobic exercise, I feel so depressed. It keeps me alive, it keeps me happy. So to have that suddenly taken away from me was very powerful. And one month after this stroke, where I couldn't walk, so I was in a wheelchair, I was finding ways to do my aerobic exercise. I had this little foot pedal thing, where I could sit in the wheelchair and pedal my feet and get my heart rate going. So I found ways to do it, but I'm so determined to get back to being able to hike, you know, because I had a habit of when I was writing books,

and I would get blocked, which would happen quite often. Like I couldn't figure something out. I would go take a hike up into the hills, these beautiful walks the sun was setting. I'd be so happy. I'd immediately figure out what I needed to write. I'd rush home, and I can't do that. And it makes writing so hard

for me, right? Because I'm stuck in my room. It's kind of dark. I consider my garden, but still, you know, so I'm so motivated to be able to hike again, to swim again, to bicycle again, that I'm working to, to at least two hours a day, you know. So I have a special bicycle that allows me to go up into the hills and then I'll come home and I'll go on the treadmill later on or I do these, I have a two therapists that I'm working with.

So every single day I'm doing it and the progress has been so slow, you have no idea, because you know Jen is somebody who does a lot of exercise. If you haven't done anything for a while and you start lifting weights in two weeks, you're noticing incredible results. You're feeling great. I could spend two months, even two years, not notice any kind of change. It's so subtle, right? People around me say you're walking better, but it doesn't feel like that in my body. I'm still kind of staggering. So I've learned a lot about

myself. And since I've had this habit, I learned my weaknesses. I've learned my own limitations, things that aren't so good about me. Like some of my nature being so driven is actually a negative in this situation. I should be a little more accepting of myself. I should be a little, you know, more compassionate and not get for so frustrated with who I am. So I'm learning a lot. I'm kind of like a humility exercise. I'm learning, you know, what I'm not good at and what what my weaknesses are. But don't you feel this because of your drive and your determination that's making you and getting you to the place like I know even though you don't see the progress like I would let's say for you. But isn't it because

of those quality weaknesses that you're also doing so well and you're so disciplined and you're still working out every day and you're determined to hike again and you're determined to do that stuff. Yeah, of course, it would be terrible if I didn't have that and if I just sat around and when therapists told me they have patients who just don't do anything, right? Yeah. And then they still complain and all that. So yeah, that's helping me a lot and also being driven to write my next book and being

disciplined. But I should be, I get very, very frustrated with myself. I get angry with myself like, why can't after all of this work and I'm still walking in this funny way, I'm still have no balance, I'm still staggering. And you know, like simple things like coming before coming here, getting dressed can take me 20 minutes. Right. And you can just, why? Is this something wrong with me? And if I just relaxed more.

So I'm doing a form of therapy now. It's based on felt in Christ. And the idea is that tenseness in the body, which we all have, creates all of our problems. Right? Right. We use muscles that we don't need to use. Right? We tense, we use our chest muscles when we don't need to use them.

We use our back muscles when we don't need to use them. To walk certain muscles you need to use to be efficient and others don't, but you use too many things, you use your shoulders when you don't need to. Right? So I have so much tension in my body from all of these things. If I just let go of it, I probably would have recuperated. I'd be further along in my progress than I am now. Is that what the doctors even said?

No, no doctors said that, but the therapist, this felon-christ person I'm seeing, she's basically saying that, that getting hard, I'm like, the brain wants to feel like it can do things. If it starts to feel like it can't do something, if it gets frustrated, it gives up. So you want these little triumphs in your life. You want these little things, tell the brain, and I talk about this in all of my books. Yes. That's what discipline does, gives to you. Every day you see a little bit of progress, and the brain goes, wow, that's great.

I can do it. I'll do more. Right. Right. And I need to have more of that. It's interesting, because I'm not a big believer in motivation, right? The word motivation, arbitrary.

And you actually talk about this in a mastery a little bit about the fact that the best type of way to build confidence, what does it hold on? In the best way to build confidence and be motivated to basically learn new skills and to practice and get good at something, right? So, oh, that's a great way to leave me talk about this. By the way, when did you write mastery? What was the order? Did you do it after law of human nature? No, no, I wrote, 40 laws,

part of seduction, 33 strategies of war. I did the book 50th law with 50 cent, and then mastery. Mastery came out in I think 2013. Oh, wow, that long ago. Yeah. 50 cent and then mastery mastery came out and I think 2013. Oh Wow, that long ago. Yeah. So then how would you say, okay, we talk about so how would you feel that people should can really build true confidence? Not like like, you know, surface confidence by like, I am believe, you know,

I'm great. Like, you know, to me, like believe it, achieve it. I mean, like true, like confidence sets like deep within themselves, you know, to feel that they can do this, to have the determination to discipline. Well, a wrote mastery to educate you in what I think is the process that will lead you to that kind of confidence, kind of power and creativity. So you have to go through the process. If you try and skip steps, if you're impatient,

if you think there are shortcuts, forget about it, don't even try. You should read it. But why? No, I'm saying about your situation. So you get, like, you get frustrated. You're right. You should read my own material. Yes. So the first thing is you have to be on the correct path. You have to have chosen the right career, the right, the things that you're interested in, right? So if you're trying to learn something that it doesn't really suit you, because you were told to learn it by your parents or your boss or whomever, your heart's not in it, and you're not really going to learn very well. You're not going to learn quickly because you're not paying attention.

And what will happen is, you know, it's a separate series of failures. You won't make progress quite quickly enough. And you begin to tune out and you begin to lose confidence in yourself, right? And you, it's very shocking how that can happen. You can be in your 20s and you think you're doing really well. You've chosen to be a lawyer because that's why you, this money is. And people told you to be a lawyer. You've chosen to be a lawyer because that's what this money is and people told you to be a lawyer. You've went through law school. You've got great grades. You're in a good law firm. And then suddenly like 31-32, it's not really

working out too well. What's going on here? You start getting distracted. You start drinking or whatever. You start doing other things to distract yourself and then you're getting kind of bored with it and then things kind of start spiraling downward in some ways, right? Because your heart isn't really in it, isn't something you didn't choose the right career path. So if you don't choose the right career path in some way, it's not like you have to figure out exactly what you want, but there has to be an overall direction of purpose for you. If you have no purpose, if you're just choosing anything just to make money, then you're never

going to learn in the proper way, and you'll maybe have little moments of confidence, but eventually it's not on a solid enough foundation. So that's the key to everything. If you master that, a lot of things will fall into place. First, you have to figure out what it was that you were destined to create in this world, okay? And then, once you have that, once you've hit upon the general direction of your life,

right, you go on this kind of adventure, you start learning, you take different jobs, you explore different places to work, different skill sets, and you learn, and as you learn slowly, and because you're excited, and you have a sense of hope and possibility, you're in your 20s, and you can imagine in your 30s,

you're gonna be doing something interesting and great. You're gonna have these little bits of triumphs, these little victories, month by month or a year by year. You're gonna actually, people will tell you things, and you'll actually make something or do something on a smaller scale. It will give you confidence in yourself. You learn this process and you probably, I tell people a lot of times, you learned it when you were a child, hopefully.

And then if you're a parent, you want to give your child that sense. So you're told to play the piano. You don't really like the piano. Okay, but you start practicing it and you get kind of good at it. And that kind of is getting more of kind of fun. And then it's sort of interesting. And you learn that the more you stick with something and you master it to some degree, the more fun it becomes. And so you learn that you have to have patience in this lot in this world, right? And so oftentimes when you have something like that

in your childhood, it kind of is something you can always fall back on. But basically choosing the right career path, being emotionally engaged with your work and being disciplined and learning as many skillsets as you possibly can, then your confidence is on a solid foundation, right? Right.

And then you will have failures in life. I've had failures even after my success in my books. I had little moments of failure. Like what? Well, I've described it before. I don't know if I described it with you before, but I was doing the 50th law with 50 cent, right? We had a deal with Simon and Schuster. I wrote the book. I wrote a lot of it. I wasn't getting a very positive response about it from people. That's very

unusual for me because people usually love what I write. I was kind of shocking. People would kind of be policy ads. It's good, but I knew deep down there wasn't connecting. And then Simon and Schuster basically canceled the project. They dropped out. They said, sorry, they sold told us you're too late in delivering it. But really, they just didn't like what I was creating. It was like a pretty shattering moment because I've always thought I knew how to figure things out. It was like a pretty shattering moment because I've always thought I knew how to figure things out and Essentially we got on board a new editor from a new from Harper Collins So they dropped you to go find another publisher. Yeah, they find another publisher It was dead and it would have been humiliating. I'm publicity. I'm hired 50-7050 cent and the book doesn't come out

You know could be in the end of my career Wow So we found... What did he say when this was happening? He was, I don't remember. He wasn't that engaged. I mean, he was, you know, he was excited by what I had written, but he's not the best judge of these things. Right, okay.

Anyway, actually don't really remember what he was saying. I got to know this. But we bought on Sky Bob Miller, Harper Collins, and he said, Robert, the problem with the book that you wrote is it's too much 50 and we need more of you in it. And I had been kind of timid and I was deferring to the celebrity and I was trying to police and I thought, this is what the book should be, should be about with 50s, all his thoughts and all his experiences. And Bob Miller said, no, Robert needs to be more,

there needs to be more of you in it. That's what people want. Okay, so, okay. All right, fine, I'll redo it. I'll figure it out somehow. He said, all right, that's the good news. The bad news is you have eight months to do it. And that meant eight months to completely figure out the new way of writing it, the new theme, the new structure, and then to have all the research done and write the whole book. You know, there's no way I can do it. Yeah, how long do you normally work on a book for years? Like, how long was this one?

Like, 48 laws was how many years? That was only two because I was young. That was your young. But human nature has five. So eight months. Like, but it was like, you know, what I call, I'm on death ground as either I succeed or if something really bad is gonna happen

and I ended up pulling it off. But that was my moment of failure. Like since I've had success, that was my first real experience with something that I would call failure. So the point is, you're gonna have those inevitably in life no matter how brilliant you are. Steve Jobs, our icon of being an entrepreneur, he had massive

massive failures. He was basically fired from Apple. He was in the wilderness throughout the 90s. He started a company called Next, which was pretty much a disaster. A lot of our company, yeah. He got hired back by Apple and things were kind of grim then. Then he had a rebirth, but he knew failure. Everybody who's ever been successful, your most famous rock star, your greatest athletes,

they've all known failure, right? Totally. But when you have that bedrock of you, you're doing what you love, you're excited by it, you're learning it, you've developed skills, you've had moments of triumph before, you will bounce back faster from that failure than someone else who doesn't have that. Because it all is a matter of how quickly you can bounce back from failure and look at yourself and say, I failed here because I did this, this, this, this, and this, I'm going to change that next time. I'm going to do something different, right? People who have no real confidence, what's the first thing they do when they fail?

They blame other people and they never learn from the situation. So you have learned over the course of your time, as you gain skill, to reassess yourself, to analyze yourself and to say, this is what you did right, this is what you did wrong. Anyway, the confidence is kind of like building a cathedral, slowly the foundation, and then things crumble a little bit. You can keep building it back up and up and up because you're based on the foundation, which is the love of your work and your following the path that you were meant to follow. More from our guests, but first a few words from our sponsor.

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They don't know. They don't people get stuck at the start, right? They don't know. They don't know if they should go left, right? You're in a gang. Like, that's where a lot of people ridden. The stop is in that start. So, are you saying then people should just try a lot of new things? And, okay, so to kind of learn what they're good at? Or... You try a lot of different things without any idea of what you're doing and you're gonna waste so much time and you might hit upon the right thing but it may not ever your whole life right so that's not the way to do it no I mean I back in the day when I had time I did consulting with people because I was the number one question Robert I wrote your book but I don't know what my

life's task is I don't know where I life's task is. I don't know where. I'm not criticizing. It's very common. I had it too. Well, 100%. I laugh because I think that's probably the biggest question you get, right? Yeah. Well, it was back then. What do I do with my life? Yeah. Yeah. Like, how do I find my life's task? I don't know. And so if I did the consulting with them, we would go through a process. That's a process that I tell people about. And it's in the book, actually.

But essentially, we try and look at the signs of what is genuinely excites you, what makes you a unique person. Begin from this proposition. You are born as one individual that has never occurred before in the history of mankind in the universe, and will never ever again exist the same way, right? You are unique. Your DNA will never be replicated as one of a kind. Your parents, your upbringing is one of a kind. No one else will have that. You were born unique individual, okay? That uniqueness who you are is the source of your power, right? You discover that and everything will fall into place, but it's hard to find it.

It's hard to find what makes you unique, what makes you different. So that's the question we're tackling now. And okay, so you have to kind of go back and dig a little bit. So there's a great book that I always recommend to people. It's kind of academic, but it's good, called The Five Frames of Intelligence by a man I believe named Howard Gardner. And his thesis, I think he's a neuroscientist,

something like that or a psychologist. His thesis is that there are five different kinds of intelligence. We think of intelligence as being just kind of intellectual, like an Einstein. But he says there is kinetic intelligence, what has to do with the body. There is pattern intelligence, what has to do with music and math. There is like a verbal intelligence for us to do with words and writing on and on and on, five and one is a social form of intelligence. Okay?

And the brain has these different proclivities. His book says, you were born with one of these frames of intelligence. You might have a second one that you can lean towards, but there's one essential frame that defines who you are. That is in a very basic way, tells you something very, very powerful about who you are. Whether it's something physical that you're drawn to, dancing, sports, activity, or whether it's something having to do with numbers and patterns and how things fall into line like that. Or that's to do with people and getting and interacting with people in social situations. Or that has to do with people and getting and interacting with people in social situations or

that has to do with writing and words, etc. I'm leaving one of them out. I can't remember. Tells you something so elemental about yourself. You have to know that. You have to know which one you're geared towards. So we go through a process of looking at your childhood, looking at the things that you were drawn to before your parents and teachers appears intervened, things that excited you when you were five years old, six years old. So we will say, I can't remember Robert, I can't remember. We dig and we dig and we dig and I'm very good at that process.

I find indications and things that they don't even remember about, right? And then we kind of... I did give me an example, what do you do? Well, I look for key moments in their childhood where something happened that excited them, right? You know, I can remember myself a moment when I was seven years old, I think, and I was in elementary school, and the teacher put up the word on the blackboard back in the days when we have blackboards Carpenter and she said okay class see how many words you can spell out of the letters carpenter and the winner, you know, gets us some kind of prize

I was like whoa. I was so enchanted by that game Words and letters and figuring out how many words you could get out of one word. To this day, I can remember how excited I remember I got aunt and a few others and I think I ended up winning the prize there. But it was a sign of how words fundamentally obsessed me from a very early age, right? Wow. That's interesting.

So, you also find things that you were asked to do that you didn't find interesting. So you were a girl and they wanted you to learn ballet and you weren't interested in that ballet because you were more thoughtful, you were more in your head. So I'm trying to find basic things. Are you in your head? Are you in your body? Where is your mind at? And there are signs, there are always signs. We build it up and we go, okay, let's go on to high school and subjects that you're learning and things that that kind of really, really got you excited and things that you hated because things that you hate are very eloquent signs, right, of who you are. And then we kind of find, all right, when you see

something online or in the newspaper, whatever, that really interests you that you have to read it, that it's a subject that just thrills you, what is that? Is there something like there inevitably is a subject that you're so drawn to that you want to learn more about it, right? Right, right, right, right. So we're building up little clues here and there and there

and there, and we're kind of figuring out an overall path. All right, really it's music. OK, I see a through line here. It's music, and I can figure out the signs of that, right? From very early on. And I know from that book that the signs of what makes someone basically have that kind of frame of intelligence. Right.

It's not just the obvious things. All right. Let's figure out a way for you now to follow that. That's practical. That'll end up in a kind of career. How can we explore and figure out what aspect of music you were meant to be in, et cetera? And you go through this with your clot with people who hire you, like as a to get to that point. For people who can't afford to hire you, right? So they have to just kind of think back

and ask a lot of questions about themselves from where when they were a child, what they like, what they just like memorable moments to find that, to find that, right? Because you're saying that that's like the number one key for someone to be self-actualizing, right? Or self-fulfilled, is to be on the right path of doing something what you like to do. That's passionate, not for money, because money won't buy you that happiness. It'll be fleeting.

Is that basically what, I don't know, but words in your mouth, but... No, no, that's basically true. And the thing of it is, is that it's not that complicated. It's not that difficult, right? Because the signs are there. See, what's happened with you, and what's happened with everyone's even happened with me,

is when you were four or five, you kind of knew it. You knew the things that you were attracted that you were drawn to. And then your parents start interviewing. They start saying, Robert, you got to become a doctor or a lawyer. You're Jewish too? Exactly. You need to study this.

You need to be really good at school. You do really well in math, et cetera. Then you teach your start telling you, yeah, you're really good at this. Or you're not so good at that, right? And then friends start saying, yeah, it's really cool at this, or you're not so good at that, right? And then friends start saying, yeah, it's really cool to be this profession or not this profession. And then if you're young and you're in the era

of social media, which I wasn't, everyone you're listening to. So that voice inside of you, when you were four, that told you what you love is drowned out by your parents, by your teachers, by your peers, by your friends, by the culture at large,

you have no clue who you are anymore, right? Totally. So it's a process of winning away, winnowing away all of those voices and getting back to what was clear to you when you were very, very young. And then we could do that with you right now if I could figure out something, some experience you had, then you were young that kind of sticks out in your mind that sort of showed what made you different and unique. Do you want to do it?

Or, yeah. Okay. Are you asking me that question? Well, I would be, I was always a naturally very curious person. I would ask everybody a million questions. I'd ask them, how much money they made, where are they wearing, where they bought it, you know, like, how tall they are, how much they weigh. Every question that was inappropriate,

I was super intrigued and really wanted to know. Nothing's really changed, actually. That's a core thing that I, even as a four or five year old. I got my mom and my dad, my mom took me to the mall, I remember this, my mom reminds me, and I left her, she couldn't find me, they called the police,

they didn't have no idea where I was. Everyone was looking for me for hours and they found me asking some random woman in the dressing room, like, what did she do? How much money did she make? What did she do? And I was just like four years old, just asking her a thousand questions.

That's, so I think. And look at you now years old, just asking her a thousand questions. So I think- And look at you now. Well, yeah, look at me now. I think I'm obsessively, similar to you, that's put my why you and I maybe get along well, is that I'm also like super, I like to analyze and observe people's, how they are in the world.

Like I kind of feel like I'm like a warrior that way. I like try to like pick up on all these like little and like idiosyncrasies. Right, right. You know, if I didn't be, if I wasn't doing what I was doing, I would like to do something in psychology for sure. Right.

You know? Well, maybe you will someday. I'm 110 already. No, but I mean, but that's why you're, that's but that's why I'm drawn to your books and to you, because it's very similar to the stuff that I love talking about. And interest is a passion of mine. So that therefore, hopefully one day I'll have success in it. I don't know.

Oh, come on. No, but what I'm saying is I hope that that's that would be the one thing I would say. So what does that say to you? Well, it says yeah, you have a certain mindset where you're very curious. What are you curious about? It seems to be about people people and about what makes them tick what makes them tick? You know kind of obsessive about that. And from that, you could build five or six career paths that would suit you very well, which, one of which you found. You know, it's a, I don't want it to sound too kind of polyamage, but people generally find their

way to something that kind of suits them if they end up being successful. Something happens where they kind of end up in a sort of serendipitous way falling into the profession that suits them, right? Yeah. I know I did by accident in a way, and you did it as well. I mean, hearing with your podcast and your ability to ask questions and kind of figure people out I mean I suppose in your training and your physical aspect there's less of that and maybe that's less satisfying for you

I don't know. Yeah, I think that's why I've kind of transitioned remember like I was I was in the What the bet the thing I like most about the Training stuff remember I fell into that business too, right like I was in the, the thing I liked most about the training stuff. Remember, I fell into that business too, right? Like I was doing marketing for record labels. Right. And like I was on like a fast track. Business I've always loved because it's like,

I think there's a huge psychology piece to this, right? Sure. Like get under the negotiation, it's understanding like the whole back and forth of that. But when I would go on to the fitness party, I like the most. It wasn't the squatter of the lunge. It was the fact that I really developed

really strong, powerful relationships with the people I was working with. And you become like kind of like a pseudo therapist for these people. Right, definitely. And so that's for me what I love the most. And I want to see people succeed. And I wanted to see people thrive.

Okay. And so like when they would say something, it like gave me like a burst of like, oh, I can help you do that. Like maybe that's like a people pleasing type of thing. I don't know. But yeah, that's what I would say. Yeah, well, I mean, just keep in mind one thing.

If you're excited and interested, emotionally engaged in a subject, you're going to learn like 10 times faster than if you're not. Totally. So that's the key thing in life. To figure out what excites you, to where you're going to have, you're going to learn the fastest and have that kind of exponential growth when you're excited by something. I tell people the story all the time. I was in college, I studied languages, I studied French for like three years, right? And then I go to France to Paris, and I want to live here, I love it.

It's beautiful here. I can't speak a word. The stuff I learned in college was useless. They didn't tell you how to order something in a restaurant or how to negotiate in a hotel. It was useless. I couldn't, it was really depressing. And then I say, okay, I want to live here.

I'm going to force myself. I talk about this story in the daily laws. I'm going to force myself to learn. I want to meet people. I'm going to get over my shyness. And I'm not going to hang out with any Americans at all. And I learned more in one month than in three years of university French because I was so motivated and excited to learn. So that is the key

for you and that's the key to your success. And it's very, very important to understand that. Yeah, no, I agree. I'm like, I'm like, what's the, where is that story? Yeah, no, I think that's very valid and very true. After you, what I did, when I saw when I was reading the daily laws was, and I didn't know this, you never told me this, that after you finished the 48 laws of power,

you got like obviously you were in data with people reaching out to you about questions about everything, After you've finished the 48 laws of power, you've got obviously you were in data with people reaching out to you about questions about everything. And then you decided to, is this maybe I'm like, you can correct me when I'm wrong, but when you wrote the laws of human nature after was because you had so many people asking you about

like all sorts of different things. And you realize that most people were in, like, they had pain and their source of pain or other people, which made you read, like, right, the book. So what would people asking you that kind of made you do that? Well, what happened was I wrote mastery,

and basically mastery is about how to reach a level of creativity in your field no matter what it is to reach that kind of ultimate platform where you can kind of create anything interesting. And one of the components is social intelligence. I wrote a chapter in mastery on that. And basically the idea is you can be technically brilliant at your field. You can master all the algorithms that you want. You can be really, really good at finance and numbers. But if you're bad with people, it's all neutralized, right?

Because we're a social animal. And I don't care who you are, I don't care if you're Albert Einstein, or if you're the most brilliant physicist in the world. Everything is political, even science involves politics and getting along with people. So I wrote that chapter saying, this is part of being a master, is learning how to get to this social intelligence. I got tons of emails from people saying, I love that chapter, Robert, that was my favorite chapter, but I want more. It's not enough. I need to understand more because it's really something I'm really bad at. Okay, so that was one kind of funnel that was coming into my inbox.

The other was doing my consulting and seeing all these very powerful people, CEOs, top-notch ass leads people at the top of the entertainment business. They all would come to me with the same problem. They were good at the technical aspects, but they had made some ridiculously bad hire. They brought in some partner who ended up being like this toxic narcissist or this really aggressive, passive, aggressive person or this person who was just all the different kind of forms, you know, the power hungry when they didn't seem to. And they made their lives miserable. How do I get out of it? What do I do? Okay, well, first of all, let's try and figure out how you

not get into these situations. And it became very clear to me that people are increasingly not so good at understanding human nature and psychology. You can credit perhaps the internet, perhaps all the time we're spending virtually and not interacting with people. However, you want to define it, there is a problem in this world. And it inflicts the highest, most powerful people in the world. They have these incredible blind spots, right? Right. They're taking in. So imagine if you're a boss, you're a powerful person. What do you hear all the time? You hear everybody saying how great you are, right? They're trying, they're kind of emphasizing

what you already think about yourself. Your idea, oh, that's wonderful. It's brilliant, et cetera, et cetera. And you're not getting reality, right? And so you're not learning, you're kind of closed to that. You're kind of feeding off your own press, you're sort of believing what people say about you, right? And then, you know, you're kind of getting into that and then you hire somebody who's very charming, who appears to be very ingratiating and says all the wonderful things about your, feeds your ego and you're kind of blinded and dazzled by that and you hire them. And then you discover this other side of them and you're in real trouble and you call Robert Green and you ask, you know, what can I do?

How can I get rid of this person? What's the best way to fire them? How can I deal with this toxic person who's now my partner who now controls 50% of my company? How do I deal with the owner of this basketball team who's bad-mouthing me in the press so that my price will go down, et cetera, right? How do you deal with these human interactions

that nobody trains you? When you leave university, you'll learn all things about the most mundane or the most trivial subjects that are not practical. And then you enter the work, well, nobody trains you and how to deal with people and how to look at political situations. And so no wonder that, you know, this is a blind spot that I wanted to write a book to help people on that.

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Proger, fresh for everyone. Right, and so, is it your belief then that, first of all, so is there social intelligence, emotional intelligence? Do you think it's more important than academics? For some ones, oh, but for some of his true success in life, personal and professional. Most definitely. I mean, academic success doesn't really mean much.

It doesn't translate. I mean, you can list all of the famous successful people, including Albert Einstein, or Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, who were total dropouts, who were not successful at all in an academic setting. Because, you know, there's just their rebels, their people who don't fit into the system, they don't like kind of the style of learning that's emphasized in the university, they're more creative. Universities are kind of like factories, and they have certain, they teach you certain ways

of thinking, and if you're someone who thinks differently, you're not encouraged in that atmosphere. So I remember when I wrote mastery, one of the people I interviewed was Paul Graham, who started a company called Y Combinator, which is turned into a billion dollar business that eventually sold. And basically, it was an apprenticeship school for entrepreneurs.

He would admit the 30 best entrepreneurs around the world, and he would teach them how to create a startup. And then he would own 10% of their startup or whatever it is. And that's where he made a fortune. And how did he judge? He would get 10,000 applications and he would choose like 30. And he says, the moment he got an application, it said, Yale, I went to Yale, put it in the trash, right? He might interview them, but he says, what he looked for was the level of determination that somebody had how you could be criticized how much they wanted it, right? So it's not a question of

Your academic your intellectual background. It's more of kind of an emotional intelligence type thing You name people that's interesting because you named the people I would never have named which it I mean Bill Gates and Steve Jobs who are obviously extraordinarily Elon Musk. They don't they are they don't have the act. Oh, Elon has it, but Bill Gates Steve Jobs. They're not at the they were dropouts, right, but they also don't really have what you know you think of as the emotional, social intelligence, either, right? They're kind of, that's what they are rebels, right? They're brilliant. What kind of, what kind of intelligence is that? Or is that just like kind of anomalies in life?

Even Jeff Bezos. These are people who are not exactly emotional, or EQ level. I'm sure is not like off the charts. I don't know anything about Jeff Bezos. No, I'm either Dwight not like off the charts. I don't know anything about Jeff Bezos. No, I'm not the do-I, but he does. But I do know Steve Jobs. I mean, a lot of these people are, I have to say we're probably on the spectrum a little bit, you know.

And Steve Jobs was a terrible manager, his first iteration at Apple. Right. He was very aggressive and gruff. He didn't listen to people. He had no empathy at all. And if people hated him, and he basically got fired. And he kind of went through those desert years in the 90s. And then he got hired back on Apple and he kind of learned what was wrong about his style. And he kind of softened it a bit. And although he was a perfectionist and though he was like someone who couldn't stand

if people didn't work as hard as he worked, he wasn't nearly as gruff and intimidating as he'd been in the first go. He'd softened it and people genuinely liked him. He was still, he still had the highest standards. He still could be a bastard, right? But he was easier to get along with and he learned, you know, he was able to grow and change himself.

So you got better with it. Yeah. Is there, do you think, is there a difference between street smarts, emotional intelligence or emotional smarts? Like, is there a difference? Or are they pretty much interchangeable? Well, I don't really know what exactly we're saying here

about emotional intelligence. I'm thinking like reading people under the kind of empathizing with somebody, kind of having the ability to socially interact in a very comfortable way, making people feel comfortable. All the stuff that we're talking about, I think your book's talk about it too, it's not just being able to go, what's the swear root of 170,000? It's the other stuff. Street smarts, it's similar. Are they similar kind of similar. That's why I think are they

similar? Is it more like, is it street sports more like hustling or more getting one over? It seems like they're similar but not really. I just want to hear the expert. Well, I know like working with 50. He's street smart. He's street smart. He was a hustler, but he has very high emotional intelligence. He's very sensitive to people. He's very good in a room situation. Right. As a boss and negotiations with very powerful people, he reads the room. He understands where people are. He understands their strengths and their weaknesses. But that not every hustler, not every person with street smarts has that, because you can get along just by sheer aggression, right? And so he kind of learned that way.

I think a lot of it had to do with his mother who died when he was very young and taught him some basic lessons and kind of ingrained in him, this sort of soft side that he had. Even though his brother was a very tough person, 50 has this kind of soft side to him, sort of an introverted side. So I don't think I can generalize on people with street smart. So I worked for a man named Dev Charnie, who was CEO of American Apparel. That guy had definite street smarts. He had very low emotional intelligence,

right? Interesting. Why? How does that work? Like, give me an example of what's high street smarts, low emotional intelligence. Well, he was a consummate hustler. He knew how to charm people. He knew how to make them think that he was absolutely brilliant. He was very good at it and he is very charismatic. Right, but he had very low empathy for people. He had very little understanding of what makes them take of whether, if his words, if his brush words, how they affected people, whether they worked for him or against him, he was often his own worst enemy. And so he was very good at pushing people around, pushing their buttons, kind of bullying them, kind of intimidating them, and charming them at the same time doing all these kind of

games. And he was very, very good at it. But ultimately he hit a wall because he didn't really have great levels of empathy. He really didn't understand that sometimes that game has limits to it. You have to kind of be softer. You have to learn how to seduce people. You have to learn what their interests are. Sometimes you have to delegate. Sometimes you have to take responsibility and admit that you're wrong, etc. These are things that he wasn't very good at. So I can't really generalize in that because I've seen both sides. Well, I'm glad that you just brought up the seducing because I wanted to ask you about that. What would you say? What's your definition of someone who's a, what makes somebody a really good at seduction? Well, the main thing is, is that you're attuned to other people. So, if I'm thinking of you and not me,

if I'm not insecure and I'm thinking of you and not me, if I'm not insecure and I'm thinking of you, what is it that makes Jennifer Cohen tick? What is her life? What is her world like? What are her weaknesses? What are her strengths? What was she like as a child? What were her parents like? What is her mind like? That's what a great seducer is. They're able to get outside of themselves and into the world, the spirit of the other person. Now that can be for purposes of kind of an overt manipulation and a seduction, but it can also be for a genuine, you know, a fairer love or whatever. But the ability to get outside yourself and the converse of that is your insecurity. That's what I would call

anti-siduction. You're so self-absorbed that when you're dating someone on that first date, all you're thinking about is, do they like me? Am I saying the right things? Am I being awkward or not? The other person is picking that up and the signal is, you're not really paying attention to them. You're not really listening to them. So think about your own life and how rare it is that people ever give you individualized attention. You go through your life 99% of your encounters, it's as if people are dealing with someone else. They're not thinking about you about what makes you take about your life, your problems, et cetera. We go through life and we're so hungry for that moment where a person actually connects to who we are and actually is interested in who we are. It's so rare, right?

So you give people that feeling that you're excited by them that you're interested in their story, right? And it has an amazing effect. And that's what makes a great seducer. The second quality is a lack of defensiveness. The kind of two go together. But the fact that you're not worried about yourself, you're comfortable with who you are. You're comfortable in your body, in your physical presence. You're comfortable in, you know, in your mannerisms, in your ability to get along with people, that comfort is, because we humans

kind of respond to these things in a non-bure way. It kind of relaxes people, it puts them in the right non-resistant mood, the non-defensive mood, whereas if you're all insecure and defensive and worried about everything people say, and is she really saying that? Is that what does she mean by that?

Is that a diss, et cetera? That's extremely off-putting. It reveals the self-absorption level. So the ability to be open, non-defensive, and totally interested in the other person is immensely seductive. And that's when I talk in the book, in the art of seduction, of the rake,

the consummate male seducer. For that day or week that he's interested in you, because he's only interested in you for a day or a week or a month, you are the whole world. He is completely yours. He is interested in everything you have to say. He's buying you the gifts that are so perfectly suited to who you are. He's taking you to the places he knows

was gonna surprise and excite you. What woman can't fall for that? Because how rare is that? And then he's gone after a month or a couple of months, but that's the power that a rake has. So those are the qualities, the two qualities that a seducer has. I can mention others, but those are the main ones. Well, I think a couple of things. It sounds like someone, for someone to be a really a seducer has. I can mention others, but those are the main ones.

Well, I think a couple of things. It sounds like for someone to be a really good seducer, they have to have a high EQ, right? I mean, you have to be able to be able to pick up on certain cues and tones. What did you say? That's kind of, they kind of go hand in hand. Well, I mean, the word, I guess I don't know the word EQ as well. Yeah. But I just put it in

other language, which is put it in my own English. In this to do it. So, which is that you're highly attuned to the other person. You're picking up their signals. So you say something, and you know that body language reveals a lot. Right. And you say something a little bit controversial to kind of pick at them a little bit. And they laugh, but there's a discomfort there in their laugh. All right. That's something that they don't like. There's some, I pick that up, or you say something and they're eyeside up and they laugh uncontrollably in the whole face lights up. All right, that's something that they love. That's the excites them. You remember that and you register that and you're going to return to it and you're going to use that kind of information. That kind of sensitivity where you're totally absorbed in the other person,

you call it emotional intelligence. I don't know, but it's just the ability to get outside of yourself. And it's extremely therapeutic to be able to do that. So what happens if you become after over time, right? Because can you be a good seducer if there's too much familiarity? If you know the person too well, like what happens if you've been married for 10 years, 15 years, it's the same person? I mean, is there really the artist's deduction anymore?

Well, that's a different story. I mean, a friend is okay, because I have a chapter and friend to lover, which is a very good strategy. Right, right. To talk about that, we could talk about that. Well, but, no, I mean, that's basically that a very good seduction strategy is to actually become someone's friend. First and then and although you know

Some people think it's hard to have male and female friendships, but that's not true at all Right, it's actually very interesting and very exciting relationship to have even if it doesn't lead to being a lover because Your men and it goes for women as well who are not comfortable with the opposite sex if we're talking about street people. You know, it's that you don't understand the opposite sex. You don't understand their way of thinking, their motivation. It's like another country and you're like, you could be from another planet which somebody wrote a book about, right?

Right. Right. Right. So, and a lot of times men who grow up with sisters don't have that problem. They're comfortable. Whereas, boys who only had brothers or had no sisters, it's a little different situation. So becoming a friend with a woman, because guys have more of this problem than women do, is very good way to understand women's psychology, to get more comfortable with them.

So it hasn't benefit even if it doesn't go from friend to lover. But the idea that you took the time to become their friend, and then you found that moment of weakness where you then seduce them, is very powerful. It's one of the easiest seductions that you can have. And I talk about that in that book,

in a particular chapter. But when it comes to married couples, that's a different story. I've been in a relationship for many years. 20 years, right? Something like that. Sorry. We stopped counting some. So I have a chapter in that art of seduction about that. It's not that you are going to keep seducing them 20 years later. That'll be tiring. Right.

And it'll be too predictable. Let's say it doesn't work. How does it work? No, it does work. So every now and then you go back to your original strategy, to your original interest. So if people become too familiar, if it's always about being at home,

turning on Netflix, getting in your pajamas, having pizza that you've ordered out from wherever, et cetera, right? There's no magic anymore. And the number one complaint that I get from women in this area is that he's not seducing me anymore. They don't use that word seducing, but it really means what they mean is, he doesn't give me the kind of attention

that he used to give me. And men will complain about this as well. So you don't wanna give the other person the idea that you take them for granted, because that's the worst feeling in the world. You were so interested in me when you wanted sex five years ago, but now that you've gotten it, you don't really care that much. Well, it doesn't say very much about me, does it?

So you want to give that little hits of that magic again. Every now and then you surprise them. You take them out to a restaurant that you've never been to before that has some, it's like a surprise that shows that you thought about it. before that has some, it's like a surprise that shows that you thought about it. You put some effort into it. You give them a gift that's not for their birthday or anything else, but that's like something you've never given before that shows a degree of thoughtfulness. You take them on a trip somewhere that is exotic, exciting. You do some of the things that you did when you were actively trying to seduce.

I don't know, I'm not going to say every three months. I don't want to put a number to it, but at least every now and then you revert to that. So you give the other person the feeling that there's still some mystery involved. There's still some fantasy involved. It's not completely gone flat. Right. What element of lust is involved? Right? Because you need an element of like sexual chemistry or lust to be a part of it for that artist's deduction to even work. Right? Because if I'm, you know, friends with Joe Blow and I have no attraction to him, no matter how much we're going to be friends and we hang out together, it's not happening. So, isn't there that whole element there where a lust is a major or sexual chemistry or physical chemistry take part?

It depends on the people involved. I mean, sometimes, and it happens, at first, you think there is no kind of sexual chemistry. You're not really that interested in that person, but a really great seducer can make you interested in that. That's true. But there isn't any interest before. But the lust, the physical attraction, is very important, but it also can work against you.

Because the goal of seduction isn't necessarily sex because you can get sex, you know, go to a bar and pick up a woman or a man in a bar and go have sex. There's no seduction involved because you're most, you're basically satisfying this kind of animal urge that you have in the moment. Seduction is a process of making the other person fall in love, of making them fantasize about you, so that when you're not there, when you're not in front of them, they're thinking about you, they're wondering about you, they're wondering about your personality, who are you really? And they're excited and they're interested in their intrigue, like you're a character in an novel, right? And so if the physical attraction is too strong,

it almost works against you in that sense. It's like, the classic seduction of a man of a woman, the woman was kind of playing a little bit hard to get, right? And was trying to discothe, was trying to, you know, postpone the sexual component. That would make the man more excited, more interested in you would try other things and they would eventually. So definitely the physical component is very important, but it's not absolutely essential now. When you're looking for like a true like partner in life, right? Not just a feeling like you want to find like,

are there certain, like, how do you pick well, right? Because people you end up picking not very, not, they usually use the lust or they use their, their chemistry physically to kind of point them in that certain direction, right? And both female, female people do that, girls do that too. How, how do we kind of stop doing that? So we pick partners who are appropriate for us, who we can actually have a long-term relationship with. Well, there has to be a connection that's deeper than the physical connection, right?

Absolutely. So the one thing is, you know, can I sit across the table from this person 10 years down the line and have an interesting conversation with them, right? Do we? It's not a matter of we believe the same politics or we read the same books or that our ideas are the same because that's a superficial thing. But there's a kind of connection that goes deeper than that, right?

Where when you talk, there's a kind of a sparkle to it and there's surprises to it. And things of that person say, wow, that's really interesting, right? If somebody can do that, then you can imagine in 10 years, they'll still be doing that, and that you'll enjoy sitting across the table and having interesting conversations with them. So the connection between the two of you has to be deeper than just sort of the superficial physical attraction and the superficial things where we like the same political figures, we like the same musicians, et cetera. Those are superficial signs. You're looking for a deeper, deeper connection that kind of goes to the core of

your character, and it has to do with true love. And a lot of times, a lot of the stuff has to do with your childhood, who you, your relationship to your parents, to your siblings, and the person that you really fall in love with kind of fills a role that goes back to a figure in your past that you're not even aware of. There's some sort of deep, deep connection. You also want to look at somebody's character. I mean, believe it or not. If all they're interested in is money, right? And you're not, that's not a big value. So values are very important here on that. Love that something I'm leaving out. So if they're only interested in money, you know, and you're not really that type of person, it's going to really wear on you, or that value is

continually coming up and you're always arguing about, you know, do we have enough money? Are you making enough money in your job, et cetera? So you want to look at a connection on the values levels as well. Just go beyond the surface and don't let the sexual component be the main criteria that you. I feel like, I mean, I think people fool themselves a lot of times, right?

They don't want to believe that sometimes they think, no, no, no, I really, really are this way. They try to like, they rationalize someone's bad behavior because they want it to work and all those things, right? Is there any type, I mean, we actually kind of explained it. So like, what would you say the biggest mistake is when people are trying to find love? Are they just looking for the, is it because they are rationalizing red flags that are appearing?

Well, that's the number one state people. Well, they're kind of going back to one of the first things I said, they're sort of judging too much on appearance. And they're not looking at who the person really is. Right? So you're falling in love with the kind of mirage that people are giving you. The kind of so a person that's interested in getting sex out of you or whatever is going to be presenting a certain kind of you or whatever is going to be presenting a certain kind of character. They're going to be wearing a mask, right? And you're falling in love with the mask.

And then six months later, you discovered that they're not the person you thought they were, right? Can you name a couple other types of seducers? You said the rake already. Name a couple other ones. Well, the equivalent of the rake is a siren. That's a woman who... So the rake and the siren are the most archetypal because no man on this planet can resist

a siren and no woman on this planet can resist a rake. Give me an example of each. Is it Marilyn Monroe, for example? Yeah, she was definitely a siren. I mean, she and I put... She and Cleopatra was kind of the quintessence of that, right? It's a woman who exudes this kind of raw kind of sexual energy. She's very comfortable with her body. She knows all of the weaknesses of men, men are very visually

orient. Men get very easily bored. So she knows how to create drama and how to always surprise him, etc. And she knows how to make the man chase, because men like to hunt and chase, at least a lot of men do, right? So it's absolutely irresistible. And there's an element of danger involved. So falling in love with this woman, I might lose myself. I might, something might happen to me. There's a little bit of transgressive element. That's what sort of makes it very

exciting. Because the siren from the Greek myth were these half-women, half-bird creatures who would sing on cliffs, and their song was so beautiful, the men would like go crazy and then they would try and find the siren and they would drown. So going after the siren in a primal sense, meant you were going to kill yourself. There was like a suicidal wish. So that's the siren. Then I have like the dandy. The dandy is a man or a woman that has a androgynous edge to them. There's the touch of the masculine in the woman, like a Marlene at Dietrich, like a Madonna or Josephine Baker.

There's a touch of the feminine in the man, like a Rudolph Valentino or a Mick Jagger or a David Bowie. And that kind of crossing is very exciting to a lot of people. It's kind of a taboo here. We're seeing things kind of mixed up a little bit. And it appeals to a lot of people. It's kind of a taboo here. We're seeing things kind of mixed up a little bit. And it appeals to a lot of people. That has very power. There's the natural someone who's very spontaneous, almost like a child who never quite grew up and is very comfortable

with themselves. It's got a mischievous edge to them. I can't talk about Charlie Chaplin. There's the coquette. The coquette is probably the most devilish seducer of all. Traditionally, it was a woman, but it could be a man. Like who? Who would that be? Like a coquette? The coquette one. I can't remember who I have in the story. I believe I have Paul Lane bone apart. I mean, well, I don't even have to give her. What are you? What are you? What would you be?

What would you fall under that? Well, when I was in my 20s, I was a rake. You were the rake, okay. But the coquette is a woman or a man who blows hot and cold. They're very excited, they're very interested in you. You get really wowed up by them, you know, and wound up by them. And then suddenly they're not answering your phone calls anymore, they've turned cold.

They're not so interested in you. They're looking at other people when you're together. What happened? What did I do wrong? Well, something's wrong with me. And then like a week later, they're hot again. And they do this a couple of times and you're so hooked. You're just like, these can in the world's ever going to save you.

They've got their hooks in you. Could I keep putting their toes? Yeah. So these are some of the types. They're nine of them. That's it. Yeah, that's neat. I like all those moon people.

I love when you put things in categories because you can understand it better anyway, but I like that. I feel like I've asked you a bunch of questions here. Is there anything that you want to say or talk about besides get my book The Daily Laws? Well, the idea behind The Daily Laws is kind of simple. It's, you know, I'm trying, people ask me,

is there one thing that, what's the source of power in this world? What if you could say a quality that is like the essence of it, that I could, that I could learn from? And I would say, it's your attitude towards life. Your attitude is how you look at the world. Some people are optimistic and adventurous and open. Some people are closed and anxious and resentful.

And you can take somebody who's got that kind of attitude, like an optimist and a pessimist, and put them in the same circumstances, and they see completely different things. So your attitude is your lens on the world, how you see things, how you judge things, right? It kind of defines your experiences. Yeah. Your attitude kind of will define what happens to you. And the attitude that you want, the one attitude that's the most powerful in this world, is a realistic attitude. In other words, you're going to see things as they are.

You're not going to be looking at the hype or the bullshit or the appearance. So when it comes to yourself, you're going to look deep inside and you're going to figure out who you are as opposed to all the things you've learned from other people as opposed to all the illusions you have. You can understand what makes you tick, what makes you unique, what excites you, which you were meant to accomplish in life. Very powerful. With other people, you're not

going to project your own emotions on them. You're going to see into them who they are, what motivates them, what defines them, right? Very powerful. When it comes to the world, you're going to see what the trends are, what's going on in your career, where it's headed in three or four years. What is the zeitgeist? What's going on in this world right now? What kind of period are we living through? You're able to do that. You're going to be able to kind of be ahead of the curve sometimes with the trends, the things that you do, the things that you create. Also very powerful. So this realistic attitude in those three

directions has immense potential for you, right? It's the subject of all of my books in different angles, but it's scattered over thousands of pages, right? Be very frustrating for some readers. Yes. So I've taken all of that, I've taken like the greatest hits or however you want to say it, the passages that illuminate one angle of that realistic attitude.

And in fact, I have 366 of those angles having to do with your career, having to do with yourself, having to do with people and talks of people, having to do it the world, et cetera. And I'm giving you a daily meditation for you. And the idea is that I want this attitude to become your attitude, the way you look at the world, but it can't happen overnight.

I need to kind of immerse you in this other way of looking at the world. So every day, you're going to be looking at one of these facets of that attitude, and it's going to be only a page long, so you don't have to read very much, and it's going to introduce to you an idea that you may not have thought of before, about people about yourself, etc. And you're going to meditate on that. And you're going to go through this day by day by day by day by day and slowly, the idea is if it succeeds, you will begin to internalize this way of looking at things. It will get under your skin. It will kind of change how you think in a very elemental way.

That's what the book was designed for. I know because I meditate every single day. I've been doing it for 11 years. What kind of meditation do you do? I do Zen meditation. What is that? What kind of meditation is that? It's trying to empty the mind and it's hard to describe, but it's basically shutting off the chatty mind

and arriving at kind of the original consciousness that we have when we were children, we were born, what's known as original mind, and kind of immersing yourself in reality as opposed to words, etc. This is how the world is. Zen is very hard to actually verbalize, which is the problem. Some of the greatest writers who read their co-ans, you can't understand they're so unintelligible. It's hard to put into words, but it's basically returning you to a form of consciousness that you have when you were very young, that is more natural and that is seeing things as they are as opposed to the verbal constructions.

Anyway, in my meditation, I will have a thought and then I will notice there's no direct effect. You don't finish your meditation. Go, wow, blah, blah, blah. It's kind of calms you down. But I will notice over the course of months and years that I will do things that I would have never done before I'm edited. And there's no conscious way that I'm doing this. I don't react to people. I don't get upset when they say something. I write that angry email. I put it in a drawer. I don't react to people. I don't get upset when they say something. I write that angry email. I put it in a drawer. I don't send it.

I step back. I detach myself from the moment. I have a calmness. It got under my skin unconsciously because day by day by day, I've internalized this other way of being, this other way of thinking. So I'm not saying mine is like Zen Buddhism, but it's going to get under your skin. It's going to change how you think and how you act in ways you're not even aware of

for this kind of daily practice. So that's the point of the book. Ram 3500 and Ram TRX. Hurian now for great deals on the trucks that are built to serve. Right now during Ram season, get 10% below MSRP on the purchase of a 2023 Ram 1500 Laramy. Not compatible with lease offers or with any other consumer incentive offers. Contact Deliver Details. Take retail delivery by 531-23. Yeah, no, I can't even believe that you're able to like condense it to this amount of to one book, right? Because there's so many, there's everything from human nature that laws of power and it's very easy to digest and understand. It's very easy. Yeah. And I like it. I really liked it.

And there also, each month, because within essay, which I kind of talk about my personal experience, where my experience in the world kind of informs it, which I've never done in any of my books before, because I never talk about myself. But I talk about experiences I've had the kind of each month as a theme. Yeah. And I sort of explain, this is what I learned my own experiences as a seduce or my own experiences in the work that led to my writing books, et cetera, et cetera.

No, I think it's, I really, I mean, listen, it's really like a number one New York. It's like a number one bestseller on Amazon anyway. Is it on the New York Times yet? Or we won't know for what? It's hard to crack the New York, it's like number one bestseller on Amazon anyway. Is it on the New York Times yet? We won't know for what. It's hard to crack the New York Times because it's on the self-help list. And there's like eight million books on that list. So we're hoping, I mean, I made it before, but you've made it all the time.

How many of the New York Times bestsellers? Like before they're even out there, like on the New York Times bestseller list. I mean, this one will be there too. I'm sure that Robert, please, I mean, you're being very, you're being very humble right now. So people can buy the daily laws on Amazon and go to Barnes and Noble. Where can they find you on Instagram? Give us all your info. All right. I've been trained like a trained seal. I can't remember this because I'm really bad at Robert Green official is is.

Oh, that's right. That's your hashtag. Oh, no, it's your Instagram account. Well, it's all of it. At Robert Green official, you will find Instagram. You will find TikTok. You're in TikTok now? No way.

What are you doing on TikTok? Little bits and pieces of dirt. Oh my gosh. Go look. I'm going to have to. I'm like, fuck. And then you'll find my Facebook, my Twitter, and my website with some of my ancient blog posts.

That's awesome. And anything else you possibly want to know. So at Robert Green official, it's where to go. And on TikTok, go to TikTok and find Robert Green doing some dance with his books in his hand. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that book going to be out. In about 2048. I'm going to say that's even sooner than I thought. Oh, here you are. You're in TikTok. Oh my God. And you have like a huge following on TikTok. Oh my God. You like 300,000 followers almost. Are you kidding me? No way. How do you have this? When did you start this?

Well, recently, there was a guy who interviewed me on Sunday, actually, a really nice guy named Lawrence Chodo, who did a TikTok video about 48 laws of power, about five or six months ago, and the sales of my books skyrocket. Really? And haven't come down since then. And we all go, whoa, TikTok can promote a book like that? Wow, that's amazing. And this other woman, Rachel Peterson,

who will be interviewing me in a couple of weeks, she did the same thing and the book just exploded. So we go, this is a tool that I got to pay attention to and I have people who work for me because I don't do it all myself. Right. And we're basically taking excerpts from all of my interviews like my interviews here now. I hope so. And then me kind of dancing in my underwear. Yeah, if you say, where's that video?

I want to see that. I know. Just. Oh my God. So yeah, we're doing the TikTok thing. You're like a TikTok star. I cannot believe how many followers you have. That is crazy.

So they've been doing this for how long then? Like how long have we had this page for? I'd say about three or four months. Oh my God. Not much longer than that. You're like a TikTok influencer. 300,000 is nothing these days. I know, but listen, I know, however, still, it's still funny that I see you on TikTok.

That's amazing. Who knew exactly? Go follow Robert on TikTok. God, even all the other 13 year olds and everybody else is true. It's become like a huge meeting. I feel like more people now are more like two weeks ago. There you go. Yeah, but I have like no followers because I'm just literally, I just started.

So will you follow me? Sure. Okay, go follow me. Maybe you'll get me a couple of followers. A beer first follower. Yeah, please. I think I have like 80 followers. Literally I just started.

So what? I think I have like 80 followers. Literally I just started. So. My assistant Jackson just messaged me, you've landed on the New York Times bestseller list. No way, he just did that now. You heard it here first people. Are you serious? Yeah. I didn't know if it would happen, honestly, cause. We just talked with like two seconds ago.

Are you serious? What do you say? And I think my agent just called me. That's why you're agent called. You can call your agent. Well, let's see. I'm as serious as voice mail. Robert, it's Michael.

And I wanted to just congratulate you on the best fellow, which is truly a wonderful achievement. The list that you're on is one of the most competitive. It's a tough time for books and you are trying to and congratulations for another bestseller. I think this is our second one together. So third It's our fourth one. I'm just in time with you, and thank you, and mine for everything you've done. Okay. There. Oh my God. You just got on the New York Times best, like just now?

I guess just so, it makes me very happy. Oh my God, that's so amazing. Do I want to celebrate? Should I get some champagne? What do I do? Well, I don't know. Okay, I gotta do a story about this right now. Okay, I'm like dying right now.

Oh my gosh. Okay. All right, I have to say as him, Robert and I are doing the podcast for this book, he just landed on the New York Times best sellers list. He just found out right now. Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations. Thank you.

Goodbye. Oh my God. So exciting. Oh my God. Oh my God. This episode is brought to you by the YAP Media Podcast Network. I'm Holla Taha, CEO of the award-winning digital media empire YAP Media, and host of YAP Young & Profiting Podcast, a number one entrepreneurship and self-improvement podcast

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