The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - The Art Of Seduction; How To Turn People On & Turn People Off Ft. Best Selling Author Robert Greene

Episode Date: July 5, 2021

#371: On todays episode we are joined by one of our favorite guests for the second time. Best selling author Robert Greene. Robert joins us again to discuss the art of seduction. We discuss what turns people on and what turns people off. We also discuss the art of human nature and how to thrive and survive in the modern world.  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 For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) Check Out Lauryn's NEW BOOK, Get The Fuck Out Of The Sun HERE This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential  The Hot Mess Ice Roller is here to help you contour, tighten, and de-puff your facial skin and It's paired alongside the Ice Queen Facial Oil which is packed with anti-oxidants that penetrates quickly to help hydrate, firm, and reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, leaving skin soft and supple. To check them out visit www.shopskinnyconfidential.com now.  This episode is brought to you by Olive & June The Olive & June Mani system is the secret behind salon-perfect at home, all-in-one, no guessing, no messy nails, no salon price tag. All TSC Him & Her listeners can no get 20% off your first mani system with our code SKINNY. Visit www.oliveandjune.com and use promo code SKINNY at checkout for 20% off your first mani system.  This episode is brought to you by Beekeeper's Naturals Beekeeper’s Naturals is on a mission to reinvent your medicine with clean, effective products that actually work. Bee propolis delivers natural germ-fighting properties and antioxidants to defend and protect our bodies. It’s sustainably sourced and this Spray is made with just three simple ingredients. You’ll never find refined sugars, dyes, or dirty chemicals in these products. Ever. We've worked out an exclusive deal for Skinny Confidential listeners. Receive 15% off your first order. Go to www.BEEKEEPERSNATURALS.com/SKINNY or use code SKINNY at checkout to claim this deal.  This episode is brought to you by Coors Pure Things are hard right now. But, to be honest, living a healthy life has always been hard. When it starts to get overwhelming, grab a Coors Pure. Coors Pure is an organic beer that is aggressive about balance and meets people where they are with enthusiastic positivity. It’s organic, but chill about it. Visit www.coorspure.com to see where you can find Coors Pure. Celebrate Responsibly. Coors Brewing Company, Albany, Georgia.  Produced by Dear Media 

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. You know, the first date, well, why don't you come over to my house? We'll have some pizza and we'll just hang out. That's just what life is normally like. You want, let's go someplace special. Let's go someplace different. Surprise me. Take me somewhere where I've never been taken before.

So a person who can't like make the effort. Seduction is about effort. And it doesn't matter what the effort is. If you show the other person that you care that deeply, that you're going to do something that took some thinking, some time, that means you're thinking about them. And we read those signs in a nonverbal way. Ladies and gentlemen, we have an amazing show for you today with the only individual I've ever been starstruck by on this show. And we've had some pretty wild individuals on here, but this one in particular, Mr. Robert

Green, author, speaker, many things, entrepreneur, he's out there. He is somebody that has been very prolific in my life, Lauren's life. We've read almost all of his work, anything from The Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War, 48 Laws of Power, Mastery, The Laws of Human Nature, The 50th Law, you name it. You pick up any of his books and there's something there for everybody. And today I'm excited because this is his second appearance on the show. The first one was back on episode 166. So it's been a while. And I'm excited for this one because typically when people have Robert on from what I've seen, they discuss 40 laws of power or mastery or war. This time we took it another direction and we touched on one of his books that he wrote early on called The Art

of Seduction. And I think it's really relevant to anybody that listens to this show and anybody in life because we're constantly getting in relationships, whether we're dating or in business relationships, friendships, deep relationships. And we ultimately want to know what turns people on and what turns people off. And so this conversation is with the master himself talking about what it takes to seduce somebody, what it takes to turn somebody off, what to avoid, what to do, what not to do. And I really enjoyed this conversation. Just to also hop in here, I am almost done reading The Art of Seduction.

It is such a good book. I have learned so much. And the reason I'm so obsessed with Robert Greene, and he truly is one of my favorite authors, is because he gives you tools that you can have in your toolbox for life. And what's so incredible about him is that sometimes when you read a book, you don't need to read it again. His books are books that you go back and you study. I will go back and listen to something on Audible from him or listen to a podcast with him or highlight his book again, and I study it. There's so many things you can just use throughout

your whole life and so many tools. It's incredible. Yeah. I don't think people realize how much influence Robert Greene has over popular culture. And one little known fact, which we talk about in this episode is his book, 48 Laws of Powers is one of the most read books in the US prison system or penal system. And there's a reason for that, which we get into. And also, he's mentored many people that we've had on this show specifically. This is public knowledge. Ryan Holiday.

Ryan Holiday was his mentee, interned for Robert for a long time before going off and creating his own extremely successful writing career. And so he's got his hands on a lot of things and really knows his shit. Did you also know, Michael, that little known fact, so many prisons and jails have banned his book, 48 Laws of Power, because it was giving prisoners so many different ideas of how to gain power in prison? I did know that. You did? Yeah, I think I told you that. But anyways, I was going to let you run with it, but then I was like, did you also know that he wrote the 50th law with 50 cents? Yes, I did know that. Listen, I'm Robert Green. I might be one of his biggest fans, if not the biggest. I told you like I was actually starstruck the

first time I met him. This time too, I was like, you know, it's weird for me doing this show to then sit with someone like that. And it's not like, you know, a celebrity or a musician or an actor. It's Robert Greene. It's kind of funny too in this episode, he kind of calls you out a little bit and he kind of sides with me, which I'm about. If you are a listener of the show, this is one of those episodes I'm going to tell you I would take notes on. I never listen to our show after we put it out. I'm going to listen back to the show. He is so smart and so savvy. It's one of those shows. If you're driving, I would honestly listen again after you get out of the car.

Listen, they say never meet your idols, but goddamn, I'm happy I met Robert Green. So Robert, thank you for coming on the show. With that, here we go. This is the Skinny Conf the skinny confidential him and her. Robert, I got to tell you, so I, we get, we've done about 400 of these things now, which is, it's crazy when you start something and then you, you know, like you kind of get down, you get down the road a few years and you're like, Oh wow. Like there's, this has done a few of these things. And people ask all the time, like, okay, of all the people you've interviewed, have you ever been starstruck? And typically, no. But I do say, and I swear to God, I'm not bullshitting you here, just here.

I say one time I got starstruck by Robert Greene. And it's because I'm such a fan of your work and your writing. The first time you came in, I was like, oh, God, I'm like, this guy's going to be able to read every single thought, every single thing in my mind. I'm like, you're going to know the question before I even ask it. I just wanted to tell you that story because it hasn't been some celebrity or musician or it's you. Wow. I'm very humbled by that. I still have a slight inferiority complex because I spent so many years without any success, not until my late 30s. You know, I lived in this kind of crummy one-bedroom apartment in Santa Monica. And I still sort of carry that mentality, that period in my head.

So I haven't quite adjusted to anybody being starstruck by me. Why? You know, there are a lot of more people I'd be starstruck. I wouldn't be starstruck with myself. But of course, I have to live with myself and I can get a little bit bored

with, you know, who I am. But I think it's because... You're one of the greatest authors of the time. And when I think about my personal, like I was talking to Lauren, my personal favorite hobbies is reading. I've been reading since a young age. It's my favorite thing to do of everything that I do. And when I think when you've spent as much time reading, there's so many authors out there.

When you find i'm gonna pay you a compliment again not to make this all about you but a great author like yourself and you like i feel like we've spent a lot of time together even though we've only this the second time we're doing this because well because you're writing like i've read all your stuff and it's been hours and hours of like you in my head it's so like when i saw you i was like oh my god that's weird it's not like seeing you know an actor i've seen a few movies. It's, it's, it's different. I think it's more intimate. Yeah. That's really interesting. When you were living in your one bedroom apartment, you said it was crummy.

Well, it was a little bit run down. A little bit run down. Were you as observant as you are now about all these different things you write about or did that come as you started writing? No, I've always been that way since I was a kid. You know, if you knew my family, you'd understand that a little bit. But I've always had to, I've always been a bit of an introvert and my way of making my way in the world and protecting myself was sort of really carefully observing the people around me so they wouldn't hurt me in some way, you know. So I became extremely observant at a very young age.

And then when I went out in the work world, I had about 60 different jobs before I started writing books. You know, I saw I had all kinds of bosses, some of the worst bosses you can imagine, some good ones too, but a lot of really horrible ones, particularly when I worked in Hollywood. And so those skills that I developed as a child, like just being very careful and observing people and trying to get into their heads so I could understand them, that carried over very well when I entered the work world. So when you talk about Hollywood, because I've heard you talk about it so many times, can you give us a little bit of detail of what it was like? Were you working at a studio? What were the kind of bosses you're talking about? Because it seems like the Hollywood experience really helped lay the foundation for the books you've written. It did in a way because, you know, in the 48 Laws of Power, I say the world is like a court,

like a court in ancient times, you know, like Louis XIV. They maybe wore wigs and everything, but it's the same thing going on now, where there's the person who's in charge, the CEO, the director, the head of a production company, and they're like a king. And around that person, male or female, a court forms, and everyone's kind of sycophantic and sort of saying how wonderful that person is. Hollywood kind of took it to a new level. You know, nobody around King Louis XIV could ever say the truth.

Everything the king said was wonderful. It was fantastic. That was so witty, that was so wonderful. Well, when I looked at Hollywood and I was working for a film director, everybody was doing the same thing. were fawning over him he could say the stupidest most banal thing or make the worst movie and oh that's fantastic I'm gonna say his I almost said his name I'm not gonna say his name you know and then I remember the first day we were on I was on the set of a film that we were shooting and this is the first time I'd ever been on the set. And I was going, God, this is so boring.

You know, you're not hearing any music or anything. And the actress wasn't very interesting to me. Didn't have that kind of, like it was a movie. And I thought, this isn't good. This isn't going to work out. And then it said cut. And everyone's going, wow, that was fantastic. That's the best thing we've ever heard.

That was amazing. So that kind of pumping people up, those kind of egos, those issues of always trying to suck up to the person above you. In Hollywood, it's so extreme. So that kind of gave me the metaphor. And you asked me what kinds of jobs I had. They weren't that sexy. I tried writing screenplays.

I wasn't very good at it. I wrote mostly comedies because that's sort of my spirit. I'm kind of somebody who likes satire a lot. I never had much success. Then I worked as a researcher on some television shows whose name I won't mention because I'm a little bit embarrassed about them. And then I worked as an assistant to a director whose name I won't mention as well. And then his wife, who's a screenwriter. And they were lovely people.

I have nothing against them. They were really nice people. I cherished those memories. But they were kind of tough. And they were definitely creatures of Hollywood. I worked with some high-level actresses, kind of helping them with their scripts that they had to do. So I got around. I was only in Hollywood for about eight years, but I got around.

I did a lot of different jobs. So that gives you an idea. Do you think your bosses have read your books? Well, yes, some of them have. And then, ironically enough, years later, here we are now. And I get a lot of people writing me or contacting me, very famous film directors or people, high level people in Hollywood who said that that book was their Bible, you know, including Jeffrey Katzenberg, you know. So, you know, that's kind of the weird thing about it because the book was inspired by Hollywood. It was kind of my hate

letter to Hollywood because I don't want to put so strongly, but I really did not like my experience in Hollywood. And yet now, yet it really appealed to them because they could understand where it came from. Yes, some of them have read it. I don't understand how we don't have, and maybe we will, we need a 48 Laws Netflix or movie or something. You don't know how painful it is for you to say that. I have been dealing with this for 16 years now. It's kind of like a tease.

I don't want to say something obscene here, what kind of tease it is. But we're about this company really wants to do it. This other one, this high level person, this rap star, this actor, blah, blah, blah. I get contacted. I get meetings, you know, and all this stuff. And nothing ever happens. So right now we're going through another phase of the tease. My agent and I, she's with CAA.

She's been dealing with this. She knows it as well. And we laugh hysterically about how many iterations this has gone through. Oh, this is going to be the one, and it never quite happens. Why can't you ever do, and this is kind of off topic, and we'll get back to topic, but I think it'd be so cool if you did a 48-episode podcast, and then they bought the rights to the podcast and did it off that. Well, people have wanted me to do that, and I've been approached by people.

I'm a little bit wary of it. I don't know if this is so interesting for your audience. But I always want to be different from people. I'm deadly afraid of having yet another podcast out there. You know, no slight of you. Yours wouldn't be that. But I totally get what you're saying. So I want to do something different, right?

And I have some ideas about what that could be like. Because I'm a bit of a weirdo. I don't fit into categories. So I've been approached by that idea. It's just also after my stroke and working on two books at the same time and dealing with two hours of physical therapy every day. Wow. I only have so much energy and so much time, you know?

So it's in the works. It's an idea that I take very seriously and I would like to do. I think I would do a good job in it. But I have to be careful about my time because, honestly, this book on the sublime, I'm hoping this is like my magnum opus. This is going to be hopefully my most popular book because the people who've read it are going, whoa, this is so weird. If you need anyone to read it, I'm available. Okay.

Okay. All right. Okay. So I really want to talk about Seduction's podcast. Michael and I sort of laid out all the different things we could talk to you about because we can go everywhere. Yeah. But Seduction sort of stood out. Okay.

First, to introduce our audience to seduction, I would love it if you could describe some of the different seductors. And you don't have to say all of them, but maybe you could talk about the charismatic, the star, just the different ones. I just got back from a long walk. I did a workout this morning and there's nothing worse than walking, moving my body and working out and then coming home and wanting a cold beer, but it being full of bloating ingredients, which is why I know everyone is going to love Coors Pure. This, you guys, is an organic beer that's all about celebrating the wins of everyday life. It's organic, okay? It's a refreshingly simple

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Coors Brewing Company, Albany, Georgia. Cheers. Well, there are nine types. The most kind of archetypal, the most dramatic ones are the first ones, the siren, which is only of women. Only women can be sirens. And that's sort of what I consider the icon of seduction is the siren itself, because that's where the concept came from. And that's a woman who has a very powerful sexual energy that any man can feel. It's not overt in that they're not coming on to you, but they just radiate this kind of intense physical energy. And there's an element almost of danger to them. And that's sort of what excites the man about the siren. That if I get involved with, and she doesn't have to be beautiful. So the greatest

siren who ever lived was Cleopatra. And from what we know about Cleopatra, she had a bit of a long nose and a thin face. She wasn't like strikingly beautiful. It was her personality. So it's not about looks. It's about this energy you have and this confidence. And there's almost a sense if I get involved with this woman, she might destroy me. She might ruin my reputation. She might take me somewhere I don't want to go. But that's what's so exciting about the siren. And then the male equivalent of that is what I call the rake.

And the rake is a man who has an intense interest in women. He loves women to an incredible degree, like obsesses him, but he can never be satisfied with one woman. So he has to find as many different women as possible. And because he so much is interested in women, he understands them so deeply. That kind of interest and excitement and that drama is what makes him so seductive to women, right? Because most men are interested in sex, but they're not really interested in the world of women. They're not really interested in what they're thinking, their psychology, and what will please them. But the rake is so motivated by getting inside the woman's skin that he becomes this incredible seducer.

So those are the two top ones. Then there's the dandy. That's the kind of androgynous seducer who mixes male and female characteristics, which can be very powerfully seductive if done well. And some of the greatest seducers in history, like a Marlena Dietrich or Rudolph Valentino or David Bowie, these people have that kind of energy. Then there's the natural, someone who's kind of got a childlike energy. They're just so authentic.

They're not faking anything. They've got that kind of innocence about them. And it's devilishly seductive. Then there's, as you mentioned, oh, there's the coquette, probably the most dangerous, that's the one I have problems with the most because in my past, most men have had that. You know, the coquette, the woman or man,

because that can go both ways, is someone who blows hot and cold, right? They know how to play hard to get, and they just get, they get your claws in you, and then they withdraw, and you go crazy, and you have to pursue them you're going after them i think i got one to the right of me right now oh wow okay i don't want to 12 years to date me oh really might be a sign that's that's really hard to get that's playing really hard to get them go ahead well anyway so coquettes are devilishly powerful you You know, it's for a man, they could be the worst.

And I've had many experiences with that. So I speak from experience. Then there's the star, which as well can be male or female. That's a person who has a kind of a distance. You know, a star is somebody that we project all of our fantasies onto. We imagine that they're almost larger than life. And it's a person who knows how to be kind of blank, and yet have this sort of Hollywood-like presence

about them, a kind of confidence. And they become a screen which we project all of our fantasies on. And we can think of millions of examples in pop culture. And then there's the charismatic. This isn't so much a sexual seducer because not all the art of seduction is about sex. A lot of it's about social seduction, political seduction, marketing seductions.

The charismatic is a man or a woman who's filled with this intense kind of confidence. And the image that I use is that there's almost like a light inside of them. You can't see, but from within, it illuminates them. And it makes their eyes wide open with an energy, and it gives them this kind of animation. And we have to hear everything they say. They're great orators, right? And they radiate this kind of confidence that sucks us in. We feel like when we're close to them, we're getting some of their own confidence that we feed off of it. And so,

they don't have to say anything. We can almost feel it because we humans have a nonverbal side to it. We're animals at heart, you know. I hope that's not a radical thing to say, but we are animals. And we definitely sense the energy of people. And a person who feels so strongly and confident about a cause, for instance, like a Malcolm X or someone like that, or Martin Luther King, it's so intense, that energy, that it just draws us in and we become followers of them. Now, not everybody, all these types, the reason I wrote about them is that you out there, you, Lauren, you, Michael, you have one of these qualities, at least one, maybe two. If you have three, uh-oh, we're all in trouble. But you have at least one of them, right?

And you're going to identify with the coquette, the siren, the rake, whatever. And I'm trying to make you kind of push it up a little harder, be aware of it and how you can accentuate it and what makes it seductive so that you can kind of use it to your own effect. And so, you know, we all can't be charismatics. We all can't be Marilyn Monroe or Errol Flynn, who was the greatest rake that ever lived because somebody counted that he probably slept with over 5,000 women and he died in his early 50s. And if you do the math, it's like astounding.

But- I mean, he was a beautiful man. He was extremely handsome, yeah. So we can't all be like that, right? But you can come close to it. There's a charismatic side to people that here's, I'm showing you how you can bring out your own natural charisma

if you have the ingredients for that or how you can become more of a natural or more of the rake that's inside of you. So if you're a man and you're obsessed with women and now you read my chapter on the rake, you're going to understand better why women are attracted to you. And now you can kind of accentuate it and even make it better, more effective. Since we're talking about what's seductive, I think it's really important to talk about what is not seductive. And since reading

your book, for me, when I find something that's not seductive I maybe wouldn't have known that that's what it was but now since I've read it I even push harder away because you've sort of given me this hyper hyper focus on it what are some things that are not seductive when I think contextually Lauren and I the reason we want to jump to this to start is we all the time either listeners or friends of ours are talking about maybe they're struggling dating or they're struggling finding a man or a woman, or they can't figure out quite why. And they may have some of the qualities that you've just highlighted as a seductor, but they may not be recognizing some of these other qualities that hopefully we can talk about right now. Yeah. I call it the anti-seducer. You know, the book was written now 20 years ago,

so I have to kind of go back to my memory banks here. But essentially, to understand the anti-seducer, you have to understand the seducer. The seducer is someone who has a kind of playful, open attitude. They're not someone who's judging. They're not moralistic. They're not going, you're bad, you're good, blah, blah, blah. They're kind of open, nonjudgmental. They give a lot of themselves, right? They want to please the other person.

They want to get that other person to open up to them. So, the anti-seducer is the very opposite of that. He or she, so for instance, being generous with your time or with your money is very seductive, right? So, if you're on a date, as pertains mostly to men, but in these days, it doesn't necessarily. And you're kind of worried about the money or the expense. That's a sign. That's an anti-seductive sign. Like, oh, the woman or whoever, I'm not worth that money. I'm not worth going to a nice restaurant. I'm not worth the expense or the effort. So being kind of tight inside doesn't have to be with money. It could just be with your feelings, with your experiences, with your emotions, and with your money. Tightness is anti-seductive. Openness, open heart, open spirit is seductive. So, any kind of tightness or rigidity or closeness

is very, very anti-seductive. So, someone like us with a scarcity mindset is anti-seductive to people, like when you're interacting with them and they're constantly worried. Yeah. Okay. Do you ever listen to me, Lauren, on this mic and be like, God, that guy's just so on point, so spot on, really just doesn't miss a beat. And you're just like, wow, how does he do it? How does he do it? Not particularly. Well, let me just tell you how I do it for those of you that are out there thinking that's the same thoughts. It is because before I jump into episodes these days, I jump into some

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and he's lecturing the woman as if she doesn't know things. And usually women are smarter than men. I hate to say that, but I think it's true. So the man who's kind of lecturing the woman, this is what's going on in the world. This is what business is like, blah, blah, blah. That's very anti-seductive, right? Because nobody likes to feel like

they're so intellectually inferior to someone else. So, to have someone kind of lecturing you and telling you and judging you, which I sort of mentioned before, is very anti-seductive, you know? And people who, so, think of seduction as this kind of theater in real life, right? Because in our daily lives, to be honest, can be rather boring. So if you came into my house, there's an expression that says, no man is a hero to his valid or to his butler.

So if you came to my house and you saw me every day, you would not be starstruck. You would see what a boring life Robert Greene really lives. That's not very seductive. So our day-to-day lives are kind of banal. They're not interesting. And seduction is this realm where things are slightly heightened. It's not that you're being fake.

It's that you're having a slight theatrical edge. So you dress differently than you would normally dress, right? You take someone to a place where they don't normally go to. You have some surprises. You create some kind of a little bit of theater in their life, right? You take someone to a place where they don't normally go to, you have some surprises, you create some kind of a little bit of theater in their life, right? So, somebody who can't do that, who's just wants to be themself, like, you know, the first date, well, why don't you come over to my house, we'll have some pizza and we'll just hang out. That's just what life is normally like.

You want, let's go someplace special. Let's go someplace different. Surprise me. Take me somewhere where I've never been taken before. So a person who can't like make the effort, seduction is about effort. And it doesn't matter what the effort is. If you show the other person that you care that deeply,

that you're going to do something that took some thinking, some time, that means you're thinking about them. And we read those signs in a nonverbal way, right? So, a man or a woman, because it can afflict women as well, you're not willing to expend any energy that's going to please the other person. You just want to be who you are. You just want to dress the way you are. You just want to talk the way you normally talk. Unfortunately, that can be very anti-seductive. And I'm not saying you have to be fake. This is a misconception.

People come up with me all the time. It annoys the hell out of me. Oh, you're talking about I have to be someone else. No, right? But when you wear nice clothes to impress somebody, are you being someone else? Don't you get some pleasure out of looking good, out of putting on a nice suit that you picked out or wearing a beautiful dress? You know, there should be pleasure in that. It's not like you're being someone else, right? So, you know, it's not like you're fake. It's just that you're putting an effort to think

about the other person because people are so narcissistic these days. They're too selfish. They're too involved in their own worlds. We want to feel that that other person is entering our spirit, is entering our world, is taking the time to think, what is Lauren's mind like? What can I say or do that's going to really excite Lauren? That's seductive, right? It sounds like a lot of it too has to do and kind of what you just said, just acknowledging people and taking the time to acknowledge just little things too. What do you do if you have to deal with a person who's incredibly anti-seductive on a daily basis, whether it's in a relationship or a family member

or a friend? It's difficult because people have their defenses. It sounds like you're thinking of someone in particular. I hope you're not talking about Michael. It depends on the day. If he's hungry, he's not very seductive. I'll tell you that. Really? He is not seductive.

Cranky? Oh, cantankerous, cranky, irritable. I think you're talking about like almost every man. Yeah, I get that way too. Okay. I think you're talking about like almost every man. If we don't get it. Yeah, I get that way too. Okay. Yeah, I am talking about someone in particular and I'm sure everyone listening has someone. Well, the best way is not to lecture as I'm saying and not to moralize and say, look at this bad stuff you're doing.

It's to show them what seductive is. Right? seductive is, right? So, you know, like one of the greatest seductresses I read, I talked about in my book was this woman, Pamela Harriman, wasn't a sexual seducer, she was like a modern courtesan. And her spirit was complete indulgence. She never judged a man, whatever he did or said was fine. She was okay, she could accept it. She had that kind of openness that we're talking about. So, when you're dealing with someone who's kind of got a rigid, closed, thorny sort of spirit about them, and you're kind of open and not judging them, and you're showing them what being seductive is and not getting reactive and defensive, that, I don't know,

that's sort of a little bit abstract, but that would be a strategy I would apply. I remember very well a story I've told other people. I was working at a hotel in Paris and I was 21 years old and there was a hotel where all the models were staying. And it was like, wow. And there was this man who would frequent the hotel, obviously, because there were models there. He was this tall Brazilian man, incredibly handsome. He's the greatest seducer I've ever met in person, right? And there were like 15 women always kind of around him and he was seducing several at a time. And this one woman, I was walking with him with this latest conquest of his

and this other woman came running up to him, somebody that he had seduced before and she realized what he was. And she was so angry. This was on the street near the hotel. She was going to like maybe beat him up. I didn't know. We were all kind of afraid.

And he took her by the arm and he walked her away. And I was whispering to the woman, oh my God, what's going to happen? What's going to happen? It's going to get violent. And then like a couple of minutes later, they're walking by and they're laughing and they're kissing and everything's fine and I realized this man's secret was that he never got defensive he never got reactive he would say yeah okay so I did that all right that's who I am I'm not going to apologize I really love you whatever her name was you know you meant a lot to me still do, but this is who I am.

You know, I'm not going to apologize for it. So kind of showing people instead of lecturing them is how I would deal with it. I mean, if you could give me more specifics about it, I could probably give you a better answer. There's a person I know who every single time anyone says anything, the person disagrees. Oh God, the worst. It is the worst. And then the person thinks that they're smarter than everyone around them because they've had more education. Formal education. Formal education. And the person is loud, obnoxious, interrupts. I could go on and on and on. Rude, says things that are inappropriate. But also I think rooted in deep insecurity. Yes. Well, is this somebody that you

have to, is this like a family member? It's not Michael. So you have to deal, you can't like cut them out of your life. God, I don't know. I mean, I've dealt with people like that before and it's really hard, you know, because. If Robert Greene doesn't know, I'm fucked. Well, it's not a family member, but it's somebody that we have to see a lot. Really? Is it work or not? Yeah, it's work. So we have to see the person.

It's just. Well, I mean, what do you want out of this person? What is your goal? Do you want them to stop their behavior or do you want them to, are you trying, are they more powerful than you? What's the power? No, no. I think, no, not in that way.

I think what it is, is I don't think, I think Lauren and I are pretty, we're the type of people, we don't try to change people. Like we're, we kind of accept people who are, but if we have to interact, like in this situation, if we're going to continuously have to interact with this person, it's more about like, how do you equip yourself to not lose your temper not get impatient not write somebody off but also still be able to deal with them in a respectful way well you know you might be fucked because i don't know but this is what this is what i would do right and i know people who can be that difficult so it's not an easy solution and i might be wrong but you know when you get people

have dynamics and this a lot of people have written very interesting books about this and I'm fascinated by it so it's never one person's fault it's like the dynamic between it people and you'll notice sometimes that you'll be with somebody and they just rub you the wrong way right and then for another person, they don't have that problem. They don't have that issue. This is a chemistry between you, right? So maybe he senses something from you. Maybe every time he's dealing with you guys, it's both of you, right? You've got a certain kind of pained look on your face, you're kind of bored, you're kind of irritated, you can't help expressing, oh shit, I have to hear this again. He feels it off of you and it kind of,

it makes him worse in a way. So, my solution, if I were in that dynamic, and it's not easy, is to try and say, I'm going to act differently this time. I'm going to see if I'm a certain way, if in my head I say, no, this guy is really interesting. He's just very insecure, you know, and he's probably had some issues from childhood. And I'm going to, you know, I'm not angry with him. I'm not irritated. You know, I'm just going to listen to him. And maybe he has something interesting to say. And just thinking that just try and see if he responds to you differently right so what i'm saying is a lot of times in marriages or relationships you get in this kind of frozen dynamic where one person says then you get irritated the other person their irritation irritates you back and forth back and forth

and you can't get out of it so you need to unfreeze this kind of block that it's come into by you thinking different thoughts or acting differently. And they've done amazing studies of psychology studies where like a teacher, for instance, if she merely or he merely thinks that the students are really smart and deserving of great education, they're going to go far. It changes how the students respond to smart and deserving of great education are going to go far. It changes how the students respond to the teacher, right? And I talk about this, I can't remember which book now.

I think it was in Human Nature, but it might've been in one of the other ones. But how somebody thought differently about their boss and it changed how he reacted and it completely altered the dynamic. I think that was human nature. You know what's looking nice, Lauren? I bet you're not going to guess what I'm going to say.

It's the little things. What? But you don't even know I'm going to say this. Bet you wouldn't know I'm going to say this. What? Your man is looking pretty nice. I know. It is looking nice.

It's not chipped. I did it myself. I noticed because sometimes when you do it yourself without the help of all of them, June, it's not as nice. Well, there's nothing worse than a chipped nail for me. And the fact that I'm able to do it from home, especially in Austin now, I like to be home a lot. It's kind of like a sanctuary. Their Manny system is like insane. They have this thing called a poppy. Okay. It's so genius. So it's this patented brush handle that makes it easy to paint both of your hands. Before I would paint one hand and it would be like so perfect. And then the other hand would

look like a limp dick. So I was really, really happy to get the poppy. It's been a game changer. It's also affordable. It comes with six polishes. The Manny system has six, you guys. This breaks down to $2 a Manny. And the thing about it that I love is the polish looks like a gel. I like a gel type of shine, especially one that doesn't chip. I'm obviously busy. Time is one of my most important currencies. And I feel like this Manny system is selling that. It's selling time. My nails look good. Don't mean to brag. Michael's into it. The Olive and June Manny system is the secret behind salon perfect nails at home. It's all in one. There's no guessing, no messy nails, and no salon price tag. I have not found anything that can help me paint my other

hand. I always have one hand that's looking perfect and the other hand's not looking good. So this is a big deal. And now they're giving you guys all 20% off your first Manny system with code skinny. You should also know the kit is so aesthetically pleasing. You want it on your Instagram. Your new nail life is here. You're going to get 20% off your first Manny system when you use promo code skinny at oliveandjune.com. We're done with expensive bad manis. This is the new us. Okay. So do you think that a lot of people can feel your energy is what it sounds like. They can feel your energy. If you're moving away, your little movements, you talk about that a lot, a blink of an eye, a look over here. How important are those to seduction and how important are they when you're dealing with someone that you don't

like? Just little body movements and little, I don't know. It's everything. It's everything. So, I'm saying this guy, I'm assuming it's a man, he's seeing, he's sensing something in your energy that's kind of accentuating his problem already. It's making him insecure and it's making him try even harder, which is making him even more irritating and making you become even more defensive, on and on and on. So be aware that we have an animal side to our nature. And some psychologists, I think I talked about this in Human Nature,

says 95% of communication between humans is nonverbal. You're not aware of it, but unconsciously, you're picking up signals from people, right? You're picking up their stickiness, their lack of openness to you. You're picking up their interest in their eyes. You're picking up all kinds of signals all day long. It's like this internal radar that you're not consciously aware of, but it determines whether you like someone, whether you don't like them, whether you think they're great, whether you think they're irritating, right? So, be aware that your

own, you're constantly sending out these signals as well, right? How you stand, your tone of voice, the look in your eyes, the fake smiles that you give people. And so, we go around this world dealing with people who are closed, who are not paying attention to us all day long, right? And it gets on us. We become defensive as well. We all have become, and even with the pandemic, we've all become triply more defensive. We have these walls, this kind of, I, we've all become triply more defensive. We have these walls, this kind of, I call it like a thorniness to us, where things kind of are prickly quality,

and it's getting worse and worse. But if you deal with someone who is acting differently, who doesn't have that quality, it completely changes how you respond to them, right? So these are things you have to be aware of yourself, your own attitude, what you're thinking. Believe it or not, people can pick up what you're thinking. They don't actually literally pick up your thoughts, but they pick up the emotional tone behind it, right? They pick up the mood behind it. And if that mood is kind of whiny, defensive, complaining, they sense it, they pick it up and it's not seductive. It doesn't pull them in. It makes them more defensive.

So just be aware of how your own energy, your own attitude is continually affecting, infecting the people around you. And I know this book was written, what you said, seduction maybe 20 years ago, but I still think it's so applicable today. And what, you know, again, going back to dating, like we have so many people that we know that struggle with dating and in your research, or do you, did you come across people that like repeat offenders, like no matter what they do, they can't make a relationship work. They can't get into one. And it's always someone else and not them. Like is what can those types of people do that are like, maybe they just keep running up

against, you know, brick walls or they just can't make a relationship work. Like what, in your findings, typically what are those traits or what's causing those issues? Well, the main trait is a lack of self-awareness, you know? So the worst thing is, let's say it's men

because I do think men have more of this problem than women, but I could be wrong. They always think it's the other person's fault. It's the women. I've never met the right woman. This woman, she was a bitch, or this woman was too controlling, or blah, blah, blah. And they don't realize that it's actually probably their own fault, that they have some flaws. So the inability to reflect on yourself is the most anti-seductive

quality of all. It's also the worst quality in humans can have because the only way you're going to get better in life and better in the social game, and that's not just for sex, that's in your office, for your work world, is by looking at yourself honestly and saying, I talk too much, for instance, right? Which is a problem a lot of people might have. Yours truly. Ah, okay. For sure.

I got to work on it. I know that. So if you can tell yourself, you know, Michael, sometimes you just talk too much. And where does that come from? It comes from insecurity, basically. You know, I'm thinking that the, if let's say you were know, I'm thinking that the, if let's say you were single, I'm thinking that the woman, I have to impress her.

She needs to be impressed by me because I'm essentially an insecure person. And so you're thinking, what can I say that's going to impress? Well, I'm going to talk about my work and how brilliant I am and blah, blah, blah. But you don't realize that's very unseductive. What you want to do instead is to stop being self-absorbed and to be outer absorbed, right?

So it's not easy when, if someone's 40 years old and they're like this, it's probably fairly hopeless, I'm afraid. Because they've gotten too deep, like it's too deep at that point. I think so. I mean, it's always exceptions, but if you're in your 20s-

A lot of 40 year olds listening like, oh shit, no. Oh, well, if you're unselfaware, you're not going to be even aware of it, right? You're going to be listening and you're going, that's not me. Oh, are you kidding? It's that other guy I know. Okay. Just the fact that you can tell yourself what's really more important in dating is how deep I'm thinking about the other person, right? This is the main point in the art of seduction to the degree that you can shut off that internal monologue, that insecure

little person inside of you that's always kind of trying to spout things out and impress other people. And you go, what is she thinking about? What is her world like? What was her childhood like? What are her parents like? What's going on in her mind, her world, right? Women have much different worlds than men. I mean, I'm afraid to say so. I mean, it's not always that way. There's a line, some people,

some women have very masculine energy, some men have very feminine energy. But generally the world that they live in and grew up in is very different from what we are. Can I try and understand it? Can I get into her spirit? What will please her? That's the most important step you can make to getting out of your seduction rat, whatever

the word I was thinking of, hole that you're in, right? So, the ability to get inside the other person's spirit, I have a chapter called Enter Their Spirit. If you can start to do that on your next date, on your next whatever encounter that you have, where you can think about their world and do it deeply, don't make it a superficial thing where for 30 seconds, you kind of go home and actually, and also without being intrusive, know how to ask gentle questions

to get the other person to open up about their world, about what excites them, about what pleases them, right? And so, that's the main thing that you can do, I think. We're going to dinner tonight, and if you don't enter my spirit, I am just going to sit here and remind you about this conversation. What's it like to date Robert Greene? If you have all these tools in your toolbox, when you're dating a woman and you know how to enter her spirit, are you just the biggest seductor of them all because you know all these things? I don't know. I could never say that. I could say that when I was in my 20s,

I was pretty good. I mean, I don't want to brag, but I was in Paris and I was a rake. What do your numbers compare to Errol Flynn? No, no. No, no, no. I'm not even in triple digits, I'm afraid. So I don't know.

I'm not in the same league. But'm afraid. So I don't know. I'm not in the same league. But I had my heyday, you know. So I'm a reformed rake now because I've been in a relationship for a while. But, you know, I have rakish tendencies in which I'm very interested in women and their world and their way of thinking and their spirit. And it interests me, it excites me. And I try and think about them, right? But I apply that to everybody that I meet, even to other people. I'm not trying to seduce them, but I'm trying to understand what their world is like.

And then the other thing I say, we're talking about seducer, anti-seducer. Think about gifts. Gifts are a very telling thing about your spirit. So actions speak louder than words. It's the cliche, right? And gifts are a way to show whether you're someone who's thinking about the other person or not. So a typical problem people have is they give expensive gifts, thinking that that's what it means. That shows that I care about it. What you want to do, and it's something that I was doing,

and the women in my past could attest to it, is what is it, something that they've said, something about their world, something about an interaction we've had where they revealed something about their selves, right? In little details, right? And you give a gift that signals that, that pays some attention to that idea or to that feeling. That is so, so different because what it means is you're paying attention, you're listening, you understand them, you understand, you heard what they said three days ago, right?

And you're giving a gift that reflects that. That's so much more powerful than just spending a lot of money on whatever, you know? So. When you think about, because I'd be remiss not to ask you this. I would say this last year in 2020 was one of the most non-seductive, un-seductive years we've had, right? Totally. And you've dedicated a large portion of your life to studying the human mind and psychology of people. What did you observe in 2020 that surprised you, if anything? Or were you like, hey, this is pretty much par for the course when something like this happens, even though it's the first time, at least in modern history that we've all been a part of a pandemic. Is there anything that surprised you about this or is there anything that's like, yeah, that's what I would anticipate would happen when something like this happens? Well, I've studied like plagues in the past and things like this before.

So there is a kind of dynamic. There is something in human nature that takes over. I noticed in myself, for instance, because I'm always kind of studying myself as well, that I was getting kind of more emotional, right? And less control of my own emotions. I was getting a little brittle as the months went by, a little more easily triggered. And it's because I think people lived inside. They were enclosed, they didn't have any way to vent their emotions except maybe on social media or something. Which may be one of the worst ways to do that, but. Yeah, it is. So, what I tell people is the pandemic probably had a bigger

effect on you than you realize. So, it's hard to know how this has affected people. We'll see years from now. But I imagine that it had a bigger effect than all of us, including myself, realize, that it altered us in some ways. In some ways, maybe for the good, in some ways for the bad. The good might be, I realized that before the pandemic, I was wasting time. I was socializing with these people who actually don't mean anything to me. I learned being on my own that I kind of like being by myself sometimes. I don't need to have 80 friends all the time. Maybe you learn something about yourself and that's good.

But on the other hand, maybe you develop certain fear patterns that are going to hold you back. Because we're now entering, at least in the United States, into a period that's going to be pretty exciting, pretty insane, where the whole game is opening up. I think the economy is going to start to explode. There's going to be all sorts of opportunities out there. Whole industries are dying. Whole new ones are rising up.

And you want to be an exciting, adventurous, exploring type of person. But you've developed these layers of fears about your career, about people, and you're not aware of it and you're carrying them into the real world. I'm afraid I think that's going to happen because I look at my own parents. My parents, I'm old enough, I'm afraid to admit it. They grew up in the Depression and they never got rid of their Depression mentality. My father, who ended up making a decent living, he was pretty middle class, but he was still a depression and they never got rid of their depression mentality. You know, my father who

ended up making a decent living, he was pretty middle-class, but he was still always worried about pennies and spending money here and there. He couldn't shake it. Are you going to be someone like that five years from now when the world is opening up? Are you still kind of keeping that pandemic fear levels of fear and anxiety? So that's sort of how I think about it. Yeah. I constantly, personally, and like Lauren and I talk about this, constantly think about, okay, how can you take the experience of the pandemic and do exactly, recognize, you know, when your fear is serving you and also recognize when it's not and kind of like take this opportunity and make sure that it propels you in life and doesn't hold you back.

I think that's a very, it's a very difficult balancing act because there's so many, you know, you could go either way very easily. Right. And I think you're right. I don't know. I don't think we've realized what the impact is going to be for a while, but we'll soon find out, I guess. Yeah.

One of the impacts that you mentioned earlier is people sitting behind their keyboard spewing hate. Yeah. Do you think that this pandemic has, how do you think it's affected social media? If you were to look at all of us being in our house, being closed, do you think on social media that it's been something

that has hurt us moving forward? Or do you think we're going to come out of it? It's not like that a pandemic is going to change human nature. We bring ourselves to circumstances, right? And so already before the pandemic, social media was sort of this media for people to kind of spew their outrage, their anger, their hatreds, their prejudices. And all the pandemic did was exacerbate all of that and accentuate it and make it stronger. Right. Because as I say in my last book, you can't escape human nature. You can't escape being a human. You're wired a certain way. You have certain basic needs. One of the basic needs as a social animal

is to be interacting with other people, to be getting feedback and validation from other people. And when you're not getting that and your only avenue is social media and the only avenue is putting up photos to get that kind of validation that you need, that's a problem, right? Because you should be getting it

from people in your real life. You should be getting it from people in your real life. You should be getting it from your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your husband or wife, your friends, your colleagues, and not from your 500 or 5 million followers on Instagram, right? So it's only going to make some of these things worse. So that's what I was talking about with Michael.

We'll see if several years from now people are able to move past that because I maintain we are who we are we have a desperate need for flesh to flesh interaction with people and I think people are going to be so excited to be now out and mixing with other people

and just being here with you and not being on a Zoom call is fun enough for me as well i think people are going to can get over these some of these things now but social media will always be a problem because it's it it attracts it appeals to the darkest and least controllable parts of human nature i think like one thing i talk about all the time is one of the great things about social media and this hyper-connectivity and being, having access to all these things is you get information right away. I also think it's one of the bad things is you get information right away,

right? Like we don't have it, like the panic can, can, can happen so fast when it, this is the information just coming so quickly and, you know, studying past pandemics, they didn't have this type of information that, you know. You're a few villages away. You didn't know until later or even a few countries away or whatever. And I wonder if you ever think about that, like the spread of information in the news cycle and what that's doing to our psychology and to our minds.

Yeah, it's not good. It's not good. I was consulting with someone yesterday. I do some consulting work. He's the head of a very incredibly powerful of sports empire therapy. He's saying that the problem he has now is he's trying to promote himself on Instagram because he's got so many followers

and it's making his brand huge. But then all of the other people in his team, they start resenting him. They think he's all in it for himself, right? And they see every single one of his Instagram posts and they're going, oh, he's not thinking so much about the company. He's just promoting himself, right? But he's telling me, no, I'm really promoting the company as a whole, but through me. So the openness, the transparency that people can see everything that you do and they can judge it

and they can feel like you're trying too hard to get attention, you know, and they can judge you on that way and they can feel superior to you. For a leader, for a CEO, it's incredibly tricky and incredibly difficult. And I believe me in my consulting work, social media has made the problem of being a leader

from being this bad to like this bad. And I'm having to deal with it all the time. Like how do I maintain my popularity on Instagram without pissing off all these other people? That is so interesting that you bring this up. I was having this conversation the other day. Whenever I now hire any kind of team member, I always have the conversation that says, don't think that the job is like my

Instagram story. You're seeing five minutes of my day. And even though it's posted throughout the whole day, it's only five minutes. Like the job is A, B, C, D, E, F, G. It's not just eating oysters and rosé. You know what I mean? We're working and I'm working too. So I really try to encourage them not to sort of fall for the social media hoopla. And there isn't sort of a person to talk to about this because there's never been a time in history where someone can see every single thing you're doing all day long. I even have friends that it'll, I'll post something in San Diego and then drive up to LA and my San Diego friend will say, I saw you're in San Diego. Let's hang out.

And I'll say, I'm not, I'm not there. And sometimes it causes a little bit of, it's causing problems. And that's really interesting you bring that up. I've never heard anyone articulate it like that. Tell the CEO to call me. It's difficult because they are watching all day. Well, even doing like, you know, like my, like I always tell people like my day job, the thing that I do day to day

is I run Dear Media as a CEO, right? This thing that we're doing right here is kind of like the side thing. But sometimes that gets confusing because obviously you don't see my day-to-day running the company. And like you said, boring, watching me on a conference call

or talking to a bank. And you're not Instagramming that. No, I'm not like that. It's not an Instagram of me on the phone with a partner, right? Maybe you should do that. Or like me talking to the tech team or whatever, but this is the thing you see, right. Or the thing you hear. And I, and I think contextualizing that so that people, you know, like it's a fun, it's a really interesting thing to navigate. And like

Lauren said, there's not like some kind of playbook that you can go to. Maybe you should write 48 laws of social media. Please, Robert. The only tool that I've found that I think, and maybe it's not working, is just like I'm basically as transparent here as I am there with the team. There's no like, hey, I'm this way here and that way there. You kind of get the same person. It's just this one happens to speak to a little bit more people.

Right. You mentioned validation right right you mentioned validation and you mentioned needing validation in your daily life and not just on social media how important is validation in a relationship it's like everything oh my gosh you need more he says he says why should i have to give you validation? No, no, no. This is the perfect person. Let's enter couples therapy. I want to know. I say, how much validation?

I need as much as validation as you can possibly give me. You know that the thing about the five love languages? The five love languages? Yeah, there's like touch, acts of service, words of affirmation. I'm probably forgetting another, whatever. Whatever. Somebody wrote a book called The Five Love Languages. And the point is, you're supposed to have one. She takes all five. She's like, I need all five. I'm probably forgetting another, whatever, whatever. Somebody wrote a book called the five love languages. And they, and the point is you're supposed to have one. She takes all

five. She's like, I need all five. I'm like, you can't. So when it comes to validation, I want to know how important validation is in a relationship. It's extremely important. So what, what would be wrong with giving her all five? Is it going to take up your whole day? In her case, it's going to be a full-time gig. No, it's not. I love that Robert Greene's saying this too. Record this and play it every morning. Oh, God. So, validation is important.

I mean, saying three words that validate those five different things is not going to take you all day. Wait, Robert, do you believe that it's only three words for her? It could be if they're the right words. That's true. If you're attuned to her spirit if you understand so what is it that you need validation about if you're able to reveal that i just let i like from my husband i don't i don't feel like i need it from from anyone else like i need it from my husband i think he grew up in a household where his parents never validated you at all which is either way. I don't think they...

Well, I wouldn't say that. It wasn't a negative house. It was a beautiful household, but his parents would never outwardly say... I can say this because I... Yeah, how can I say it nicely? My grandmother's full Japanese. My mom's half Japanese.

Really? You wouldn't know by looking at me. No, my girlfriend's Hapa Haole. You know Hapa Haole? Uh-huh. My dad, just like, you know, tough old guy, military guy back in the day. So you're,

you're half or quarter Japanese? I'm quarter. Wow. Quarter. I found out that I'm quarter Japanese, quarter Italian. I'm, uh,

you're not asking me enough about myself right now. You're talking. I grew up in a household where I was always supported and always told I could do anything and always felt very confident and felt loved, but it wasn't like there was very little like verbal validation. And, and, and I also grew up in a situation where like if I accomplished someone,

people or something, people would be like, okay, like that's what's expected. Like, right. Right. So I don't know,

like, I'm not saying that's good or bad. What Robert's saying, I think is that you should be aware that that's how you grew up and use it as a tool to change moving forward. I guess what I'm saying is it just doesn't come as natural. That doesn't mean you can't do it. Okay. that that's how you grew up and use it as a tool to change moving forward. I guess what I'm saying is it just doesn't come as natural. That doesn't mean you can't do it.

I know you are right. I know she is right. The little bit of effort that you put in will probably be enough. So if she wants like 100% validation and you're giving her 3% and you could raise your game to 40%, that would certainly be a big, that might even do it. Robert, didn't you know this podcast is about what's wrong with other people? I'm just kidding.

But no, I agree. It's something I'm working on just as much as I'm working on talking less and listening more. So people need validation about things that you don't normally necessarily think they need validation about. You think don't normally necessarily think they need validation about. You think, wow, Lauren is so beautiful.

She's so smart. I don't need to tell her that. But you'd be surprised that you do need to tell her those things, right? Because probably she's not getting enough of that from people. You're the only one or the one that matters the most to her to get it from. It's not getting it from her 8 million followers on Instagram. It's from you. Which makes me feel special.

I feel so strategic that one of the greatest authors of all time just came on and told you that in the most articulate way. I don't have a lot of room for argument. Thank you. I'm obsessed with what he just told you. You mentioned consulting and I've heard you say it on your podcast before and your consulting. I know a lot of very high powered people. What's something that you see that's common, whether negative or positive? The most common thing is the business partner from hell, right? And none of just from hell, they're just problems between partners. So you go into a partnership and the person seems like they're this way.

They're motivated. They're part of the team. They understand the brand, the vision. That's why you brought them on. And then suddenly they reveal that they're really in it for themselves, that there's like ego clashes. They think that you're promoting yourself too much, like I was mentioning with this other guy,

or that you suddenly realize they're incompetent that they managed to fool you into thinking they were going to work hard but it was all like fake their resume and their effort they're really just in there collecting a paycheck whatever you misjudge this person that you brought on as a partner and then of course we can also say people

that you've employed right so misjudging people's character is the number one problem that I get, right? And I tell people, and I wrote about it in Laws of Human Nature, understanding people's character is a million times more important than their resume, than what they say, than anything else. Because people could be brilliant, but they're weak, they're lazy, they can't handle stress, right? They may have gone to Harvard, they may have an MBA,

but when things become stressful, they lose control. You need to figure out people's character before you hire them, before you get into trouble, before you get involved in a relationship, before you marry someone. You have to understand their character because you're not going to get it in five weeks of courtship or three months or six months if you're not paying attention. And then you discover a year later that this person that you married isn't what you thought

they were and what a problem it is trying to change them or get away from the relationship. So the ability to look at people and scrutinize qualities that matter, whether they're able to listen, whether they're able to take criticism, whether they're able to change and adapt to circumstances, whether they're able to work together on things, these are what you need to judge people before you get involved with them.

So your ability to take criticism and adapt. I'll be judging your character. I'm really getting nailed today. You are. He's fine. He can take it. This is a question that's maybe a little bit selfish, but I feel like the audience will benefit as well. Don't worry.

It's not about you. Okay. I need a break. I'm sweating over here. Out of all the laws of power, what do you think is one that's not used enough? And what do you think is one that's not given enough attention? It's a good question.

I mean, everything for the laws of power depends on who you are and your own strengths and weaknesses and where you are in life. So court attention might be great if you're in the social sphere, but if you just started a job, court attention at all costs will be deadly. Law number one is probably one of the most important laws of all, never outshine the master.

And in my consulting work, I get a lot of people who violated that law. I violated it myself. That's why I wrote about it, and I know it very well. But the idea behind it, which I think a lot of people in the world today have difficulty with, is that everybody you deal with has an ego. Don't imagine that somebody who pretends to be, who's all powerful, who's your boss, doesn't have an ego. Don't imagine that I don't have an ego or that you yourself don't have. Everybody has an ego, right? And everybody has insecurities. And in fact, the higher you rise up in life, the more insecurities you have because there's more responsibility,

there's more at stake. So that person above you that you work for and there's always somebody above you has a lot more insecurities than you imagine. And if you inadvertently trigger his or her insecurities, you're in for a world of trouble. You're probably going to get fired or something bad's going to happen eventually, right?

You're not even aware of it. You'll be fired and they'll be telling you it's because you didn't perform well, but actually you made the person feel insecure about something that seems so trivial. So you need to think constantly that people have an ego. They have insecurities.

You have to be careful about what you say. I mean, I'm afraid in the work world, it's very important. And the laws of power, we're mostly dealing with things in the work world. You have to be careful about what you say. You can't just speak whatever you want to say. You can't just show how brilliant you are and how wonderful you are. You have to realize that you have to think more about the other person, about their insecurities, and get outside of just trying to think about yourself.

That's like the biggest fault I think I see people have. And there are several laws that deal with the inability to think about other people and their self-interest, et cetera. So that's sort of the main thing. And one of the most important laws, particularly in the world today, is a law, I think it's around 11, about creating dependence. And what that means is if in your job, in your career, you can be replaced, you will be replaced at some point. Somebody younger, cheaper, better looking, I hate to say

it, they'll fire your ass in a minute and they'll employ that other person, right? Because they don't need you. They can find somebody else to do your job. And you'd be surprised how easy it is to be replaced and how people will do that. If there's no cost of getting rid of you, then people will get rid of you. Unfortunately, that's the world we live in. So you need to create relationships of dependence. They need you. To get rid of you is like gonna be very destructive and very costly so you have your fingers in different areas of the business of the work world you have knowledge that you that people can't do without you have skills and think about that and think about the fact that if you're in an industry that's changing and it's going through a lot of turmoil right now, particularly after the pandemic, you're so replaceable, it's ridiculous.

And you have to be aware of that. And you have to find eventually a career or a place or your own business where you're not replaceable. That's to me one of the most important laws of all. That's when ego gets to be the most dangerous is when we all start to believe we're irreplaceable that's to me one of the most important laws of all that's when ego gets to be the most dangerous is when we all start to believe we're irreplaceable that's like the moment where yeah you're replaceable exactly yeah the sublime i want to know how you had this idea even down to was there an epiphany did you have a dream and then i want to know what the process has been like and what we can expect as a reader from the book. Well, I had meant to write the book about 15, 16 years ago. It's a subject that's always fascinated me. I had read some other book about it and I thought,

what a weird concept. It really attracted me. And then after I wrote my war book, that was to be my next book. I started the research for it. And then 50 Cent approached me to do the 50th Law. And I go, all right, I'll do that. But I'll come back to Sublime. I finished the 50th Law, 50 Cent book. And I had a chapter that kind of was about mastery. And I thought, that's more time.

I'll do the book on mastery. But then I'll do Sublime. And then Mastery was over.. I was getting all this email about people who wrote about the chapter on social intelligence said, we need more about that. And I go, all right, human nature is the next book. And then, as you know, almost three years ago, I had my stroke. And the sublime book, if I can explain it, it's kind of hard to explain, but I'll try my hardest. The idea behind what I consider to be the sublime, my I can explain it, it's kind of hard to explain, but I'll try my hardest. The idea behind what I consider to be the sublime, my concept of it is, is that we humans tend to live in this kind of a circle of codes and conventions of things we're supposed to do, of ways we're supposed to think, etc.

And we have to kind of obey these conventions. We're not even aware of them. They're unwritten, right? We can't say certain things. We can't experience certain things. This because this is how society creates a kind of an order, but what lies outside that circle obsesses us. We're fascinated by it's the land of the forbidden.

It's the land of something dark, different. It's something we've not experienced before. It's overwhelming, it's powerful, it's awesome. And that is the sublime. And to just explore what's outside that circle has a transformative effect on you. It's what the psychologist Maslow called a peak experience. It will change you for the rest of your life,

I can guarantee you. And the ultimate sublime experience is death itself, because that's the ultimate unknown in the world. That's what really lies beyond the circle. We'll never know what that is, right? And people who've had near-death experiences, it completely changes them. They're never the same. It's like an insane revelation, okay?

I wrote my last chapter in the laws of human nature about confronting your mortality and the sublime. And then three months later, I came this close to dying myself. I was in a coma, I was unconscious. And I too had a slight near-death experience, not as powerful as other people have. So the irony was, a book I've been planning to write for 15 years, 16 years,

suddenly I got bitch slapped in the face with the reality of it. And it was like very intense. I go, all right, now it's going to be my next book. And I think the point of it is, we humans for so many millions of years, thousands of years, excuse me, had religion. And we live in a very sophisticated scientific world. And many of us kind of scoff at religion as something from our primitive past.

But in fact, religion served a deep human need that we all have. It's embedded in human nature. And the disappearance of something larger than ourselves, of something that's kind of mysterious, incomprehensible, is we have to have a relationship to that or we're not a human being anymore. Why are we conscious?

We're the only animal that's conscious of death. We're conscious of evolution. We're conscious. We know what a black hole is. We can map out the history of the universe. Can you imagine that? That is insane. That is the sublime, and we need to be thinking about it. We need to be aware of these incredible, awesome things that surround us every day. Otherwise, we lose our soul, you know? And so it's a book about reconnecting to those powerful, primitive things in our nature.

And so the first chapter, I've written two chapters. The first chapter has to do with the cosmic sublime. So to be aware of the size of the universe, of how small we are, of how powerful it is, is an incredible experience because it puts you into life, into perspective, and it actually makes you much more appreciative of every minute that you have alive. The second chapter is about what I call the biological sublime, and I'm trying to make you aware of how strange it is to be alive, how strange it is for you to be conscious right now. Because if you knew the history of life on this planet,

you would realize that you, the odds against Lauren and Michael existing as you are, are absolutely astronomical. If you went down the list of things, and I do that in the chapter, of all the things that had to happen for Lauren and Michael to exist is astounding. You would drop dead if I explained it to you.

And so people don't go around thinking about that. They take for granted their life. They take for granted that they have 60, 70, 80 years of breathing on this planet. They take for granted their relationships. They take for granted all the technology that we have. They go around blind. They think they just, they're so privileged everything was meant to be this way. No, open your eyes. It's insane.

You have so much to be grateful for and so much not to take for granted. And that's sort of the point of the book. Wow. I cannot wait to read that. I also cannot wait to read your other book too. That Sublime sounds amazing. I mean, that sounds like- Are you sure? Because it's a little different than my other books. I think it's- Yeah, but I like them. I don't need validation.

I'm just saying. It sounds like it brings all your books though together in a weird way. In a weird way they do, yeah. Yeah, it sounds sublime. It sounds like it kind of contextualizes what really matters at the end, right? Yeah. I think it's a great, great, great idea and I cannot wait to read it.

Okay. When it comes out, you got to come back on. Okay, in 10 years when it comes out. It's not going to come out in 10 years. I don't know if I can wait that long. I can't wait that long. I know everyone's at the edge of their seat, I'm sure.

You also have another book coming out later this year, which is something that I think I personally will apply to my everyday life, just like I do The Daily Stoic, but I'll let you tell the audience about that. Well, it's a book called The Daily Laws, and it's basically, it's organized like The Daily Stoic in a calendar form, like going from January 1st to December 31st, and each day has a lesson to it, excerpted from one of my books or from my podcast, interviews like this, and from a blog post, things like that. And we kind of gave it a little bit of a structure. So the first months have to do with mastery, with your career, with figuring out who you are, with what you were meant to do in life.

The next few months deal with 48 laws of power, like difficult people, toxic people, problems with manipulation, with never outshine the master, that kind of thing. And those months have to deal with being better at the social game. Then it's about how to influence and persuade people, how to be more seductive and, you know, be able to have more kind of power over people in a soft way. And then finally, towards the end, it's all about human nature. And December is the month of the sublime, which has excerpts from my new book. And so, and that's kind of the ultimate month to sort of explore something larger than yourself. So it's kind of got this structure. And then each month has also a kind of a theme and it's introduced with a little essay, a lot of which have to do with my own life. They were created

for this book, like my own experiences in the work world and how they relate to this particular month. So overall, it should kind of infuse you with my way of thinking. If you go through the whole year like that and slowly have an effect on you and also make you maybe want to read some of these books, but it's to give you daily thoughts and meditations

so that you become more conscious and aware in your daily life and every day you open it up and you read something and you think about your own behavior and about how you can change yourself just to make you more reflective and more self-aware well robert if you wrote a book a 500 page book on why grass grows and the science behind paint drying i would read it i'd read about anything you come out with really yeah this is i mean i'm not saying you're i'm not saying you should do that like what if i wrote a book on lingerie anything any pretty if it says robert green on it i'll be in line lingerie is not interesting write something on couples therapy how do i need some consulting sessions after this yeah my last and final question that

i want to leave the audience with is random but why do you think your books are so popular in prison i have to like why do you why do you want to know that i don't know i just want to know what you think from your perspective this has all been leading up to her potentially murdering me and she i know my handbook that i'm going to be using in prison. I want to disappear. No, this is what's crazy is I've heard other people say this, but I've also watched shows on prison because I have a very upset. That's interesting. That's why I'm asking you.

Your works pop up. It's everywhere. Like there's this show. What's it called? It's called 60 Days In. 60 Days In. Have you seen this? It's a show quickly. They go it's called 60 days in have you seen this it's a it's

a show quickly synopsis they go in they take an everyday civilian you know could be you know librarian a security guard and they put them in in an actual prison for 60 days what a great idea and then they film one and see how they your book is all over the show and the prisoners talk about 48 laws of power no one's ever mentioned that to me yeah it's on the show and i've noticed that i've also noticed because i'm so obsessed with prison i'll read about why you're talking about books and all different kinds of things and i noticed that it keeps getting brought up but it's i also have heard not just 48 i've also heard laws of human nature too really yeah wow that's so exciting to me i'm so glad you told me about this this is great i just want to know why you

think it's so popular well because I've also been fascinated by prison. I always imagine what would have happened, how would I cope in prison, you know? I think a lot of us are kind of interested in that idea. That's why I asked you. But prison is the most stark, naked atmosphere of human interaction you can imagine, where the power is so obvious, it's so overt, it's so direct and so immediate that there's no escaping it. You know, if you're in a work world and you have a terrible boss, you close the door, you go away, you go home.

Imagine that you're jailmate or you're somebody in the cell. There's no escaping. Every day, it's so powerful, it's so raw, right? How do you survive that? And if you're already a tough person that's got this kind of hardness to them, you're probably not going to need the 48 laws of power. And I get letters written to me from prisoners, so I kind of know what I'm talking about right here. It's not the hardened ones that read the 48 laws of power. It's the ones who are in there for some

like drug conviction, where they happen to have their third conviction and they're sentenced to 10 years and they're not someone who's been in prison before or they've been in jail, but never in prison. And whoa, or maybe they're not as tough as they think, as they thought they were. And they're dealing with not just the prisoners, but the wardens.

The wardens can be nasty, manipulative, violent, right? So imagine all the worst people in your life in one tiny space, and you have to deal with them every single day, day in and day out, and you have to survive. And literally it's life and death. Well, you better believe you're going to open a book that kind of might help you in dealing with that.

And that would be the 48 Laws of Power. So I understand it very well. You know, it's a book that tries to be as honest as possible about manipulation, about human psychology in a way that no one's ever talked about before. And part, you can tell the kind of taboo, kind of power of the book by the fact that several prison systems

have literally banned the 48 Laws of Power from their prison system. In Colorado, in Pennsylvania, you can't even get the book anymore. And if you try and have someone send it to you, they'll confiscate it because they know that the book has had an effect. So that's why I think it works.

And some people try and use it against me as if 48, oh, Robert writes about things that are so ugly and dark that people in prison read it. I don't look at it that way because I think human beings are human no matter where they are. And people even in prison have, they still have feelings and emotions and vulnerabilities.

So I don't walk away. I'm not ashamed that prisoners read my book. I'm very proud of it. And if I can help them in any way, because I'm like you, Lauren, I'm kind of obsessed with it. And I love reading books about people who've been in prison and who survived and not only survived. I read a book recently, I forget its title,

of an African-American who was sentenced to life imprisonment for a murder that he did not do. He was totally framed. He spent 30 years in prison on death row. He was finally released in like 2016. And he's like a very positive person. He emerged intact. I think that's the most insane. If you can go through that made subjects that are so taboo and make people so uncomfortable to talk about. And you've, you've taken that off. So people normally would say power's negative, but what you've made me realize it's not negative or positive. It just is what it is. Exactly. And so to, and same with human nature, it's not, it's not negative or positive. It just, it's, it's what it is. And so, I think that's the most incredible thing about all your writing. I would tell everyone who's listening to go pick up one of his books. There's something for everyone.

Personally, if I were to start with one book, I would start, I think, with Laws of Human Nature. But you might tell them to start with something else. Each person's different. It's a long book yeah so if you don't mind reading or you get it in audio then yes that's a good book to start with but if you're like interested in improving your dating is an issue then the art of seduction if you're dealing with toxic people and 48 laws of power if you're a business person who's starting a business and it's it's kind of a tricky navigate, the war book, strategy book is very good.

And then if you're 21 about to launch your career and you don't know what you want to do, then mastery is a book for you. And then if you're riddled with fear and that's holding you back, then the 50th law. That's a good one too. I'm sorry. I don't mean to tout all my books. No, but there's so many my books but there's such a wide range i mean so i told you it's why i love your work and and i just love that you you write in well you read in such a deep way but also like you use so many historical examples where almost

in a way you're like it it reads in a very digest even though it's very high level stuff it's digestible because you're comparing it to human experiences that have actually existed or happened. Right. Anyways, I'll never watch game of Thrones the same after reading 48 laws of power. Whenever a lot of people broke a lot of those laws, whenever there's someone that that's being secretive,

kind of like the messenger. I'm like, that's the eunuch from game of Thrones. I'm like always comparing the characters from your book. My favorite law? You want to know my favorite law? What? I bet you can guess it.

Despise the free lunch. Yeah, despise the free lunch. Really? Yes, that's one of my favorites too. That's a good law. Yeah. Robert Green, where can everyone find you? Pimp yourself out.

Well, I have a website. It's a little bit, it's been around for a long time. It's called powerseductionandwar war.com the and is spelled out power seduction and war.com and there you'll find links to my twitter to my instagram i think it's that robert green official robert green robert green official i don't remember robert green official because i follow you oh thank you okay i have to do I follow you? Yeah. I do follow you? Yeah. Okay, I'm sorry.

No, you always do. You follow each other. And Facebook and all that stuff. And then there's an email where you can reach me, although I'm afraid to say I'm kind of inundated these days. So my assistant handles a lot of that, but I do try and respond. Anyway, that's the main place to find me. You guys follow him. He is a must follow. There's so many good quotes that I always am screenshotting and posting to my story.

I gave him my book, Get the Fuck Out of the Sun. It's pink and I hope it looks so cute. I wrote this to you next to 48 Laws of Power. I'm just kidding. What's that? On your bookshelf. I said, I hope that the pink book looks cute next to 48 Laws of Power.

Thank you for coming on. Come back anytime. I cannot wait to read both of your books. Oh, you're very welcome. My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Do you want to win a copy

of Get the Fuck Out of the Sun? My latest book, it's on Amazon, Target, Barnes & Noble, and where all small books are sold. All you have to do to win a copy, a signed copy in pink Sharpie, is tell us your favorite part of this episode with Robert Green on my latest Instagram. It's at Lauren Bostic and someone from the team will drop into your inbox. Thank you guys so much for listening to the show, supporting the show and reviewing the show.

If you haven't reviewed the show, it takes two seconds on Apple podcasts and Spotify. We would very much appreciate it. And with that, we'll see you next time.