The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - Robert Greene - The Laws Of Human Nature, Self-Love & Empathy, Narcissism, What Motivates Us, & Amor Fati

Episode Date: January 29, 2019

#166: Robert Greene is a New York Times Best-Selling author & speaker known for his books on strategy, power, and seduction. His most recent book the The Laws Of Human Nature turns to the most important subject of all – understanding people’s drives and motivations. In this episode we human nature, how to judge character, how to self examine our own biases, how positive and negative attitudes directly impact our lives, self awareness, and the impact social media has on our ability to impact our social cues and understanding of the people around us.  To connect with Robert Greene click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) For Detailed Show Notes click HERE  

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to The Skinny Confidential, him and her.

Aha! Him and her. That lower part of our nature that I said, we're taken in by appearances. We don't think. If someone is charming and smooth on the surface and they flatter us, we're won over, we're seduced by that. It's hard for us to say that the appearance that people give, the social self that they show, is deceptive. People don't reveal their flaws, their vulnerabilities, their neuroses to you when you meet them. They've spent their whole lives trying to disguise them from people and they've become very good at disguising it.

Hey, hey, hey, welcome back to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her podcast. That clip was from our guest of the show today, bestselling author Robert Greene. On this episode, we discussed the laws of human nature, how to judge character, how to self-examine our own biases, how positive and negative attitudes directly impact our lives, self-awareness, and the impact social media has on our ability to impact our social cues and understanding. If you're new to the show, grab a glass of rosé and listen in. You're going to love this episode. impact social media has on our ability to impact our social cues and understanding. If you're new to the show, grab a glass of rosé and listen in. You're going to love this episode.

I am Lauren Everts Bostic, the creator of The Skinny Confidential, which is a blog, a brand, and obviously a podcast. And I am Michael Bostic. I am a serial entrepreneur and brand builder, most recently the CEO of Dear Media, which is a podcast network focused primarily on female content and audiences. Welcome back, everybody. This is an exciting one for us. It's been about, it's almost been three years since we started this show. We started it out of our kitchen in our, actually, not kitchen, but living room. Terrible sound quality. Had no idea what we were doing. A hundred fights. A hundred fights.

800 interruptions. 800 interruptions. Bad vocals. Didn't know where this show was going to take us. We did it purely for the reason that we wanted to connect with an audience on a deeper level, provide viable content. And selfishly, we wanted to connect with some of our favorite people, entrepreneurs, authors. This episode is very special to me because I have been a fan of Robert Greene for a very long time.

I've read almost all of his books. They are some of my favorite books. And they are some of the books that have had some of the most impact on my life. What's your favorite book that he wrote? I think his first one, The 48 Laws of Power, but also Mastery is a second. It's a close second. And you know what, honestly, this most recent book, The Laws of Human Nature is extremely good as well, which, you know, if you listen to this interview, you see how deep we get into it. His books are insane, guys. If you haven't checked them out, you have to. I tagged his Instagram handle in my stories. I'll tag it under the book highlight too for you. So you can

just swipe up and check it out. He is probably one of the smartest people I've ever met. I was nervous. He is one of the only, and I can say this without shame, one of the only guests that we have interviewed where I have actually had butterflies in my stomach and I was nervous. And I kind of, when you listen to the interview, you have to, you hear me get my footing in the beginning because like I said, we've just been such a big fan of his work. I've been, you know, reading his work for so long that it was just, it was almost surreal to meet him. And, you know, we were talking the other day to our godparents and and they brought up, they're a little bit older, and they brought up that a lot of people have side hustles these days. And Lauren and I are big fans of the side hustle. If you work

nine to five and you're maybe not happy and you're thinking about getting into a different career and going to a different space, there's nothing wrong with starting a side hustle. This podcast is a perfect example of a side hustle. We started this on a whim, like we said, after drinking margaritas down in Cabo. We said, hey, maybe we'd be good at that. Maybe we'd have fun doing that. And we did. And since then, people that we never thought we would get to meet or interview have been on this show. It's very surreal to sit across from somebody that you don't think you'll ever meet and you don't think you'll ever know. And all of a sudden, you're across, you're interviewing, it all stems from a side hustle. And then from this side hustle,

you know, now we have Dear Media representing currently 27 shows. And it's just amazing what can happen when you take a couple steps forward and see, you know, hey, let's make the best of this. The Skinny Confidential also started as a side hustle. So if you have a side hustle idea, we highly recommend taking action and executing it. I also think it's incredible to be able to have Robert Green on this podcast and not only to selfishly connect with him for ourselves, recommend taking action and executing it. I also think it's incredible to be able to have Robert Greene on this podcast and not only to selfishly connect with him for ourselves, but also I think a lot of you are going to want to run and download his books after this interview, because that is how interesting he really is. So to touch briefly again on side hustles,

like, you know, we've interviewed so many high performers on this show and constantly time and again, they start out and they say, you know, I just kind of started taking a couple first steps. I figured, hey, let me try this. Let me see if I can get this first step done. It led to a second step, third step. So if you're sitting out there and you're wondering, how do I start a side hustle and how do I go into a new space? The answer is stop thinking from A to Z, think A to B. What is the very first thing you can do? What is the second thing you do? Start building momentum. And before you know it, just like this show, it turns into something larger.

Michael and I are huge fans of launching fast and adjusting accordingly. We think it's really important to just pull the trigger, rip the bandaid off, and then slowly grow as the audience grows. I always say, you know, look back at, if you look back at the skinny confidential, the first site that I launched was atrocious. I mean, it wasn't atrocious, but it was just very elementary and not high level at all. But the point was, is that I really made it my mission, uh, to provide quality sound content to you guys without, um, having an intention to monetize right away. And I think

that that really came through. So I think if your intentions in the right place, your executions in the right place, you have passion, you're kind of baking a cake, right? It's that formula. It'd be interesting if you could go back if you have screenshots of your old site. But one thing and it pains me to mention this to the audience, especially for those that are new and haven't gone back this far, going back to our very early episodes and seeing, you know, how painful some of those early ones were, how we were trying to get our footing, the sound quality, the way we spoke, the way we interviewed. It's constantly a work in progress. So if you're thinking about starting something, you know, you don't have to be an expert right away. You just have to launch and adjust as you go on. And you'll be surprised

at how much momentum you can get with a little bit of time and hard work. With that being said, New York Times bestselling author Robert Greene, his writings include works on the subjects of power, mastery, seduction, and most recently, human nature. His work has been read by world leaders, powerful CEOs, hip hop icons like Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Drake. The 48 Laws of Power is one of the most requested books in the American prison system. And his book Mastery provides an in-depth analysis with historical examples of how we can become masters of our craft. I highly recommend both. Each of his six books goes really deep and dives into the darkest spaces of human nature. They are extremely impactful, and unlike other books that you just read, these become books that you study. I wish we had a week to interview

Robert Greene, because we could just keep talking on and on and on. The subject of this podcast will cover topics in his most recent book, The Laws of Human Nature. With that, let's welcome Robert Greene to the podcast. This is The Skinny Confidential, him and her. In the studio with Robert Greene, one of my favorite authors. Robert, what were the nonverbal cues that Lauren was giving out or giving off when you walked in the room? Wow, you really put me on the spot. A little bit of nervousness. That's probably true. Probably from both of us. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I get that a lot of times. I don't know why, because I'm not a very threatening person. But because I wrote the 48

laws of power, people assume that I'm kind of this maniacal, very Machiavellian sort of amoral person. They're a little bit worried and intimidated. I don't know if that was it, they're a little bit worried and intimidated i don't know if that was it but just a little bit of nervousness but nothing very pleasant very open you know definitely nervousness well you're an intimidating person and and not a and not a negative way by the way positive i think it's just because maybe you dove into the the human psyche in such a deep level that when you come into the room with people like, okay, what is he picking up about me? What is he reading? Yeah, that's true. That's true. I mean, just picking up on a little of that nervousness right away.

Like you can see that kind of stuff. So somebody who's a fan of your work and read your work, knowing that you've studied this so much, that's what I think is a little bit nerve wracking. I have. Nerve wracking. Yeah. Relax. It's going to be all right.

Can I have a Xanax, Taylor? So we were talking earlier you know we actually had to postpone this interview um yeah we got your we got an advanced copy of your book early on we were going to do it right when the book was coming out but you you recently suffered a stroke and um we were we were really worried i was personally because i was like i what if there's no more robert green books that's nice. So what happened and what did that, what was that, what's that experience taught you so far? Well, it's obviously taught me a hell of a lot.

It was probably this book contributed to the stroke, the stress of it, because I was working really hard for about five years, nonstop, birthdays, Christmas. I was working really hard on it because it was a difficult book and I really wanted to nail it. And in August, you know, everything seemed fine. I was getting ready for the publicity tour and I was driving in a car with my wife and she suddenly saw that I was acting very strange and nearly hit another car and she pulled me over and called 911 and they rushed me to the hospital. Basically, she saved my life. Because if they hadn't gotten me that quickly, I would have had brain damage. There would have been no more books. And I probably would have gotten in a terrible

accident. So I'm very lucky to be alive. And since then, you know, I was in the hospital for a while. Basically, the left side of my body was extremely weak. So I'm someone who's very active and very independent. I don't like depending on other people for anything. And I'm basically thrust back into a situation of being like an infant, where I'm dependent on people to feed me, to clothe me, to shower me. It was humiliating and difficult. So I had to be very patient with myself and, you know, step back and realize it's going to be a process to get back to all my exercise and traveling. It's

going to take me months. I just have to calm down. You know, I spent like three months without ever leaving my house. And it was like cabin fever, you know, I was going crazy. So I've really had to kind of retrain and become very, very patient. And, you know, I can't measure my progress day by day, I have to measure week by week or month by month. So I've come a long way since a month ago. But in my mind, I'm already a month ahead, I really want to be at that place where I'm able to walk more quickly and do things. So it's been, it's really changed. You know, the other thing is I wrote in the book, the last chapter about having to deal

with your mortality, with the fact that you are going to die someday. And that obviously came right smack into my face. Did you write that chapter before this happened? Wow. Yes, I did. That's karma for you. Wow. So speaking of your writing, and we could, before we get into the meat of this interview,

I kind of, I wanted to talk about the way you write for those that are unfamiliar. One thing that I love about your writing is you use a lot of historical examples in your writing, which is sometimes a little bit different than most authors that write based on their perspective. You actually go into history and use all sorts of different examples to explain the outcomes of, you know, why things happen, why people turn out the way they did. How important is history to you? And how important are the lessons of history for the people listening? Well, I think it was Bismarck said that, you know, some people learn from their mistakes, but really smart people learn from the mistakes of other people. So history is filled with all kinds of lessons,

of cautionary tales of people who've done just terrible things and disasters ensued, terrible consequences that they didn't foresee. So I like to see, you know, I like to ground my work in reality and things that are very practical that you can grasp. And I tell stories because, first of all, I think I can seduce the reader. I'm big into seduction. I can seduce the reader to coming into my book and feeling entertained. People love to hear a story. So, I kind of entrance you by beginning

each chapter with a story from somebody from history. And hopefully the story is interesting in and of itself. So already, it's not just information, information, which could get kind of boring and irritating. I'm telling you a story. And in telling the story, I'm very aware of how that you're going to relate that to your personal life, you know? And how if I describe one of the great narcissists in history, a light bulb can go on in your mind and go, wow, that's my mother. Or, yeah, that's my sister or brother or whomever. So I love history. I've been studying it since I was a child. And I think the human drama of what people have gone through in the past, and all that they've learned from their own mistakes all our ancestors, everybody from all the cultures preceding us, they're part of us. They live inside of us.

You may not think of it this way, but things that happened hundreds of years ago are actually very much a part of your thinking right now. I talk in the book about ideas from the 13th century that changed our concept of love and how we looked at the opposite sex. We still have those views. So the past lives within us. And I'm trying to bring the past alive to you, the reader, so you can see how relevant it is to the present. One of the cores of your book is that we're not in control. Can you sort of elaborate on that for the audience? Well, we're in much less control than we think. You know, we walk around with our thoughts and we buy things during the day and we make decisions. And we have the idea that we're basically controlling it, that we're independent. And I want to make the point in this book that you're much less independent than you imagine. So for instance,

a simple thing like you go to the market and you buy these products and you don't buy other products. A lot of that has to do with marketing, things that you saw on television or heard on social media, and you don't even realize how it absorbed itself unconsciously into you and sort of influenced your decisions. You know, you buy a car because there's something about it that relates to your personality. And you're not aware of the kind of unconscious influences that marketing people are brilliant at. You don't realize how much your childhood is influencing what you're doing today. So you find that you know several years since 12 years you were 12 years old you've known Michael but you were attracted to him obviously for some very

good reason but you're not really aware you don't really know why you were attracted to him. Could you ever can you tell me why you are attracted to a particular individual? It's very hard to verbalize. And it could be the fact that they remind you of somebody from your childhood, a parent, or a father figure or a sibling that was very important to you. And you're not realizing that that reflection of that person is what's influencing your attraction or repulsion from a person. You could have been a child who had a father who was very kind of aggressive and abusive. And since then, you have problems with authority figures. And you're not aware when you're in the office that your resentment about your boss and how you

act passively, passive aggressively with him is actually something that's coming from your childhood. So all you add up all of these thousands of different little hidden influences within you. You're not realizing there's almost a stranger inside of you that's governing your behavior. And you're walking around almost in a daydream, not realizing all these factors that are influencing you in the present. Before we get into that, we need to talk about a real epidemic. This is an epidemic that I feel like affects everyone. It's when you're hangry, okay? Especially when your significant other is hangry, that's a whole nother epidemic. Michael's the main person in our relationship who gets hangry, so I tend to have snacks on hand at all times. I have snacks like

crackers, hummus, nut butters, and bars, okay? This is a great tip. Keep them in your purse. The bar that we're constantly traveling with and we keep going back to is keto friendly and filled with almond butter, cacao butter, grass fed collagen protein, organic cacao, almonds, and organic coconut oil, plus sea salt. This specific bar is by the company Perfect Keto. Okay. And they also have this mini nut butter packet, which is so great. If you're traveling, I just feel like it's great. If you're prepared, especially for your significant other, especially when they start to whine, you know what I mean? The keto way is becoming increasingly popular. You guys have seen it all over Instagram and it's such a fun way to get healthy fats in

while also nourishing the body with protein. There's 10 grams in this bar. There's also nine grams of fiber and three net carbs. It's the real hunger cure. You know what I mean? Especially if you're on the go. So our personal favorite flavor is by far the almond butter brownie. You could even pull the pieces apart and make them into little balls and add them to banana nice cream or even popcorn.

They also have a bunch of other flavors that are launching in February. You guys have to check it out. There's a new salted caramel and a lemon poppy seed flavor. Yum. For 30% off site-wide, visit perfectketo.com slash skinny and enter promo code skinny at checkout. Again, for 30% off site-wide, visit perfectketo.com slash skinny and enter promo code skinny at checkout. One of the things you touch on, talk about is, and a light bulb kind of went off from me when I first heard it, was that you say we are born animals and we have to learn to

become human. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? Yeah, it's sort of my take. It's after working on this book for so long, I like to say that we have a lower and a higher self. And I think everybody can relate to that. The lower self is sort of the animal part of our nature, and there's nothing wrong with the animal part of our nature. We are animals. We have to admit that. You know, we have a nature. We're like a dog or a cat or anything else. But that lower part of our nature, we sense it when we react, when we get very emotional, when we don't think, we just act and react to what people are doing.

When we take the path of least resistance, instead of working and gaining discipline, we slack off and we play video games and we smoke pot. And we don't develop sort of the discipline and skills that we need in life. It's the part of our nature that's the easiest thing for us to give into. And the higher self is something that all of us have known. For instance, if ever you've written a book, or you've done an album, or you created a project, or you started your new business, or you've created a great successful podcast like you guys, there's a sense of incredible pride and fulfillment. You've kind of overcome that tendency to always want to take the easy route. And you worked hard and you built something.

And there's a tremendous feeling of accomplishment. So that's the higher self. I say that's what's human about us. What's animal about us is that we have our senses, we react, we get very emotional. We want everything to be easy and pleasurable. The human side of us is the fact that we're able to think and be rational and take a step back and work with other people and not be so selfish and self absorbed. All of these things take effort to become a really a truly human. I make the first chapter in the book is the fact I want you to come to terms with the fact that you're not rational, that emotions are governing your behavior. And there's nothing wrong with that. Emotions are a beautiful thing. But to be able to stand back and not get emotional

and not react and think about the situation takes effort. To me, that's part of becoming human. It's like a goal. We're not, most of us are not quite fully human yet. It's something that it's an ideal for us. So self-awareness is a topic that reoccurs on the show. What do we need to know to be more self-aware? Me and Michael could learn a thing or two about that. Well, the most important thing to become self-aware is to realize that you're not self-aware, that you really don't know yourself as well as you think you do. And that is almost enough in of itself. Because naturally you assume, oh, I know who knows myself better than me. And I'm trying to tell you that there are

dark corners in your personality, things that you're not aware of. So just knowing that is a very important step. But the other thing is to question yourself. So if you, during the course of a day, feel like angry about something, you know, something Michael said that's stewing in your brain all day and you're really kind of. I have a scroll. A scroll. Yeah, a scroll of things that he's done. That happens regularly. Oh, really? Well, maybe we'll go into that at some point.

So, you know, you're irritated and angry and it's building and thoughts are revolving in your head. Normally, you don't question that. You just assume that he's irritated, he did something wrong. I want you to step back and analyze that emotion and go, where did it really come from? Is it really Michael that stirred that anger in you? Maybe it's coming from you. Maybe there's something about you that's frustrating yourself in your career or something isn't satisfying you and you're kind of putting the blame on him. Or maybe what's irritating you

about him isn't really what you think it is. It's something else. Something he said four months ago that you never got over and it's stewing in your head. I'm not trying to say there's anything personal here, but so question it, question your emotions, question why you're feeling this way. I also want you to get really closer to yourself so that, you know, a lot of times what you think about who you are is a reflection of what other people tell you, you know, your teachers, your mentors, all the people on social media who are giving you all this feedback. And you tend to absorb all of the opinions of other people and that becomes who you are. I want you to realize that you are somebody very unique, that you're not like anybody else in this world, that you have tastes and desires and skills that set you apart.

So I want you to be able to divorce yourself from all the noise you're hearing from other people and get to know yourself better so that when you make important career decisions, which your happiness and your whole fate depends on, you'll make a choice based on something that comes from within and not from what other people are telling you. So it's a process of knowing, you know, questioning where your thoughts and emotions have come from, and getting to know yourself better, what you what

really separates you from others and makes you a unique person. I know you said meditation is big for you. Is that something you do in your meditations? Very much so. So I meditate every morning for 35 minutes. Wow. Is that, that's longer than typical. It's a long time, right? Yeah. Don't ask me why I came on 35 minutes. Yeah, it's a long time, but I find I don't get really, sometimes it's not until the 20th minute that I actually start getting into a real place where I calm down. And in that meditation, you know, thoughts will be recurring. Like, oh, damn, my agent, he didn't respond to my email. Why is he being, why does he never write me back the same day?

And it's, you know, I'm trying to meditate and I'm still thinking about that and I can't get rid of that thought. And I have to go, why am I doing that? And I've come up with like, four categories of things that are always playing in my brain. You know, one of them is anxiety about things I have to get done. So I'll be meditating, my mind is emptying, and suddenly, oh, I better answer that email, or I better pay that bill. So anxiety. And the other thing will be ego. You know, God damn it, not enough people are loving my book the way I thought they would, or why am I getting this response? Or aren't I just a great person? You know, so the ego will be it. And there are a couple other things, I can't remember what they are. But I'm always

assessing myself and seeing, you know, these thoughts are coming into my head. And instead of just going with them, I go, I really push, I feel like it's a pushing sensation. I push it away, literally like this. And I go, what's it about? Why am I feeling this way? Why is my ego? Why am I so sensitive right now? Or why am i obsessing over this so meditation very much helps ryan holiday who we all know very well he recommends writing a journal which is a very similar process to the meditation i'm not a journal writer but i think his idea is a really good one so is the the constant core of this then is to constantly question yourself and your beliefs? Is that, is that kind of, I don't want to say in a nutshell, but is that correct?

It is, but it shouldn't, I don't want it to seem like a heavy depressing things. Oh man, I got to go around questioning myself. What a drag. No, it's not like that. It's, it's a very liberating process. So you're not walking around a slave to all of these obsessive thoughts and these emotions. You can have some distance and detachment. So things don't bother you so much. It's actually a great feeling if you give into it. And getting to know yourself better and knowing what makes you different is a great feeling because you know, I don't have to go along with the crowd.

I can be different. I can like what I like and not worry about what other people think. So I don't want it to make it think like it's a drag, like it's this really heavy thing. It's actually a very light feeling. I was listening to one of your interviews and I don't remember which one, but you were mentioning that at this point you consult and coach with a lot of high performers, high powerful CEOs, celebrities. You don't have to get into names, but is there something that you can see in common across the board with these high performers that they need help getting, why they need your help?

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charts and market data and place a trade in just four taps of your smartphone. You can also view stock collections, such as 100 Most Popular. With Robinhood, you can learn how to invest in the markets as you build your portfolio, discover new stocks, track your favorite companies, and get custom notifications for price movements so you never miss the right moment to invest. Robinhood is giving listeners of The Skinny Confidential a free stock like Apple, Ford, or Sprint to help you build your portfolio. Sign up at skinny.robinhood.com. Again, to sign up, go to skinny.robinhood.com. That's a great question. It's always been striking me as odd, because there'll be very,

very powerful people, CEOs, people in politics, athletes. And you think that they're so together, why would they need my help? You know, they're much more successful than I am. They're making a lot more money than I am. And what's surprising is they're very good at their field, but they don't understand people very well. You know, they put all of their energy into making a great business, into knowing all the ins and outs and the technicalities of their business. But they don't understand what makes people tick. And so I've had this example time and again. Some really brilliant person, some very successful person will come to me because they hired this partner or they partnered with somebody and they're just the worst type and they're having a terrible time.

They're stealing from them. They're taking credit for things they didn't do. They're working for themselves things they didn't do. They're working for themselves and not for the company. And I'm thinking, well, why couldn't you recognize this in advance? That's a real skill. That's a skill you need to develop. The ability to see toxic people before you get involved with them is a very critical life skill. And why is that so difficult for us? Because that lower part of our nature that I said, we're

taken in by appearances. We don't think if someone is charming and smooth on the surface, and they flatter us, we're won over, we're seduced by that. It's hard for us to see, to say that the appearance that people give the sort of the social self that they show is deceptive. People don't reveal their flaws, their vulnerabilities, their neuroses to you when you meet them. They've spent their whole lives trying to disguise them from people and become very good at disguising it. You know, a very aggressive person doesn't go announcing with a bullhorn, hi, I'm aggressive, I'm going to take from you. They're very strategic, right? And so you're not thinking that maybe the appearance they're giving you is actually a mask designed to disguise who they really are. So you're looking at the

appearance and you fall for their charm. They flatter you. They seem like they're nice they seem they have a great resume wow they've they went to Harvard well they must be great and I'm trying to say in the book that a resume and having gone to Harvard is not is not nearly as important as being able to judge their character are they someone who's strong who can deal with criticism who can work with other people but we're not attuned to looking at people's character and judging them. We judge them on their appearance, on their charming front, whether they like us or not. When I'm hiring somebody, I don't care whether they like me or not.

I want them to be conscientious, disciplined, strong, that I can criticize them. Maybe they'll come to like me, but that's not the important thing. So it's like we judge people based on the wrong metrics. This happens also in intimate relationships. Are you speaking from experience? No, no, Robert, you're going to get me in trouble here. You wrote an article recently on Medium called The Seven Toxic Types of People.

Can you elaborate on that? Can we sort of dive into that? Maybe you give a couple of people. Can you elaborate on that? Can we sort of dive into that? Maybe you give a couple of examples? Well, it's the toxic types of people on social media. On social media. Right. And maybe when we go into this, we can also talk about the impact of the smartphone and social media on human... Sure. Okay. And we'll link the article too in the show notes for you guys. Well, one of the types is probably the most obvious one is the social justice warrior. This is the person that, you know, you'll make some comment

online, Facebook or Twitter. Suddenly this person comes at you, they're outraged. They're accusing you of being anti-progress, of being some sort of, you've committed some moral sin. And you, what did I say? I was just kind of innocent. You know, I wasn't meaning to offend anybody. anti-progress of being of being some sort of you've committed some moral sin and you what what did i say i was just kind of innocent you know i i wasn't meaning to offend anybody and then you try and defend yourself and then three or four other people start accusing you of violating some you know that's happening a lot right now yeah yeah and so this and i maintain that in real life in social life we all have to behave pretty well, right? Or we're not going to get along.

If we irritate enough people, our careers are going to suffer. We won't have any friends. So we learn to kind of curb our irritating behavior. But online, there's no sort of measure. There's nothing there to prevent people. You don't pay any price for being obnoxious and toxic. In fact, you're almost rewarded because other people, other toxic people will join in with you. So the social justice warrior, if you met them, if I came in, if I was like that, or if you're somebody you worked with, you would fire them.

They'd be so irritating, judging you, being so morally superior, constantly saying, oh, you know, you're offending, you're insulting this group or that group. They'd be out of here. But online, no, you're rewarded for it. And so, you know, the worst thing to do when you're facing the social justice war is to get in a fight with them, because you can never win. Their mob of other social justice warriors will be on you like a pack of piranhas. So it's better to just politely bow out and wait and just let them go find somebody else to attack. And then I have the nihilistic troll, which we've all dealt with. This is a person who just wants to blow everything up. I compare it to an adolescent male.

Where does that come from? The nihilistic troll. Yeah. I'm going to start calling people nihilistic trolls when they bother me. For all you nihilistic trolls out there, leave me alone. It's a particular kind of troll because it's a troll that just wants to tear the world down, wants to burn everything down. I think it comes from deep insecurities. So I make the point in my book that when people show very strong behavior, particularly aggressive behavior or macho behavior, they're disguising really the opposite.

So a really macho man is really trying to hide a lot of deep insecurities within him. And you shouldn't be intimidated because that person is actually quite weak. So a lot of nihilistic trolls happen to be male. They have a kind of an adolescent attitude. And I think they're secretly envious and resentful of anybody who has success. And their whole strategy is to tear everything down and make everybody unhappy. You know, when you're 16 or 17 years old, maybe the only way you can get attention and validation from others

is by being really critical and bitter. People might hate you, but you get a lot of attention that way, and it makes you feel powerful. So, you know, you have that kind of rebellious attitude where you're pissing people off, but you enjoy the fact that people are antagonistic towards you. You feed off of it. So the nihilistic troll feeds off of your antagonism and your anger. So I make the point, you know, you say don't feed the trolls. You have

to really, really make an effort to not feed this kind of troll at all. You hit them with total silence. You don't acknowledge what they said, their posts, their photoshopped image, whatever it is they did to try and stir you up. You don't show any signs of being stirred up. You hit them with total silence. And that kind of hits their tender spot because they need to feel like they can get your attention no matter what they do, and you're not giving them that luxury. Let me ask you this, though. If they say, you know, with social, they post something, it's something nasty. And then they have some other nihilistic trolls come in and back them up.

What do you do in that scenario? You still, you just ignore all of it? Or do you block them? Or do you keep them? Like, how do you? It's fine to block them. But you don't want to be scolding. You don't want to moralize.

You don't want to lecture them. You know, you want to just get them out of your hair. You don't want to have to be thinking about them. You know, blocking them is fine. The problem is that they're really good at getting under your skin with what their comment or the image or whatever it is they do. And so you're going to be thinking about them all the time, thinking about their nasty little comment. I had this person who, you know, my book came out and a good friend of mine, she posted like she just bought the book and how much she's excited about it. This guy came in and said, sorry, Mr. Green, I hate to blow your pretensions, but I read the conceit in your book was so wrong that the second I bought it, I went back and returned it and got my money back. Something like that.

I was like, what? What the fuck? Why are you doing this? You know, I mean, it's like a friendly little thing where, you know, my friend is really excited. What's the point? And it really got, it riled me up. And I had, my whole thing is, my strategy is, you don't want to have to think about their nasty comments.

You want to keep your mind clean and free of them because they thrive on making you think about them and obsess over it. So I blocked his comment, and I just did whatever I could to not look at that page again and just get it out of my mind. So you don't want, it's not that you want to let them have free reign. It's that you don't want to have to think about them. Whatever it takes that you don't have to think about them, unfriend them, block them, whatever. What about envy in social media?

How is envy impacting us as a society? Well, envy is a huge thing on social media. So I have a chapter on envy, and it's something I've been writing about in a lot of my books, because I think it motivates a lot more behavior than we realize. So in my research, I was surprised to see, first of all, chimpanzees, our closest primate relative. Actually, there are noticeable examples. Primatologists have found examples of envy among chimpanzees, where if one chimp is getting more meat, more delicious meat than the others, there's this kind of some anger and resentment. And another chimp will go do something later on to get back at him. Wow, chimps feel envy. And then I looked into like

our hunter-gatherer ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago, and they were, envy was like the worst thing that could destroy the group from within. So they made it so that if anybody got a gift, they had to immediately share it with other people so that other members of the tribe wouldn't feel envious of them. So obviously, envy has deep roots in our nature. You know, some of the greatest stories in the Bible have to deal with envy. So there's something really, really radical about that emotion within us. And what it comes from is, you know, you were talking earlier about being self-aware. If what it comes from is, you know, you were talking earlier about being self-aware. If you think about day in and day out, how many of your thoughts

revolve around comparing yourself to other people? They have something you don't have. I have something they don't have. You know, why did they buy this car? Why are they going out with that person? Maybe that's better than my boyfriend or husband or blah, blah, blah, all these other thoughts. You're continually comparing yourself to others. And that's our social animal nature. And if other people have things that we don't have, we feel pangs of envy, you know, and even successful people feel a lot of envy. You know, I talk in the book about Michael Eisner, the CEO of Disney, and how he had Jeffrey Katzenberg working for him. And Michael Eisner was the most powerful person in Hollywood. And yet he felt intense envy for Katzenberg because

Katzenberg was getting more attention than he was. So it's extremely, extremely human. And social media is like this breeding ground for envy, because you're sitting there and you're, you know, you're kind of happy in the morning, and then you get onto Facebook, and you see that your friend is in Bali, and is taking a great yoga meditation retreat, and has just met this incredible person, is flying off to Tahiti the next day. And you go, damn, I'm just sitting here eating my bowl of cereal. My life is nowhere near as exciting. So that envy little thing, and he was constantly being triggered

by what you see on social media. And it's very dangerous. Charlie Munger said envy is the, I think he said it's one of the seven sins that he sees no use in because you can't have any fun at it. That's a very good way of putting it. It's true. It is true if you think about it. I was going to, so how do you combat envy?

How do you rid yourself of it? I know it's such a natural thing in all of us. How do you rid yourself? And I try and admit that I feel it, which I do. Sometimes I go, damn, Ryan is selling more books than I am. And I was his mentor. That's not possible. Ryan is doing well. Yeah. So you first have to acknowledge that you feel it and not be in denial. It's human. Don't beat yourself up. Everybody feels it. People you think don't feel it actually do. So just be comfortable with that. The other

thing is, let's say you envy, let's say you came from a family that wasn't so good. And your friend has this really loving mother and you go, God damn, I wish I had parents like that. You envy them. Well, if you got to know them closer, if you got to spend time with that family, they wouldn't be as ideal as you think they are. From a distance, what people have seems really good. But if you got close to it, you would realize that it's really not worth envying. They may be in Bali, but they're not having nearly as good a time as you are, as you think they are. And they're kind of wasting time. They're not really going anywhere with their career.

So realize that when you're feeling envy, it's unrealistic. What you're seeing that is triggering the envy is often not in proportion to the reality. People aren't doing as well. They're showing you all the positive things on social media, but you're not seeing all their unhappiness, etc. So just keep that in mind. Also, instead of comparing yourself to better people, to like, wow, Jesus, I'm not making as much money as LeBron James. I can't slam dunk, et cetera, which is a problem with me because I wish I was a basketball player. You and me both.

Look at people who have it a lot worse than you. Realize that you have health reasonably that you probably have a decent job that you have friends and family and support and there are people that are really miserable in this world look at all the homeless people in los angeles if you want to rid yourself of envy look at homeless people you know there's no need to feel envy for others you should feel grateful for what you have the other thing is i tell you um there's a thing called schadenfreude which means you take kind of joy in the pain of other people which is a common human emotion so someone that you kind of don't really like has bad news you feel a little bit of pleasure about that right so i want you to turn that around and feel the opposite so when people have good news

you feel joy with them so there's a word called mit freude which is the opposite of schadenfreude you experience their joy and you're very happy for them, and it's genuine. And you train yourself to be happy for the good things that happen to people instead of feeling envy. And the other thing is to turn that need to compare yourself to other people into emulation. So if LeBron James has this incredible lifestyle, makes a lot of money, such a great athlete,

maybe that's going to spur me to practice more. I mean, I'm never going to be able to play on the Lakers. I know that. This is a bad example, but, you know, it sort of spurs you into trying harder. Instead of envying and sitting there, as you say, it's an emotion you can feel no pleasure. Feel the pleasure and the motivation to get better yourself, to maybe get on their level instead of having to feel that they have more than you. Well, you said that way more eloquently than we have said that, but I completely agree with you.

Can you provide maybe the distinction in your eyes, the difference between jealousy and envy? Well, it gets into semantics. It's almost like how you define the word. But the way a lot of people define it is jealousy involves three people usually is a triangle of emotions. and they seem to prefer this other person to you, you feel jealous. You feel jealous of a, it's like a triangle. There's another person involved, right, that is spurring your jealousy. In other words, you're not going to feel jealous of Lauren without that other person being there, right? But you can feel envious of Lauren without a third party there.

She's having more success. People like her more on this podcast than they like you. It's probably true. So you envy her. You're not jealous of her. I mean, people use the word kind of, you know, they don't distinguish it, but that's how I distinguish it. Jealousy is usually, it has to do with love and that there's a third person that is kind of intervening in your jealous of the affections that they're being shown a large portion of your book is dedicated to reading and understanding the people around us can we go in to to the subject and the importance of this yes what do you mean by that just meaning you you need to be able to read and understand who we're dealing with can you kind of explain that i kind of joked in the

beginning about lauren's non-verbal cues yeah can you maybe talk about the non-verbal cues and just how to understand people outside of us well it's something that i talk about a lot in my books which is that um people give off a language that you're not understanding. So we're so attuned to words, to what people say. But a lot of what people express is nothing to do with words. That was a big thing in the book, The Art of Seduction, which is the second book I wrote, that seduction is a language that people reveal through their bodies, through their tone of voice, and you're not picking up these signals that will really help you to seduce them. So in this book, I'm trying to say that people are mysterious. You don't really know what's

going on in their head. So if you thought about it, even though you've known Michael since he was 12 years old, you really don't know what he's thinking from moment to moment. You might have an idea, but there's a level of opaqueness you're not really sure. So how do you get closer to understanding what's going on in his head? And I maintain people give off signals and you're just not paying attention. So you want to become a better reader, a decoder of what's going on. So a lot of that has to do with nonverbal communication. I'm a huge believer in that. It's the animal part of our nature. Just think of it this way. Our earliest ancestors before we invented language,

they lived in a little group of 25 or so tribe. And their survival depended on their ability to understand what other people were thinking without the use of words. And their survival depended on their ability to understand what other people were thinking without the use of words. And they were like mind readers, they could sense when somebody was angry or fearful or anxious. You have that power, you as a human being have that power to understand people in a visceral intuitive way, but you're not paying attention. So I have a whole chapter first trying to train you how to observe people. Stop getting being inside your own head and your own thoughts and look at people and begin to see certain signs. And I give I kind of create a process that I can take you through that will train you to get to that point. And I go through all the cues that

show that they actually like you, that they don't like you, they feel like they're superior to you, whether they feel like they're inferior to you, whether they're lying to you, or whether they're being honest. These are signs that come through their tone of voice, their eyes, their fake smiles. Fake smiles are a huge thing. If you could just learn how to decipher a fake smile from a real smile. And the thing is, viscerally, intuitively, we all sense the difference. A real smile comes, it's not just the mouth that smiles, but the eyes light up, the cheekbones are raised, the whole face gets animated, and we feel it when someone really feels joy

and pleasure. The fake smile's a bit kind of tight. There's something else going on. But you don't pay attention to it. People show that to you, and then you forget about it. So these are things that I want to train you into deciphering. And it's not just that. It's people's actions.

So if somebody is chronically late for a meeting, and then the fourth time this has happened, they go, oh, I'm so sorry. It was traffic. I couldn't help it. You know, all this thing, my mother called me, blah, blah, blah. You have to realize that they're sending you a signal. They may not even be aware of it, but they're sending you a signal that they feel like they're superior to you, that their time is more important than your time. And it's kind of a passive-aggressive strategy. You want to look at how people treat others. So you see this guy who you respect a lot, who's a boss, who's very important, who's got a lot of charisma.

But then you realize that he treats his employees like crap. You know, he's really mean and abusive to them. Well, that's a sign of who he really is. Don't be dazzled by all his achievements. He's a crappy individual because he doesn't treat people well, the people below him. You know, you want to look at how people tip, just all the little signs, how their desk is organized, how messy they are. These are all signs of something going on below the surface. And you're not paying attention. My book is crammed with all kinds of little cues that people give off in these directions. Robert, you can see here now why we may be a little intimidated when you walked in the room, wondering how I drink my...

I'm literally setting my water down here. i wonder if this signal is giving off but you know i'll tell you what that says what is it what is it but you know um what does your wife say yeah i would be i'd be interested to that does your wife when she smiles are you analyzing her smile she doesn't realize that i am you know i think i think it's very irritating to live with me. Oh, my God. I'm always telling her, I don't know how you put up with me. Well, you know, you touched on something. It's like when somebody, maybe somebody has an affair or a politician has an affair and they say, hey, this is a one-time thing.

It's like, no, maybe that's a real character flaw in that person that's been there, that is there. Well, you see that all the time in the news, be an athlete or celebrity goes, something came over me. That wasn't me who wrote that horrible tweet. It wasn't me who did that, right? No, it was you. It's actually more you than the mask that you continually wear. I make the point that people never do anything once. So if someone does

something kind of naughty or irritating or insensitive, it's not just an exception. You can bet that they've done it before, that there's a pattern there. And that they'll do it again? That they'll do it again. And so normally people go through life trying to present the best side of themselves. And then what I call the shadow side of our personality sneaks out in ways in a burst of anger or some kind of behavior that they go and have an affair. They're 60 years old and they suddenly run off with a 20-year-old model, you know, these kind of things. And, you know, we tend to say, oh, something came over them. They just got carried away. But really, people reveal themselves in this kind of behavior. They reveal what they've

been trying to hide for so many years. What are some deal breaker characteristics in people that you should try to stay away from in a relationship or maybe a work relationship? Well, in a relationship, narcissism is a very difficult trait to deal with. Now, I try and take the judgment out of that and say, look, humans out there, we are all narcissistic, including myself. We are all self-absorbed. We all think first and foremost of ourself.

Our thoughts naturally revolve around our own interests. So come to terms with the fact that we all have narcissistic traits, and let's not be so judgmental. But then I distinguish between what I call the deep narcissist. And this is a person who is so self-absorbed, they can never get outside of themselves. And their whole game is they constantly need attention from other people. They have to be the center of attention. They need what's called narcissistic supply. They need supply to their ego that you give them validation. And at first glance, if you meet a deep narcissist, they can be charming because they can be very theatrical and dramatic. You know, our president happens to be an example of this. And then you get to know

them better. And then it becomes the charm very quickly wears off because everything has to revolve around them. And it's like a whirlpool that you enter, just keep seeing you. There's nothing you can do that will get them out of that, that get them to think about you every little thing that's said has is taken personally it's as if everything is about their ego and it's infuriating and you can't have a relationship with that and so many times we get into relationships with narcissistic people because they can be kind of charming and dramatic and you want to see signs of this early on. And I show you how you can see signs of it. So from a personal relationship, that would be probably the worst type to get involved with.

When it comes to work, I think you want people of what I call weak character. So people who can't take criticism. You know, that's like the most important thing. That was what made Ryan Holiday the best protege I've ever had. And I've had set many. I could actually criticize Ryan and he wouldn't take it personally. You know, you can really let Ryan have it. And he was fine with it. I was going, wow, I've never met anybody like that. Most everybody gets really irritated and they get intimidated by me and they go running off. Ryan was fine with it. Wow, is that a great quality? The ability to take criticism. The fact that you can admit that you were wrong is a really important character trait. How many times do you

hear somebody in your circle who says, I'm sorry, it was my mistake, it was my fault, I take responsibility. It's pretty rare. It's rare. Those are gems, and those are the kinds of qualities you want. You want people who don't lose their cool under stress or adversity. These things could also apply to partners, but sometimes you can be a little more flexible in these things, but somebody who doesn't wither under stress, who can sort of maintain

their cool, because a lot of times people seem very competent and successful, but the moment there's some kind of adversity, they crumble. And, you know, you want to see signs of that. The ability to work with other people is a critical quality, probably the most important. You know, are they able to subsume their personality and their ego and do what's best for the group as opposed to what's best for them? You want to avoid people who are always after their own interests, who are always thinking of their own agendas, putting them before you, particularly in the workplace. If you, you know, just look at it this way. If you hire the wrong business partner, or you get involved with the wrong intimate partner in a personal relationship, it can cause lifelong damage. It can take you years to recover. You know, it's a critical, critical decision. So don't base your decisions on the

superficial charm that people give you. You want to see that people have some inner strength, some character to them before you get involved with them in a deep level. For somebody who's listening and just heard all of that advice, and maybe they say, you know what, I'm not quite there yet, but I think I'm somebody that can get there, right? Like with a little bit of coaching or a little bit of mind shift or with a little bit of studying are there do you believe that a lot that these traits can be learned or do you believe that innately you're just born with some sometimes you just don't have these traits or you can't learn them which traits you're different just so let's say somebody wants to learn how to work better with others do you

think that's something they can learn or do you think that's something that if you can't, you can't? Of course you can learn. It all becomes the fact whether you're motivated to learn. You know, in my book Mastery, I make the point that... It's one of my favorite books. Oh, thank you. You can learn anything if you're motivated. So I take the example of a personal thing for me

was I studied French in college for several years and I got to Paris. I couldn't speak a word. Right. Then I started dating a French girl. And within a month, I learned more French than I learned in three years because I was motivated. I wanted to learn so that I could, you know, win her over. So when you're motivated, you can move mountains. If you want to get out of your negative patterns, if you want to become a better person, if you want success in your career, if you want to find a person and have a better relationship, and you truly, truly want that, then you've got some hope

and you're going to start working towards these things. Yet any kind of these qualities can be learned. You know, in mastery, I have the story of Temple Grandin, who was born autistic, very severely autistic. And she trained herself to be social, to be better with people. And for autistic people, it's very difficult because they don't really have, that part of their brain doesn't function as well. You can train yourself to become anything if you want it badly enough.

So for instance, the ability to decipher people and read them better. You know, the book, I kind of give you very practical tips on how to get to that point. If you want to, I want you to be able to apply these. I don't want this to be a book that you read. I want this to be a book that will change you. And so if you follow this advice, if you learn how to observe people and get outside of yourself, the main problem and what makes people unhappy and what makes them take Xanax and do all sorts of other

things is because they never get outside of themselves. They're locked inside their own little private world. And healthiness, we're a social animal, is having good relationships, is knowing how to be with people. And that should motivate you on so many levels for your career and for your personal life. And before your grandma passed, didn't she say whenever you feel down or anxious, get outside yourself? Yeah, I used to call her and give her this big problem and say how I was depressed about

it. And she would say, Lauren, get outside yourself. That's right. Why? Wise grandmother. I couldn't have put it better. And getting outside yourself can be one of two things. And both.

They should be both. Is people, relationships, and doing things for other people and getting outside your own personal troubles. And your work, your work should be therapy, shouldn't be drudge, be something that gets you outside and you're actually making something, you're producing something for the world. And that should give you that feeling of that, for me, is sort of what helps me keep my sanity. How can negative and positive emotions shift the outcome of our lives? Well, I think you're referring to the chapter I have about your attitude towards life.

Yes. What I'm trying to say is how every individual has a particular attitude and it colors how you see the world. So I give the example in there of a young man and a young woman who have to go to Paris for a year abroad for studies. And the man, the boy is kind of anxious and a little bit hostile and a little bit closed. And he goes to Paris and he sees that the people aren't friendly and that the weather isn't so good and everybody's running around and no one's taking any interest in him. He says, God, Paris is an awful place. I really hate it. You know, I don't like the people. I don't like the food. And then the young woman will go there and she's like excited and open and she knows how to meet people and she speaks French. She sees the same thing. She sees Notre Dame. She sees the same people.

She eats the same food and she loves it. She's excited. Two different attitudes seeing the same thing. One sees it negatively. One sees it positively. And the thing about your attitude is it determines what happens to you in life. So a very common example is somebody, you meet somebody and you sense, and we've all had this experience, you sense that there's something a little bit hostile about them, a little bit defensive. And you can't help it, but it makes you feel a little bit defensive in return, right? And they sense you're being defensive to them, and they become even more closed and even a little more like that. And then, so their attitude kind of infected how you

responded to them and reinforced their own actions and made it so that you closed off to them. So how you approach people, the attitude you have, whether it's closed and defensive or open and excited, will really change how people respond to you. So if you understand that, by altering your attitude, you can actually alter how people react to you. It's an incredible power. It's the most important seductive power that you have. Which in turn alters your life. It doesn't alter your life. So, you know, that defensiveness that we sense in people is actually a great turnoff. But if you've ever been met somebody who seems really open to life, to experience, who doesn't seem to judge you,

who kind of has a smile and is relaxed and is at ease and you don't feel like you're being judged, you open up to them. It's like they gave you a double martini or something. You relax in their presence. That's a power you could have, you can make people relax in front of you and open up and not be pushed away or repulsed. It's incredibly powerful. It also means that you'll experience life on a whole other level.

If you I maintain that the open attitude towards life where you're open to experience, you're open to adventure, you accept people for who they are, you don't judge them, is like being wafted up into the air, into heaven. It's like you're so light and everything is easy for you. And when you're closed and defensive and hostile and avoidant, life becomes hell and you're creating your own hell. How can someone not take that personality trait personally? Is there tips that you have if someone's hostile or defensive towards you? Well, yeah, it's good to realize that they can't help it, that it's not about.

So one thing I try and say in the book is most of what people give you or do to you is not personal. And our tendency is to take it personally. So you meet that person and there's a little bit of defensiveness in there. It's kind of off-putting. You're thinking, well, maybe it's because of me or something I'm doing, or they're reacting to me. But no, they're reacting to their childhood, to things that happened years ago, to all their bitter experiences. So if you can be aware of that, you can have more empathy for them. And you could play the game back at them. This would be a very important strategy. So they're kind of defensive. You can sense it viscerally in the nonverbals,

or they say something slightly snarky. You give back to them positive energy. I know it's kind of Pollyannish, New Age, kind of Los Angeles, blah, blah, blah stuff. But there's some truth to it. If you give back to them, that you don't feel defensive in their presence, that you're open to them, that you're not judging them, that you like them, then maybe you can help open them up a little bit and get them out of that. You know, the feeling that people like you is the number one sense that will open you up. You know, that's why we choose people who are our friends. When we see them, we can't help but smile because we know that they're not judging us and they like us. So the sense that you like

this person you're dealing with who seems kind of crabby, etc., or at least that you don't hate them, will have a very important impact on how they respond to you. You can get them to open up. It was in the, it's early on in the book, but you talk a lot about empathy and it was probably one of the most important chapters for me because when you deploy that empathy, say somebody says something really nasty to you or they're mean or they're having a bad day, when you take it personally, that completely affects you. But if you have the ability to apply empathy and to say, wait a minute, maybe this isn't about me. Maybe it has something to do with them. One, you can maybe understand them a little

bit more. And two, you're not as offended in your days, not as affected. You know, understanding people is a really important thing. So people have their own experiences that are not yours. So get outside yourself for a moment and realize that that person comes from probably a different culture, maybe a different social class, maybe a different city, they might have a different religious background, etc. And they may have had some bad experiences in their life. And you were kind of mean and nasty to them, but you didn't realize that maybe they had a very abusive childhood or something that caused them to be the way they are. Now, there are toxic people

out there who I don't think you should feel a little bit of empathy, but you should also keep your distance and your wariness. So there are limits to your empathy. There are some people that you just need to avoid. But there are other people who are sort of negative, but they're not that bad yet. And it would really help to understand where they come from, their childhood, their parents, their own experiences that made them maybe a little bit hostile or maybe a little defensive, etc. And with that understanding, you now have the, first of all, as you say, you won't take it personally, you won't get weighed down by it, you won't be obsessing over it. So you're free your mind up from having these obsessive thoughts about them. And secondly, in understanding them, you can help open them up to you, you can turn potential enemy into a friend. How many times

during the course of a day do you get the feeling that someone that you come across understands you, understands your perspective, where you're coming from, why you feel that way? Pretty rare, isn't it? Yeah, no, it's extremely rare. But when it happens, it's a wonderful feeling. It's like one of those moments where you connect, you feel almost like a shiver of excitement. Oh my God, we're connecting. You actually understand where I'm coming from. You give people that feeling, they will open up. Well, you know, when I was younger, I was definitely susceptible to bouts of anger. Applying empathy has basically taken all that anger out of my life.

It's difficult now to get me riled because after studying and going into this stuff, I go into that deep, I'm like, wait a minute, why is this person like this? And what it does is it takes me out of the defensive and it goes into a place of understanding. And so living that way and not carrying that anger has been extremely beneficial to me. Yes, I agree. And sometimes it's good to realize that maybe you were the cause of their behavior. Yeah, if I was aggressive or... Yeah. Oftentimes in relationships, intimate relationships, when you're angry and bitter at something that somebody did or said, they probably maybe were responding to something that you were energy you were giving off. It may be coming from you and

not from them. And just being able to think that is extremely liberating and extremely important. Next time we get in a fight, I'm going to play that clip for you over and over and over in our bedroom, just so you know. But he says he's overcome this. I don't know about overcome. Self-awareness, Michael. Working to overcome is better words. So let's talk about the last section of your book. And I can't pronounce this. Amor fati? How do you say it?

Amor fati. Amor fati. Basically, the acceptance of fate. Is that correct? The love of fate. The love of fate. Okay. How did your near-death experience play into this concept, into this theory?

Well, it's interesting because you write about it in the book, and it's of intellectual and a theory and then damn, you know, you're... That's why I found it interesting that you said you wrote about it before. Yeah, like just like two, three months before. And then you're, it's like slammed into your face. And so what was sort of intellectual and abstract became very personal and difficult. So I've had to go, well, this has kind of ruined my life. I can't travel. I can't swim. I can't run. I can't do any of the things that I love. Damn, I'm bitter. Why? Why, God? Why me? Then you take a step back and you think, everything can happen for a reason. First of all, I didn't die. I didn't have permanent brain damage. I can write my seventh book, which will be fine.

You know, okay, let's calm ourselves down. And second of all, let's see if maybe there's some purpose behind this. Well, you know, probably I had been working myself too hard and I gave myself the stroke to some degree. Maybe I have to slow down. Maybe I have to assess myself and understand that I need to change some of my habits, that I need to relax and to maybe enjoy myself a little bit more and not be so driven. So maybe this was a wake-up call. If this hadn't happened, maybe in five years, I would have had a heart attack and I would have died. So maybe this was perfect. Maybe this was

the gods, instead of punishing me, they were giving me a little signal, Robert, this will save your life. You're going to eat better. You're going to work a little bit less hard. You're going to be a little more grateful for the things that you have in life. So it was a good thing. So it's not just accepting fate. It's loving it. So that's the word love. It was a beautiful thing that happened.

So death is a part of life. You know, the Doors have that song, no one here gets out alive. It's true. Love that song. Yeah. None of us get out here alive. It's true. Love that song. Yeah. None of us get out here alive. We're all going to die at some point. You know, and here I had a brush with it, but I came out okay.

And I have to sort of accept that, that I was given a second lease on life and love it and embrace it. Now, I can't, I'm not going to say and boast that I'm 100% there or that I'm some great saintly figure that has managed to do something. It's a struggle. And my wife will attest some days, I'm like taking this cane and I'm hitting the wall. I'm so frustrated at my lack of progress. But mostly I'm able to control it. And the meditation helps me a lot. It makes me sense that, you know, life goes on. My little problem isn't really that important. That, you know, the world is beautiful. It's an incredible thing to be alive.

And I make that point in the last chapter. Just think about how impossible it is, what an unlikely set of circumstances that you are alive in the world today. Four billion years ago, life on this planet started in the most strangely bizarre, unlikely way. We haven't yet found a planet where other forms of life have started. So that already, life itself is like this insanely precious little thing. And then there was all this evolution of animals dying and being created. And if something had gone wrong, there wouldn't have been primates and we wouldn't be here. But then there were primates and then there were early humans.

And early humans almost disappeared, but they didn't. So then, you know, on and on, the generations. Your parents, if they hadn't met and think of the slender little thread that that held that too, if they hadn't met, if they hadn't gone on a date, you wouldn't be here, you wouldn't be who you are. So your life depends on this insanely incredible set of coincidences. Just thinking that should make you very grateful to be alive. So amor fati should be something that absorbs into your soul, into your skin, in a very deep way in which you should love everything that happens to you.

If you're able to love the pain, then that means you're able to love life itself. If you hate the pain, if you complain and whine and go, why me? That means you don't really appreciate being alive. So everything that happens, happens for a reason. You can look at it that way. We spoke about meditation. Final question. What are some morning and evening routines that you do that you think make all the difference?

And it could have to do with your writing or just something you do to wind down or wake up with. Well, I try not to go to bed with bad thoughts i have to tell this to my wife all the time because she'll she likes to start going into rants and complaining about 10 o'clock at nine they go no no no i can't go to bed with bad thoughts who's guilty michael oh oh we were both pointing at each other so maybe we got to do a little bit of searching figure it out who's guilty i'd like to be here after i'm gone so um i try and go to bed not with negative thoughts i'll put on a movie that's kind of entertaining or i'll read a little bit. I want to fall asleep with something sort of soft in my head and not abrasive so I can sleep well. That's a very important thing for me. So if there's some movie that's on, it's very exciting, but it's also kind of depressing.

I spend my day thinking and thinking and thinking a lot of heaviness. I want lightness before I go to bed. That's just me. And in the morning, I'm a big believer in rituals. You know, I have a shaving ritual that I go through. I bought this very expensive set of a German razor blade with Japanese blades that are very sharp. So you like very easy to cut yourself. So I've had to learn how to shave. It's kind of like a ritual for me. It are very sharp. So you're very easy to cut yourself. So I've had to learn how to shave. It's kind of like a ritual for me. It's very pleasant. I love rituals.

And then the meditation, I have my pillows that I sit on and the candle and the timer and my little statue of Buddha in the street and everything. So seeing the same thing every day is very soothing to me. And so that's probably the main thing that I do. Writers lead very boring lives. You might think a writer is a very exciting life. You might envy me in some way, but you shouldn't.

It's the most boring life you can imagine because you have to sit there alone day after day in the same place, writing and writing and grinding and grinding. You're not going out and partying. You're not having bad habits because you can't think straight if you have a drug addiction, although some people can write like that, but I can't so it's a very boring life but it has its pleasures and so I kind of need to make everything into kind of a routine for me and I embrace that have you read that book daily rituals have you seen that book by whom I can't remember the author there's there's a rooster on the front it's a red book and it basically goes through the daily rituals of artists composers is that Benjamin Spall? Maybe. I'm going to link it.

For sure, I'm going to link it in the show notes and make a correction. But I can't remember the author. But it's a great book. You just read like a page a day of, you know, different artists, composers, musicians, writers. He just interviewed me like three weeks ago for his call. Oh, he did. I'm going to have to listen to that or read that. Read it. As I said, it's very boring. I don't know why people are interested in that.

It's just about what I have for breakfast. Because it's interesting to figure out how this information gets extracted from the human mind in such a meaningful way. Your books have a tendency to not, you don't just read them, you have to go back and study them. And what happens is it makes you question yourself. like almost rocks the foundation of your own beliefs and and i think that's probably intentional but for for us as as readers it's interesting to figure out how that all of that information gets out of your brain and onto paper yeah well we didn't really go into that he was mostly going through like what i have for breakfast okay that'll tell you why i write the way i do maybe like a fruity pebble that's made all of this kind of i wish robert thank you for doing this pleasure to have you on the show that was

really exciting for both of us where can everyone find you pimp yourself out well i have my main website which has been there for years it's called power seduction andwar.com. Excuse me. Those are the titles of my first three books, Power Seduction and the and spelled out, warandwar.com. And there you'll see links to mastery, to the book that I did with 50 Cent. I wrote a book with 50 Cent, by the way. Was it The 50th Law?

The 50th Law. And to this new book. And you'll also find links to my Twitter accounts and to Facebook and to all those places. I think your Instagram, right, is at Robert Green Official. Is that you? That's me. Okay. Thank you.

You knew that. I didn't even remember. Well, I love going on your Instagram in the morning and starting my day with that. Yeah. Is that you on Twitter that puts out all the laws of power? Is that you that's running that account? Or is that a fan account? It's me through Ryan.

Okay. So Ryan. Should have known. I don't know. I shouldn't reveal that. We could take that out if you want. That's all right. But Ryan kind of knows my taste and knows what I want.

And he kind of calls the quotes. and occasionally he asks me for things, you know, and I, I help him with it, but it's without him, I'd be nowhere. I told you that already. I'd be homeless.

I think you would probably say the same about you. Oh, that's nice. Um, also your email list is great too. Yes. His email is amazing. We're both subscribed to your email.

Oh, okay. Thank you for doing the show. Well, thank you for having me. My pleasure. Guys to win Robert's latest book. All you have to do is head over to my latest Instagram at the skinny confidential and tell me your favorite part of this episode. Tell us what provided you value. Tell us maybe something like a takeaway that you're going to apply to your own life. As always, thank you so much for listening and make sure you're subscribed and you've rated and reviewed the podcast on iTunes. And hey guys, we mentioned a lot in this show that we would be linking stuff in the show notes. For detailed show notes, for those of you that aren't familiar, go to tscpodcast.com. It's a resource

with all of our episodes. You can listen there. You can check all the detailed show notes. Anything we mentioned in the episodes are linked there as well so make sure to check that out that's tscpodcast.com you can also follow on social at tsc podcast thank you for tuning in and we will be back next week