The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 220: Robert Greene - The Laws Of Power & Mastery

Episode Date: August 27, 2017

The Learning Leader Show Episode 220: Robert Greene - The Laws Of Power & Mastery Robert Greene is an American author and speaker known for his books on strategy, power and seduction. He has written f...ive international bestsellers: The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War, The 50th Law and Mastery. In addition to having a strong following within the business world and a deep following in Washington, DC, Greene's books are hailed by everyone from war historians to the biggest musicians in the industry (including Jay-Z and 50 Cent). "Do Not Speak Unless You Can Improve Upon The Silence." Show Notes: Sustained Excellence: Self Mastery Self Control -- "We are emotional animals, governed by emotions. It can get you in trouble." Self Discipline Flexibility -- Ability to adapt Why Napoleon was successful? He had a front line obsession Writing a book with 50 Cent "Never let your guard down" Law 4 - Always say less than necessary. "Do not speak unless you can improve upon the silence." Learn the power of being quiet If you're upset about an email, do not respond emotionally. Wait 24 hours and then respond with a level head Law 9 - Win Through Your Actions, Never Through Argument. "Demonstrate, do not explicate." Commit to action. Words are devalued "Show them. Don't talk." Law 10 - Infection: Avoid The Unhappy and Unlucky You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with "We absorb the energy of other people." Look to "level up" your peer group at all time" How to deal with a person in a power position who you do not like or respect? Do not let them see you upset. Do not show them emotion (when they try to rile you up) Did President Trump read The 48 Laws of Power? He appears to have used some of the laws to help get elected: Law 6 - Court attention at all cost Law 17 - Keep others in suspended terror. Cultivate an air of unpredictability Law 27 - Play on people's need to believe to create a cult like following Very common in business for an "aggressive, loud yeller" to push people around and somehow get promoted... But once they have to actually lead and manage people, they fail miserably Rappers, movie stars, athletes quoting (even tattooing) The 48 Laws. How has that impacted you? Great satisfaction, but even more from "regular" people who email him and said his work helped them start a business or quit a bad job. "Sometimes you don't know what you're intended to do. It pays to have an open mind." -- Robert didn't write The 48 Laws of Power until he was 38 years old "The human brain does not learn unless it is excited" Cesar Rodriguez -- "Trust The Process" -- You must get reps, reps, reps in order to achieve any level of excellence Think long term and put in the necessary work to be great Advice: "You were born with a purpose. Tap into what makes you different and unique. There is tremendous pressure to fit in. You will have success if you dig deep, be adventurous, try things out. Respect your unique-ness, something great will happen." "The Human Brain Does Not Learn Unless It Is Excited." Social Media: Read: The 48 Laws Of Power Read: Mastery Follow Robert on Twitter: @RobertGreene Connect with me on LinkedIn Join our Facebook Group: The Learning Leader Community To Follow Me on Twitter: @RyanHawk12 More Learning: Episode 078: Kat Cole – From Hooters Waitress To President of Cinnabon Episode 216: Jim Collins -- How To Go From Good To Great Episode 179: How To Sustain Excellence - The Best Answers From 178 Questions Episode 107: Simon Sinek – Leadership: It Starts With Why

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Starting point is 00:00:00 You're on death ground. Cortez is in Mexico. He only has 500 men. He's going to conquer all of Mexico. And the only way to do it is to burn the ships that got them there so that his soldiers have no way of retreating. And that's either win or die. That's death ground. And that's what I was on.
Starting point is 00:00:21 I either make this book work or I just go down. So A, I was motivated. And B, it was in my wheelhouse. I had accumulated years of observing people, seeing power moves, particularly in Hollywood, seeing manipulations, and it just fit. Hey, and welcome to The Learning Leader Show. I am Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. It is mindful Monday.
Starting point is 00:00:50 Go to LearningLeader.com. Enter your email address. Receive a note every Monday morning, 9 o'clock Eastern on the latest topics, trends, conversation pieces from your email. your fellow learning leaders. Would love to have you. Learning Leader.com. Now, on to tonight's featured leader. It is with Robert Green, legendary author,
Starting point is 00:01:12 New York Times bestseller of the 48 Laws of Power. Over 1.5 million copies sold worldwide. It is a perennial seller, as Ryan Holiday would say. Written a number of books, another one titled Mastery, which we discussed at length during our conversation tonight. Some of his work is quoted in songs by Jay-Z Kanye West and Drake, among others. It's unbelievable the impact he's had all over the world.
Starting point is 00:01:40 A few of the other topics we got into, the keys to master a topic and be a success in multiple life categories. And then how President Trump has used some of the strategies from the 48 laws of power. Then he closed with useful advice for people we're looking to find their purpose. will make you think, I guarantee you, I loved it. It's Robert Green. All right, Robert, this one, this is a real honor for me. Welcome to The Learning Leader Show. Oh, well, thank you for having me, Ryan. My pleasure. I, um, you know, I've read a ton of your work, whether it's 48 Laws of Power, and most recently I've reread mastery. Those things are monsters, but they're great books. And I have a question, though. You, you spend a good.
Starting point is 00:02:34 great deal of time studying others in order to write, particularly historical figures or people that have come before us, some of the greats. And I'm curious, and this may be, feel free to go as long as you need, but I'm curious from your perspective, your research, what are some of the common themes of leaders who have sustained excellence? Well, it's a great question, because I make a big point that you can't measure people if they only are able to. They've found a company, but they can't exploit it, and they're only in power or control for a few years. I like to look at people who've lasted, whether even if it's athletes or business leaders or generals. There are definitely some common traits.
Starting point is 00:03:21 I'd say the most important trait of all is self-mastery, self-control, self-discipline. All of us are by nature. It's something I'm writing about in my new book. we are emotional animals. We tend to think that we're rational, that we think before we act. But in fact, the truth is, and science backs this up, we are much more governed by our emotions. And later on, we justify what we do with some rationalizations or whatever. And it can get you in a lot of trouble, your inability, you're constant reacting to events,
Starting point is 00:03:59 getting upset, getting angry, getting resentful. And a leader who can't control him or herself, other people can pick it up. I write in my new book about a lot about nonverbal communication. We are animals. We're not just thinking creatures. We pick up signals from other people nonverbally. And we can very quickly detect that someone is weak and emotional and they talk too much. You know, one of the laws of power is always talk less than necessary.
Starting point is 00:04:35 Excuse me, my voices. Or learning to conceal your intentions, things like that. The person who cannot control him or herself who's always talking, revealing their thoughts, kind of an open book, that's very weak. And it's going to get you in a lot of trouble. So the people who last through a very hard process, it can take years. I know it took me a while. And you never really quite vanquished that emotional part of yourself.
Starting point is 00:05:08 But to the degree that you can, to the degree that you can restrain yourself from reacting to what people say or do, you have power. You have strategic options. If someone does something that reveals that they're angry or dislike you or maybe they're going to do, something to sabotage you and you immediately react that's your only option you've now closed yourself off that's what you do if you step back and you control yourself and you're calm and your patient you say oh wait a minute is this person a really threat really a threat well maybe they're not okay so i have option a of ignoring them or maybe they are but maybe i should do bc and d and not let them know that i'm going to get back at them in some way so your ability to control yourself suddenly
Starting point is 00:05:55 opens up all sorts of vistas of options and the options are power. It's what we call in warfare, maneuver warfare. The army that has more room to maneuver is going to almost always win. The other trait, I'm not going to go too deep into this because there are many things I could highlight, but the other trait that I think is critical is flexibility. Now, I've personally consulted with a lot of leaders in business and politics. And I can tell you that 95% of the time when they hire me, they really don't want to hear what I have to say. They just want to hear what they believe already is the truth.
Starting point is 00:06:37 And they want me to confirm that. And if I come from another angle and I say, well, maybe you should look at it differently. Maybe you're not doing the right thing. Maybe you need to improve this skill set or whatever. they'll say yes, yes, very good, Robert, very much, but they'll still go on doing what they do. And that's because this is a precept of Machiavelli about how people tend to be prisoners of their own nature. We tend to get frozen into certain ways of responding and reacting to the world. So the ability to actually listen to criticism, to actually learn from our mistakes, to actually work on ourselves and change.
Starting point is 00:07:18 and to look at yourself and say, well, I am far from perfect and I need to perhaps I need to continually improve myself. That's flexibility. That means you can change with the times. The other aspect of flexibility is people will often have success in their 20s or into their 30s. And it goes to their head. And they end up through their whole life repeating the same strategies, the same ideas.
Starting point is 00:07:45 And they become a relic, a dinosaur, and they're quickly over-threaty. thrown by a new generation of people who are not so rigid. So your ability to adapt to the times and to discipline yourself are by far, by far the two most important leadership qualities. There are other subsets such as your ability to listen to your audience, to the public, to not think that you always know the answers, to respond to the people that you're addressing to your audience, the closer you are to your audience, whatever that is, or the voters or whomever, the more powerful
Starting point is 00:08:25 you'll become. You're getting actual information from the people that you're trying to reach. And the icon of that and the icon of many powerful things in leadership was Napoleon Bonaparte, who was basically superior on the battlefield because he got information from his foot soldiers, not just his field marshals. So that openness to the world to information, flexibility, and self-discipline are the three maybe pillars of really solid leadership. Well, there's a lot there. So going in reverse horse, so Napoleon getting information from the foot soldiers.
Starting point is 00:09:08 I think that I think of some of Chris Zook and the founders mentality when he talks about having a front line obsession, being obsessed with Yeah. The front line. And then also talking about flexibility, there was, I had Tim Kite on and he talks about something that Jack Canfield learned earlier, which is this equation, which is E plus R equals O. The E stands for event. The R stands for our response. So how we respond to the event is going to determine the outcome.
Starting point is 00:09:40 So E plus R equals O. And I think all of us think of it in that manner that you talk about being. flexible and adaptable to the times and not being getting being uh uh we're all animals but not being too emotional over the event uh yeah a great mentor of mine told me you've got to be measured no matter what happens if you're giving a big presentation a big speech a huge a big game regardless of what happens if i get sacked six times straight i have to stand in the pocket the next time and be ready to deliver the throw that's that's my response which will determine the outcome and I thought that was that that's I'm glad you shared that and in addition to that
Starting point is 00:10:21 robert too talking about you've always have to be willing to learn or realize that you'll never quite be on top of that mountain that's what the learning leader is all about man that's what it means to be a learning leader in my opinion is while the greatest leaders i've ever come across have a learning and growth mindset believing that they can constantly improve and they're striving to do that Yeah, very, very true. And I would add just one thing, which was something I examined, I did a book with 50 cent. I don't know if you're familiar with that, 50th law. 50th law.
Starting point is 00:10:54 And it's a book about fear and overcoming fear. But one thing that's, I think, kind of relevant is you have to realize, let's say when we're talking about the fact that you're emotional and that emotions govern you, you have to never let your guard down. even myself, who I've worked on myself for many years and I feel like I'm a fairly disciplined person, I know that I still can, my emotions will still run away with me. I still will react. I'll still get angry. If you let your guard down, if you think, wow, I'm so great, I'm successful. I don't, I don't have these fears or these problems anymore. That's exactly when it's going to bite you. So you have to be vigilant with yourself. You have to be aware that this is your nature, that that's the lizard part of your brain is stronger than the frontal cortex and all the executive powers in your brain,
Starting point is 00:11:45 that more primitive part is just simply more powerful. It is in charge of hormones and things that it releases into your blood that are much stronger than your rational ability to control them. If you're aware of that, then you can control the reaction. And you can say, well, I'm letting myself get vulnerable here. All right, I got to step back. And so it's like, a constant process and I'm still doing it now. I'm 58 years old and I'm still having to reel it in and be aware of my propensity to react. There's there's a great Quaker saying which I'm sure you know which is do not speak unless you can approve upon the silence and that relates to law number four which you already brought up and I had in my notes
Starting point is 00:12:30 here which is always say less than necessary and it reminds me of some of the best leaders I've ever been around in person I think of my dad too where he's the guy who who will sit in the room and be very observant, he'll be a great listener, but won't necessarily speak up. And then all of a sudden, somebody in the meeting, or even this happens at family events,
Starting point is 00:12:49 they'll look over and say, Keith, what do you think? And he'll just kill. He'll respond with about a 45-second answer, and everyone will be like, why didn't we just ask him to begin the meeting? You know?
Starting point is 00:13:02 And I think that's where you can really think about, don't just speak to be heard, but listen, truly formulate your thoughts before you decide to add something to the silence. And if there's nothing to add, then just don't talk. That's right. And these discussions can often be abstract, but to bring it, make it very practical, you can practice this on an everyday basis because that need to talk is so strong in all of us. And you can go in a meeting or a conversation and you can train yourself. say, if you can even write it down or tattoo it on your wrist, I don't care what you do.
Starting point is 00:13:44 All right, I'm not going to talk so much this time. In this meeting, I'm going to listen. If you can just do it for five minutes, then the next time it's easier. And now you've built up that awareness and that self-consciousness so that you can keep practicing this and making it stronger. And you're kind of laying in the brain, you're kind of creating these neural connections. to tell you you have some of this power to step back from the moment. Or, for instance, something I tell people, you get that email or that message that kind of
Starting point is 00:14:21 really riles you up and gets you angry. Don't respond. Train yourself to wait 24 hours. Always wait 24 hours before you respond. These are little things. There are many more that you can do to start practically developing this and not make it's just a theory, but actually introduce it into your life. One of the other laws, number nine, is when through your actions, never through argument,
Starting point is 00:14:46 you say demonstrate, do not explicate, which I found, I really like that because we live in a world today where a lot of people tell us what they're about to do, as opposed to just doing it and letting others see. And I find that to be a powerful law that I really relate to. Because I will tell you, as most people probably said, when it comes to all 48, laws, sometimes people could read this and feel maybe a little bad or cynical because some of them appear negative. And you know better than anybody that people, whenever you sell 1.5 million books, you're going to have both people who love it and people who hate you. So, but I think of that winning through actions, never through argument, demonstrate, do not explicate as interesting to me
Starting point is 00:15:32 because I love, I try my best to do that. Like for this podcast, they did. didn't necessarily say a word to anybody other than my wife and my brother and one close mentor. And that was it to say, not like, hey, I'm recording these podcast episodes that I'm going to launch here in four months. But let's just do it and then let other people see it. I think we all might be better off if we let our actions speak more than our words. Well, there are several sides to that. You know, first of all, people are always too arguing too much and trying to, convince other people of the brilliance of their ideas. And you know, as well as anybody out there,
Starting point is 00:16:13 that arguments rarely work. I mean, how many times in your life have you convinced someone to do something you want by literally arguing and telling them they're wrong and you're right? I mean, 99.8% of the time, and I might even be generous there, that does not work. In fact, it backfires. And so you've got to rid yourself of this desire to argue with people. I mean, sometimes argument has its place in politics or in a debate, yes, but generally we overuse it. So then when you decide that you're going to just demonstrate your idea instead of babbling on about it, okay, now you've disciplined yourself. Now you've stopped reacting and stopped talking all the time and you're stepping back and you're actually committing yourself to doing something. So
Starting point is 00:17:02 already you've made a powerful, you've boosted your confidence. You've boosted your confidence. And you've already demonstrated to yourself that you have a plan and that you're going to, it's going to be patient. You're going to take three months to launch your podcast, whatever it is. All right. So you're building inner strength, inner resources. And the second thing is we all devalue words. It's a dime or dozen people can say whatever they want to say. And in fact, people say no matter what.
Starting point is 00:17:34 And it means nothing. They never do actually what they say they're doing or they're hypocritical on this or that. Words really are so cheap. But when you act, when you do something, when you produce something, when you make something, when you demonstrate by your actions that you're powerful or confident, that has a double the effect on people, particularly in a world where everyone talks way too much. your ability to like create something show them in the moment i always tell people show them don't talk just show what you want to reveal i'm writing a chapter right now about the power of authority of
Starting point is 00:18:16 having an air of authority you can't talk your way into saying you're you have authority you have to show it in various ways so controlling yourself and demonstrating to people has i consider like double the power of anything else that you could ever do through words. So, Robert, one of the things I try to do on this podcast and when I read all these different books from authors is try to find parallels. So I see law number 10. And this is not necessarily the most positive topic either, but this is infection, avoid the unhappy and unlucky.
Starting point is 00:18:52 And so I think of maybe Jim Rohn's quote or my friend Joey Coleman, Joey Coleman, who talks about always trying to level up, meaning, or I've heard the phrase, to point, maybe it was Kyle Newport, I don't remember, it doesn't matter at this point, but where they say, hey, try to be the worst person in the band. What I mean by that is that you're good enough to get into the band, but every other musician within the band is better than you. It lifts your game up if you surround yourself by those people who are smarter than you, more creative than you, just better than you at whatever it is that you're flat out doing.
Starting point is 00:19:31 And I'm curious, and law 10 is about avoiding the unhappy and unlucky. So it's almost the opposite of that to say steer clear of those people that could potentially bring you down. Can you expand more on that? Well, every law has two sides to it. So the other half of the law that you just talked about is, okay, avoid the unlucky and unfortunate and associate with people who are brilliant, who have discipline, who have things that you can absorb. I talk in mastery and all of my books really about how we absorb the energy of other people. It's not something conscious. It's the animal part of our nature.
Starting point is 00:20:11 We absorb their emotions, their moods, their weaknesses, their strengths. And so what I'm talking about in that law is not avoiding people who are unfortunate. That's a total misinterpretation. And if you read it, there's nowhere in there that I say that. people who've suffered because of bad circumstances for no fault of their own. We should help them. We should give them money. We should do whatever we can to be charitable.
Starting point is 00:20:40 I'm talking about those drama queens and kings out there. Those people who are always raising mischief in the world. They're perennially unhappy to satisfied complainers, whiners. They're always blaming other people. oh my God, the world hates me. You know, this person and that person has ruined me, blah, blah, blah. And if you look closely, you see that, in fact, their life is full of this drama, and they create it. They won't admit it.
Starting point is 00:21:10 They'll never admit it. But, and I'm saying they're different types. There are people who are genuinely have suffered and have been the victim. But I'm talking about this other species, and I think we've all met them, where they create their own madness. and they like to infect people with their bad energy. And that bad energy can be negativity. It can be always finding something wrong with other people. It can be never taking responsibility for their own actions.
Starting point is 00:21:44 And I studied a lot of history and I've known this in my own life. All it takes is one person that you let in your life like that to ruin you for several years and to extricate yourself because they're good at emotionally involving you in things if you're not careful. Because let's say if it's a romantic relationship, the woman could be very exciting and interesting and full of drama and it kind of pulls you in. And then you realize it's too late and she's like this infecting type. Damn, it takes you years to get out of her grips. These are people you've got to learn to avoid. But on the other hand, as you rightly say, you want to find out those people with the opposite energy, those people who will challenge you.
Starting point is 00:22:31 As you say, those who are more skilled than you, you will find yourself trying to up your game. If you are of that nature, some people will be intimidated by being around people who are superior to them and they'll go and cower and feel worse and their self-esteem will suffer. If you feel relatively strong, I think that's a very wise thing to do. You just also want to associate with people who have a good attitude who are relatively positive. They're not polyanish, but Ryan talks about it in his book, The Obstacle is the Way. People who are able to rise above adversity, who have risen above adversity. It's not that you just hear what they have to say and listen to their advice, just absorbing their strong. resolute energy is really positive. And so just think of this in these general terms. You pick up the
Starting point is 00:23:31 energy of the people around you. It's like a disease. It's like a virus. And you have the power to inoculate yourself from bad viruses, bad attitudes by disassociating yourself. If your boss happens to be one of these people, okay, you can't necessarily. I don't necessarily quit. But you can create emotional distance, and I talk in the book about that, and so you don't have to let them get under your skin. How would you do that? That's probably the top email I get, Robert. Oh, well, I mean, you probably get it too.
Starting point is 00:24:06 Well, I do get it, and I'd say, you know, I could talk hours about it, but there's a meme out there. It's been around for years of the psychotic boss. And the psychotic boss is basically someone with no matter what you do, you can't. please them. They'll criticize you and praise you for seemingly the same thing. And you're always worried about what you say or do. You can't seem to figure out what it is that will actually please them. And the thing you have to do is you have to very slowly inch by inch, like we were talking about earlier, about little habits of patients, inch by inch, you have to create some distance. So, for instance, because I can't go into the full panoply of ideas here, but for instance,
Starting point is 00:24:54 you have to see the other person as very weak and childish. I tell people, I counsel people, try to imagine this really surly psychotic 45-year-old boss as a child. Literally picture him, if it's a man, as an eight-year-old, as a screaming, tantrum-throwing five-year-old. that's essentially what he is. Do that, do that day and day out. It's not that you're going to reveal like you disrespect them because they'll pick that up and then, boy, you'll be in trouble. Just inwardly, they're out of control.
Starting point is 00:25:32 They have a problem. In fact, I can even pity them for being so miserable. I talk in the book about one person who did that with Stalin, who could, obviously, you're not going to get away from Joseph's, Stalin, he's the dictator of Russia or the Soviet Union, but he did things like he pictured, this is maybe a little too far, but he pictured Stalin sitting on the toilet, you know, things like that that humanized him, infantilized and made him seem like a child and not so terrifying is one particular strategy.
Starting point is 00:26:10 You know, other things that are a little harder. I mean, that's something very simple. A little thing that are harder is when they're getting under your skin. they're rattling you, they're angry, you train yourself to never react. They feed off of your looking upset. They literally are trying to get under your skin. And when they notice that you're pissed off or angry or doing whatever, they've got a victory. And if you can demonstrate to them that you're not being affected, it completely messes their game
Starting point is 00:26:42 and they'll probably start leaving you alone. It's not easy to do, but it's the kind of thing where you have to work slowly where you never react. You don't go back and start stewing on your cubicle or whatever. You train yourself to say, wow, that guy's an idiot. He's out of control. He's a child. I'm distancing myself. Those are two things that I can tell you about.
Starting point is 00:27:06 Interesting. Do you changing, shifting gears a little bit, do you think President Trump has read the 48 laws of power? Well, you know, not to get too political here. I'm not a Trump supporter. I voted for Hillary, and I'm quite frankly, find him a very, very bad leader on many ways. I don't say that from a subjective point of view. I say it as someone who's evaluated leaders over many years. And he does not exemplify what we're talking about, the self-discipline, the self-control,
Starting point is 00:27:40 the controlling of your tongue of what you say. of concealing your intentions. He's a real open book, a person like Putin. And I've dealt with people who have met with Putin and who have had to deal with him on a one-on-one basis. Now, that is a tough guy. That's an intimidating in control. I don't approve of his methods far from it. But he is a very manipulative, very powerful person and very intimidating.
Starting point is 00:28:11 the kind of person who thinks that they can yell and bully and intimidate is actually full of great weaknesses. And you'll see this in football coaches or sports coaches in any sport. That leader or coach who's always yelling at his players, they start tuning him out and they pick up the fact that there's something kind of weak about him. it makes, you know, it makes on the media level people go, wow, what a strong guy, what a bully, you know, he's, he's threatening personally the leader of North Korea. But anybody who has happened. I don't think people think, I don't know, I personally. Well, some people, there was an article in the New York Times recently about some people who were his supporters. I mean, it just, to me, it's like a football team or an insecure boss.
Starting point is 00:29:02 As my friend Brady Pippenga would say, they're just voicing. their insecurities. That's what it means. That's what it sounds like to me. Exactly. And we pick that up as weakness. And you're noticing very tellingly, I think, that senators now in his own party realize that he's weak and they're starting to push back. It's this whole notion that we've, that's a skewed notion of what authority is. I tell you I'm writing about that right as we speak. that being bullying and intimidating and doing what he's doing right now
Starting point is 00:29:40 with his own team of people that that's masculine and strong and it's exactly exactly the opposite and I've maintained I mean a Bill Belichick he can erupt I know people who've dealt with him but mostly that guy's like a sphinx
Starting point is 00:29:59 you never know what the hell that guy's thinking he very rarely yelled When he does yell, boy, does it have impact, he's completely in control of himself. And when you go up to him, you're, you know, you have nothing but respect. That is like a true or Phil Jackson in basketball. That's a true authority figure. And Trump, my book, completely divorcing it from politics, is very weak on that scale. There's a few laws, though, which led me to believe that either he read it or somebody, although I'm not sure he reads much.
Starting point is 00:30:32 You know, I guess I forgot your question. So I'll pull out some of the laws, and there's definitely other ones. I know what you're going to say, but go ahead. You probably can guess. So I'll just pick a few. So law number six is, and I'll go through a few of them, and then I love to get your response. So law number six is court attention at all costs. Law number 17 is keep others in suspended terror, cultivate an air of unpredictability.
Starting point is 00:30:58 And then law number 26, which this might have been during the campaign, is, play on people's need to believe to create a cult-like following. I think that's 27. Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry. You're right. Wait. That's all right.
Starting point is 00:31:13 Impressive. Well, yes, you're very good. There might be even one more, but that would be three of his strongest ones. You're very right. Certainly law number six is his most brilliant one of all because I've never known one person who can so dominate the media or people's attention spans. It's all anybody can think about. It's all anybody can talk about. He's definitely a master of that. And he mastered it through years of experience, through knowing how to play the media and through his television show, The Apprentice.
Starting point is 00:31:50 So he's really good at it. I will not doubt that. I don't think he needed to read my book about that because it's the PT Barnum law and he's been practicing it well before the 48 laws of power came out in the 80s and in the all in up into the mid 90s. So the problem with that strategy is that he's only six months into his presidency and it's not like the apprentice where we see him once a week on our television screens or however often. This is like every night, every day and it can wear on people and people are going to get damn tired of how much attention he's courting. So I think he's exhausting the limits of that law. The unpredictability law is something he's also very good at.
Starting point is 00:32:38 It's something I'm going to be talking about soon in another interview. I'm going to be giving shortly. It's his style of leadership. It's the divide and conquer style where the people working for him never know whether he likes them or dislikes them. whether he's on their side or against them. He plays one person off another. The problem with that is it can work in a small company.
Starting point is 00:33:03 It could work in his business world. It obviously did. But it doesn't build teams. It doesn't build people who want to work together. You've got three or four generals now, and they're not forming a team of people who are necessarily working together. And what will happen is when you face a crisis, which he hasn't really yet, like a Katrina,
Starting point is 00:33:28 those people are not going to be operating like a team because they're so terrified, they're so thinking about their own agendas, they're not learning to work together all on the same side that you're going to see a lot of chaos from within. So he applied, he might have read that law. He might have got the book. He's not somebody who reads a lot,
Starting point is 00:33:51 but he's not applying it in a very, smart way. And he definitely created a cult-like following. That's probably his most brilliant strategy. I mean, look at it this way. He's a billionaire whose closest friends are all millionaires and billionaires who work on Wall Street. And he's filling his cabinet with Goldman Sachs people. And yet he managed to sell himself as a man of the people.
Starting point is 00:34:21 Now, a man who can sell that is a pretty insanely good salesman, and he did it by creating a cult-like following with a brilliant marketing slogan of Make America Great Again. Now you can just call it Maga, and you've got shirts and t-shirts and the whole thing. Yeah, he created a cult-like following. So these are three laws that are definitely used for powerful effect. but they're going to bite him in the end because he doesn't have the way he's not able to control the very things that brought him to power. And I'll tell you, this is a very, to take this away from the realm of politics for a moment and just into power, this is a very common theme in business. You'll find a person who gets, who founds a company or who rises from within a company because he or she's aggressive. They're a great salesman.
Starting point is 00:35:19 they know how to push people around, all skills that can get them to the top. But when you're on the top, you suddenly have to change into a manager. You have to learn how to manage people. And they all have egos and they all have insecurities. And a lot of people who are aggressive and get to the top are really bad at managing large groups of people. And they can't adapt to their new power position. It's the common thing of a great salesman in a brokerage firm who now becomes an executive and is just absolutely hopeless at the job because all they've known is being aggressive and pushing people around. We could probably go on to that topic for another hour.
Starting point is 00:36:03 But another aspect of your work that I love. And I know you basically you talked to me about mastery before we hit record. And I love the thought of trying to master specific topics and a great mentor of mine also years ago told me that when they're looking to hire people, this is a leader of a big company. When they're looking to hire people, they want people who have had success in multiple life categories, meaning that they've been able to duplicate their success. They've been able to master maybe being a college football player and then being a sales professional and then leading other people. If they're able to master multiple areas and multiple life categories, is that the chance for duplication and whatever it is that they're hired to do is increased greatly. And I agree. And so when it comes to mastery, you have literally written the book
Starting point is 00:36:56 on this. And I'm curious about you, because you've called yourself a master of strategy and strategic thinking. And you've mastered that through your research and through your writing. What was it that led you to this specific topic when it's a grand, grand word? word to use is say, I want to understand how people master specific topics. Well, it's a long and winding path. You know, I'm not a young man. I'm 58, but, and I spent many years in the wilderness after I graduated college. I knew I wanted to be a writer.
Starting point is 00:37:34 I knew if I was a kid I wanted to write. And I've always been very observant about people. I don't know where that comes from, but I've always liked to sort of get behind the mask that people present you. And I've also, since I was a kid, I love strategy. I read devoured books. I remember when I was eight years old, I ordered about 20 books on World War II and just like devoured them.
Starting point is 00:37:58 And I always was fascinated by the strategic side in sports. So, you know, I'd be watching a football game with my dad when I was very young and he'd be getting all excited about, you know, this incredible play and watch like UCLA games. And I go, well, yeah, but I mean, what does that mean? Where did that idea come from? I've never seen that kind of play pulled off that way. And I was always fascinated by the mental side of sports. But, you know, so as I'm getting older, I'm trying my hand at writing.
Starting point is 00:38:30 I tried journalism. I didn't like it. I tried writing novels. It didn't work. I tried going into Hollywood. I'm from Los Angeles, working in the film business. that wasn't a good match. And then finally I met a man in 1996.
Starting point is 00:38:48 I was kind of miserable. I was depressed. I was already like 35 years old. I was kind of wondering where I'm going with my life. I haven't figured it out what I'm supposed to do. But in the meantime, I've traveled all around the world. I lived in Europe for six years, seven years. I've worked 80 different jobs.
Starting point is 00:39:05 My girlfriend and I counted at one point. I've done a lot of things. And I've been developing very major writing skills, but I couldn't figure it out. And this man asked me, I met a book producer one day in 1995, and he asked me if I had an idea for a book. And just out of nowhere, this one of those weird moments in life, the idea that would turn into the 48 laws of power just kept suddenly spewing out of me from all of my experiences
Starting point is 00:39:35 in life and all the weird power situations I had witnessed. And I gave him a couple other ideas. is for books, but he said, no, no, that idea there about power, that's a great idea. I'm going to pay you to live while you write half of this book, and then we're going to sell it. We'll be partners on it. And it worked for two reasons. It worked, first of all, because I was desperate to make it. I knew I knew I was like, in one of my books I called Death Ground. You're on death ground. Cortez is in Mexico. He only has 500 men. He's going to conquer all of Mexico. And the only way to do it is to burn the ships that got them there so that his soldiers have no way of retreating.
Starting point is 00:40:24 And that's either win or die. That's death ground. And that's what I was on. I'm either make this book work or I just go down. So A, I was motivated. And B, it was in my wheelhouse. I had accumulated years of observing people, seeing power moves, particularly in Hollywood, seeing manipulations, and it just fit. And so I just ran with it since then. I realized it worked. I've, you know, learned, I kind of changed gears a little bit with mastery and sort of wanting to, I had studied so many powerful people in, I, since power came out,
Starting point is 00:41:03 I consulted with athletes who were. pretty well known with business leaders with CEOs. I served on the board of directors of a large company. I dealt with politicians. I observed a lot of people and what I felt led to their mastery of their field. And so I felt qualified to write a book on a subject, I think, is very important because I think we've lost touch a lot of us with this sort of common sense idea of how to make things in the world, how to build a business, how to build, make a product, how to write a book, how to construct something.
Starting point is 00:41:44 We're too, I don't know what it is. I discuss in the book, I have a theory about why we've lost that skill set. But I wanted to really pound it into you how you can master a field and start building things and start developing a real solid base of power. So all of my books are really stem from, you won't know it because I never talk about myself in any of my books, but all of them are based on years of experience and also bad experience. I violated a lot of the 48 laws of power before I wrote the book, just to give an example, never outshine the master, law number one. I outshone probably two, maybe three masters before I wrote the book and I was fired each time. So all of the books are based on a lot of learning the hard way about life. What's it, one, I just can't help but ask. What's it like hearing some of your work quoted by in songs by like Jay-Z, Kanye, Drake, or reading about the fact that Fidel Castro has been influenced by,
Starting point is 00:42:54 I mean, that's pretty insane from a guy who self-proclaimed was kind of lost and depressed. and you spew this out with, I mean, for the people who are listening who have not read it, just the immense amount of research that had to go into your work is I can't even imagine the process, which is a whole other conversation. But what's it like when you hear the impact and the influence that you have over some of the not only leaders of countries, regardless if it's for good or bad, as well as these rap moguls? Well, it's very humbling. I'm very gratified.
Starting point is 00:43:30 It's very flattering. I really like it when athletes talk about how the book has helped them because I'm a sports junkie. But I also really appreciate, I love rap music, so I also find that very exciting. You know, I find that more exciting than the CEO of a company, to be honest with you. It was very humbling because I came to success late in life. not you know book came out when I was already I guess 38 didn't really take off to maybe 39 pushing 40 so when you get success late in life you can't help but be kind of humble you know you went through decades of of wondering about yourself so you don't it's
Starting point is 00:44:17 harder to have a big ego at that point maybe if I had the success when I was 25 it would have probably gone to my head and I would have made some terrible mistakes It's very humbling, but I must say I also get real satisfaction from emails. I've collected them over the years from people who, or everyday people, who said, you know, I use this book to found a business. Now I'm making six, seven figures a year. I wanted to thank you. Or I use this to help get out away from a terrible job.
Starting point is 00:44:51 And I found my life's task. in ways that's almost the most satisfying of all because the athletes and the rappers and all that they've got success now and they've got good things happening for the most for the most part but these are people who life's hard
Starting point is 00:45:11 we know life's hard and it's ruthless out there and the book has helped them that makes me feel that's the best feeling of all actually when thinking about mastery So you hear the phrase it's very common that, you know, follow your passion and people should do that. But then I've talked to other people specifically on this podcast like Cal Newport or you hear Mark Cuban talking about this, that your passion will follow you. And so for example, I'll share my own story and how I think passion followed what I did.
Starting point is 00:45:47 I was all only passionate about playing football. That's all I did. It was growing up high school and got a college scholarship, played in college and played a little bit after. college and that's all I really cared about. And once I was told that I wasn't good enough to play that anymore, I had to transition to something else. And I moved on to the profession of selling, of sales, at a job at a big company. It was a great job. And I found out that I could use some of that same work ethic that led me to have some success on the football field and do the same thing and work. And I developed a huge passion for that work because I noticed that
Starting point is 00:46:19 people who seemed to work the hardest who got most who were most strategic who were creative who maybe put an extra time on Saturday and Sunday when other people weren't working like I did when I played football had the most success and I think my passion followed me into that and what are your thoughts when it comes to mastery and passion how you can become passionate and master a topic that maybe going into it you didn't really think was something you were all that passionate about Well, to some extent, I would disagree with you. I'm loathe to disagree with you.
Starting point is 00:46:55 Please do. I think it makes a better conversation. I see the partial wisdom in that, in that sometimes you don't know what it is that you really are intent, what you were intended to do in life. You think it's one thing and it ends up being something else. So when you're young, particularly in your 20s, it pays to have an open mind. and to try different ventures, and then something will click. But it just as easily could have happened that you left football, you got into sales because you needed to make money, and you saw that other people were doing well at it and you could do well at it, but you didn't really like it.
Starting point is 00:47:39 It didn't connect to you in some elemental, fundamental way because you're not an extrovert. You're not a salesman type. and you would have burned out at some point. You would have tuned out. It's pure science. There's no magic or woo-woo about this. The human brain does not learn at an accelerated rate unless the emotions are engaged, unless we want to learn, unless we're excited. Then we focus.
Starting point is 00:48:09 Then we pay attention. So you were open. You tried your hand at salesmanship, and it clicked. and you liked it. There was something you liked about it. It did connect to something passionate and exciting about you. It's not that it followed your, I forget your wording. It's that you attacked life with an open spirit saying,
Starting point is 00:48:33 I'm going to try different things and see what works. And it worked. And it could very well have been it didn't work. And that happens to people. I know plenty of people who get into sales after some other career. and they burn out and they hate it. I have in the book, the example of the great boxing trainer, Freddie Roach,
Starting point is 00:48:54 whom I interviewed for, Masary. He was a boxer who was not terribly successful, professional boxer, took a lot of punches and was basically finished at the age of 26. Like you, like with football, boxing was his whole life. And then he tried different jobs. He tried telemarketing. He hated it.
Starting point is 00:49:14 He became an alcoholic. He was spiraled. downward. And then he happened to venture into another boxer's training facility and hung around. And he started coaching a few boxers or giving them advice. And suddenly it clicked. He wasn't meant to be a boxer. He was meant to be a teacher. He had accumulated all of this wisdom and knowledge, but he had taken too many punches. And he wasn't really that good at it. but he had so much experience and he loved teaching. He didn't like sales.
Starting point is 00:49:47 He didn't like telemarketing. He loved teaching and he discovered it. So you're going to discover if you have an open spirit, hopefully if you're younger, because if you're in your 40s, your options start narrowing and it's harder to do this. But if you're younger and you try that and you try a couple things, you're probably going to eventually hit upon what I call your life's task. and it has to emotionally connect to you. There's a great book, I don't have the title of it.
Starting point is 00:50:17 I think it's the five frames of mind. Howard Gardner, I believe, is the writer. He basically says there are five forms of human intelligence. One of them is kinetic, which has to do with movement in sports. Another one will be having to do with math and patterns, which is actually even related to music. Another would be with words, et cetera. He has five of them.
Starting point is 00:50:41 generally our brain will have a propensity, a tendency to be good at one of them, sometimes two, very rarely three. We have a natural tendency to veer just one particular form of intelligence. And that we need to play to our wheelhouse. We need to play to where we're good at and what we love. And clearly sales and then leading into podcasts, which is, you know, can be a form of salesmanship connected to you. you and you found it and you found it because you had an open spirit. That's to me more than just, you know, doing something and making sure you'll be successful at it. It's more about exploring and finding what connects. That's to me the real lesson. I would say so a great exercise
Starting point is 00:51:31 too that that's for people listening, I think. It's called just Noah Kagan. You might know Noah because he's friends with Ryan and Holiday. But he says, you know, what's your best day ever, dude? That's how he says exactly. And we like write it down together. And part of my best day ever is obviously spending a time with my wife and children. However, I would absolutely block out at least one hour of that best day ever to record a podcast with a thoughtful leader like Robert Green.
Starting point is 00:52:06 And so I would say podcast. for me, and I'm glad you brought this up and had like, we had like a minor disagreement, although I think it's, you just did a better job of explaining it than I did. But I, I'm glad that you did because this, to me, of doing this, I hope people can tell and based on the emails I get, I think they can, that I, I love it so much. And just to get the chance to, uh, approach each conversation with some of my heroes with a, with a curious mind. And I can learn so much in the span of an hour. But it's usually I learn a lot more from just the preference. And then after the then during the talk and then after the talk I can learn so much more because I listen to it
Starting point is 00:52:44 Multiple times and take notes and then share it and then it impacts other people in a positive way. So I think I feel like That is something that my mind was a little bit nervous about when I got started, but now I just look forward to it literally more than anything I do When it comes to having these these conversations with incredible people like yourself, man. Well, well, thank you very much and you're obviously very good at this, but what I would say say is I've been on well over probably by now a thousand podcasts, I believe, or certainly well over that for interviews. And I can tell you that a lot of people who do it, their heart isn't really in it. They're kind of going through the motions. They found it. It's a way to make some money or whatever, and it's kind of an easy life and they can do it out of their house. And man,
Starting point is 00:53:29 right away, I know. I know I'm dealing with someone who didn't really do their homework. They're only 50% into it. Maybe they started out enthusiastic, but it's been two years. And, you know, years now and it's starting to get burn out. You can feel it in their tone of voice. You can feel it in the questions they ask. And you know, the audience feels that the audience will start feeling it. The person isn't really connecting. They're not really doing their homework. So when you bring your own level of excitement to it as, you know, you're talking to me about podcasting, and I believe you very much, it'll translate into success up and down the line because, first of all, your shows will be a lot better because you're putting effort into it and then be the audience senses that
Starting point is 00:54:15 you're getting excited and so it's just sort of it's that infection thing it it it infects people with your own uh your own enthusiasm and go ahead and jo know just to add one thing to it and you can't let that go the moment you feel that slip you got to try something else i know for each book that i write i don't i change the subject each time. I approach it now. Like, I've got a challenge. I've got to reach my audience. I'm on, I'm at ground zero again. The moment you start getting kind of bored, your work is really going to start suffering for it. Yeah. And to go along with that, I have to bring this up because it's, it's one topic that's top of mind for me, another parallel. But one of the, one of the ways I think
Starting point is 00:55:04 you develop mastery is through repetition. I've always been a. guy, whether it was taking all the reps during football practice, watching the film, getting mental reps, or doing a podcast of doing hundreds and hundreds of interviews, which has made me, I hope, made me better each and every time. But one of the groups of people that you talk about is the Wright brothers. And there is an incredible book. I'm in the middle of it now by David McCullough. It's called The Wright Brothers. And you write about the fact of their mechanical intelligence And Wilbur was writing the Smithsonian Institution requesting all information on aeronautics and flying machines, as they used to be called, because he knew the key to building anything right was getting those reps, those repetitions. So I love before here we take off that the one, I got to get in the Wright Brothers story when it comes to mechanical intelligence.
Starting point is 00:55:58 Especially, I'm a Dayton, Ohio guy. They're from Dayton, Ohio. So that along with the fact of your work, I love that you covered it. And I'm right in the middle of this book as we record this podcast. And they had a bicycle store in Tokyo. That's where they started out, and that's where their mechanical genius was developed. These are the early years of bicycles, mind you. And they were making new models of bicycles that were well ahead of their time.
Starting point is 00:56:24 In fact, they came up with some bicycle invention. I don't remember what it was. I don't know if it dealt with the gears or whatever that was literally some 20 years ahead of their time. And, yeah, reps are, because it has to do with how the brain operates. And we can all relate to that, particularly when we were younger, if you're learning a, I don't know, dance or a sport or whatever.
Starting point is 00:56:48 The more you do it, the more you kind of confidence and sort of neural pathways are formed. You can repeat it. And now you don't have to think when you're doing it. And I remember the story that I think is similar to what you're talking about that I used in mastery. I interviewed a jet fighter pilot. I've always been kind of awed by jet fighter pilots,
Starting point is 00:57:14 particularly men who fought during the Korean War, et cetera. Flying a jet at such high speeds and dealing with a dogfight is just an insanely specialized skill set. And so I interviewed a man who was considered one of the last American eight. He downed several enemy planes during the first Gulf, the first war in the Gulf. And he, his name was Caesar Rodriguez. Yeah, the process. Yeah, and he was in jet fighter pilot school, they had what are called Golden Boys, who were just had a gift for it and were naturals, and he was not one of them.
Starting point is 00:58:00 He was nervous. He would sweat like a pig in the car. cockpit. They're very hot, very kind of unpleasant circumstances with the shaking and everything. It just made him very uncomfortable. And he was really at the low end of his class. And by hook and by crook, he ended up graduating like second in his class, an insane feat. Basically, because he remembered he was a football player in high school. He's very short. He was maybe five, six or so. And he played quarterback for his team in Puerto Rico where he grew up. And they ran a wishbone. And he sort of was a running quarterback. And he wasn't very good at that when he started. He was sort of a nimble runner,
Starting point is 00:58:46 but he was small and he got beaten up a lot. And he did reps. Reps is what saved me. I was out there practicing when everybody else had given up. I was in the weight room when everyone else stopped. I just put myself, I got used to getting hit. Reps, reps, reps, reps. And finally he became a pretty damn good quarterback. And when he was at fighter pilot school, he kept thinking back there going, okay, I just got to do the same thing. I learned that through repetition, I became a pretty good quarterback. All right, through working with the, I forget what the word is,
Starting point is 00:59:22 the kind of the test thing that you have, the monitor where you practice your piloting skills on. I'd forget the word. He just spent endless hours. A simulator. The simulator. Thank you very much. He spent triple the hours that anybody else did.
Starting point is 00:59:41 And eventually he was far surpassed the Golden Boys. And I describe Ambassador why that works. You develop confidence. You no longer have to think in the moment. You can now start thinking about other things. Your body now your mind is freed up. You don't have to think about steering or whatever it is. And you can start thinking about other things.
Starting point is 01:00:02 You don't have to think about getting hit. You can think about the field and where your receivers might be. And you can think ahead of the other team a little bit. Repetition is what does it for you, you know, writing so many books and dealing with the pain of it. Year after year, I've learned a lot of lessons. There's no substitution for repetition. But a thing of it is is it's painful. It's boring.
Starting point is 01:00:25 It's tedious. How do you overcome the tedium of practice and the pain of it? Well, you have to love it. You have to embrace it. have to realize that workout is kind of sweaty and unpleasant, but man, you feel good afterwards. You keep repeating something and you get good at it. It pays off with a very powerful sensation of self-mastery and also it's fun. Man, I don't have to think anymore. I can now go on to another level. That's, instead of thinking in terms of immediate pleasures and video games, if you start
Starting point is 01:01:00 thinking of long-term pleasures, like the pleasure you get after working out for several months, that's how you have to reorient your brain. As JJ Redick said, you have to trust the process. Yeah, exactly. And I know you write about that as well in mastery. Robert, I know we went a little long, but one more question is just, so let's say, you get these same emails. They're a little different in the fact that you've had millions and millions of readers in there thanking you. And so I have some similar ones, but then people also usually have an ask and it's some
Starting point is 01:01:34 sort of advice. And if, let's say somebody's in the earlier stages of their career and they say, Robert, I'm looking to build my career and have a happy life as I do it. What, I know that's very broad, but I'm doing that intentionally because I want to leave it wide open for you. If you get a question from an inquisitive, thoughtful, younger person who says, Robert, I'm curious as to what your advice would be that you have more years than me. You have wisdom. You have wisdom. You've done a ton of research, you've written some of the, literally the greatest text of all time. What advice would you give to that person to fulfill that goal?
Starting point is 01:02:11 Well, you have to realize that, you know, you were born in this world. It's not a religious thing, but you're born in this world for a purpose. You have something unique about you. It's literally true in the sense that you're DNA. And I'm talking to that person that you're telling you about because I've done this. people one-on-one. There's literally something that no one else has.
Starting point is 01:02:33 It's the way your brain is wired, the way your DNA and your experiences in life. No one else has ever had your parents, your experiences. There's something unique about you. And people who have inevitably
Starting point is 01:02:47 succeeded in this world have somehow tapped into precisely what makes them different, what makes them unique. And it's hard because the world wants to make you into, you know, it's the cookie cutter mentality. You have tremendous pressure to be like other people to fit in, to conform, to fit into
Starting point is 01:03:09 the roles that people expect you to play. Oh, people are all saying that this is what's cool to do and you follow them. And you got to understand that you are going to have success in this life. You are going to found a really awesome business or whatever it is. If, if, if you follow this path. you cannot fail if you do this. But the thing is you've got to start, the younger, the better that you start. So it's not hopeless if you're in your 40s and there's a path that can be taken.
Starting point is 01:03:43 And look, I didn't get there until I was in my mid-30s. But you have to first visualize that fact. You have to be aware of that fact. You were meant to accomplish something in life. You have an unusual skill, an unusual, brain and to the degree that you will respect that and work with that, you will have success. Okay, so visualize that in 10 years. You will have that.
Starting point is 01:04:09 You will start, I always bring up to people who I talk to this way, I tell him about Steve Jobs. I mean, he's obviously a bit of a remarkable person and he had luck in his life, but damn, that guy was a weirdo. He was unique and he wasn't afraid of it. He knew how different he was. he loved gadgets and he loved design and he was going to follow that somewhere and it took him he had some pitfalls and some failures some terrible failures in life but he knew from very early on that he was going to make it okay you're going to make it you're going to be successful just let's visualize it for a moment all right maybe you don't know exactly what it is okay so you've got to be open you've got to be willing to look at yourself and see what is unique about you. And I have a whole process of delving into that. It's literally like digging, digging
Starting point is 01:05:04 into the dirt till we uncover something deep inside of you that's different and really excites you. And oftentimes we'll see it in your early childhood, like how I did when I bought those eight more books, sorry, more books than that on World War II. And I just got, wow, these are signs that there's something about you that's weird, that's different, that's unusual. and come out later in life, we'll find it. All right, now you've got to have, you've got to go through that adventurous process, your 20s, there's your time for adventure for having fun,
Starting point is 01:05:38 but having a certain kind of fun, trying things out, trying football, trying sales, trying podcasting, trying teaching, whatever it is. And it will resonate with you. But all along this path, and it's the path that I lay out in mastery,
Starting point is 01:05:55 you have to be patient, And you have to be developing skills and you have to be respecting that uniqueness. The moment you start falling under the idea that you just need to do what other people are doing, your business, let's say it is a business. It won't be any different from anything that's out there. And it might have some success, but it won't have great success. To the degree that nobody is creating what you're going to create, you're going to stand out, you're going to get attention.
Starting point is 01:06:25 And people are going to really, really connect to what you're going to. you're doing. You know, there are degrees to that. I'm not saying be this incredible total rebel or iconoclass because you can't do that in every aspect in life. But respect your uniqueness to the degree that you don't conform, that you look at yourself and what you're good at, and you visualize the power that you will have at some point, something great will happen. I have one example. I'm going to end this in a second, but there's one example in the book of Paul Graham, who's as brilliant man on many different levels, but he started out as a brilliant in computer science.
Starting point is 01:07:04 He studied at all the finest universities. He got very much into artificial intelligence, but he realized that this wasn't something quite right about it, and he didn't know what he was that he was really wanted to be. So he decided to go into painting and art, which is a total shift. And then he went off to Italy to art school. And then he came back to New York and he was living in a loft trying his painting. And he never gave up. He knew something was going to happen.
Starting point is 01:07:32 He had that, what I'm calling that, visualizing 10 years down the road, something great. And then one day he's in his dirty loft in Soho or wherever in New York. He's kind of poor and he's painting. And he hears on the radio, this is in the 90s, an ad for Netscape. And Netscape is going to be where people are going to be where people are going to to start buying things. The internet is going to be the new marketplace. And he go, wow, that's what a weird idea. And he thought, well, you know, I'm going to finally take all that computing skills I have and my design skills. And I'm going to design
Starting point is 01:08:08 a platform for this new frontier. And then he did that. He sold it to Yahoo for millions of dollars. He then took that money. And then he went to Silicon Valley and he founded Y Combinator and sold that for billions of dollars and the rest is history he knew that he was going to make it he had tremendous faith in himself but he couldn't figure it out and he kept trying his hand at different things and then finally it clicked that moment will come for you it'll click if you'd follow this path of believing in it trusting your weird and your uniqueness and developing skills it'll happen 28, 31, 31, 35, 36, but it'll happen. It's awesome, Robert.
Starting point is 01:08:56 Thanks so much for being here, man. I love it. I'd love to do it again in the future as well. Sure, sure. And particularly, I have a book, a new book. Yeah. When's it out? In a year.
Starting point is 01:09:08 Okay. A little over a year. Do you have a title yet? Well, it's a book on human nature. It's tentatively the laws of human nature, the laws of my drop out. It's just basically a book on human nature. And I'm taking chapter four in mastery, which is about social intelligence. And I'm expanding it into a full book.
Starting point is 01:09:27 And I'm showing you, you know, you're not going to succeed in life unless you know how to deal with people. Yeah. It's not a science. It's an art. The art of knowing people's nature and being able to read them and respond correctly. And I'm going to help you master that art by giving you a deeper knowledge of what makes people tick. So that's basically it. Well, we're definitely going to need to talk about that one, man.
Starting point is 01:09:51 For sure. I love that topic. And I appreciate you coming on this time. Is there somewhere you want to send my listeners to learn more about you online, a specific? My original website, which at some point I have to change a title, but it's power, seduction, and war. The and is spelled out. So power seduction and war.com. You know, my second book is The Art of Seduction, so that's where that fits it.
Starting point is 01:10:18 And the third is my book on the Strategies of War. So PowerSeduction and War.com, and that'll take you also to my mastery website. It's all kind of there together. Perfect. Well, thanks again, man. And look forward to us continuing this dialogue as we both progress. I look forward to it too. Thanks a lot, Ryan.
Starting point is 01:10:36 Great. Thanks, Robert. This episode of The Learning Leader Show is over, but we have plenty more to keep you locked in until next time. Head over to learningleadershow.com for more information and to request your favorite entrepreneur, CEO, world class athlete, or anyone else that inspires you. You can also talk to Ryan directly by reaching out to him on Twitter at Ryan Hawk 12. Thanks again and we'll see you next time on the Learning Leader Show. This episode is brought to you by my friends at Callaway Golf.
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Starting point is 01:11:53 Learning Leader show on Twitter or Instagram. So pull your favorite leadership quote that any of the greatest leadership minds over the last three years from the Learning Leader Show has said, quote them on Twitter or Instagram and tag my name at Ryan Hawk 12 at Ryan Hawk 1-2 on Twitter or Instagram. my team will gather all of the quotes, and you can enter as many times you like, the more times that you enter, the better chance you have of winning.
Starting point is 01:12:23 And over the course of a few months, we will gather them all, and then we will draw a random winner, and my friends at Callaway will send you the GB epic driver. Thank you so much. I look forward to seeing all of your great responses on Twitter and Instagram at Ryan Hawk 12.
Starting point is 01:12:38 And thank you to my friends at Callaway Golf.

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