Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Robert Greene [Part 2]: Decoding the Laws of Human Nature | Human Behavior | E44

Episode Date: October 23, 2019

Decode the laws of human nature with fame author, Robert Greene! In this second portion of the interview, Hala and Robert dive into the laws of compulsive behavior, grandiosity, gender rigidity and death denial.   Fivver: Get services like logo creation, whiteboard videos, animation and web development on Fivver: https://track.fiverr.com/visit/?bta=51570&brand=fiverrcpa Fivver Learn: Gain new skills like graphic design and video editing with Fivver Learn: https://track.fiverr.com/visit/?bta=51570&brand=fiverrlearn If you liked this episode, please write us a review! Want to connect with other YAP listeners? Join the YAP Society on Slack: bit.ly/yapsociety Earn rewards for inviting your friends to YAP Society: bit.ly/sharethewealthyap Follow YAP on IG: www.instagram.com/youngandprofiting Reach out to Hala directly at [e-mail] Follow Hala on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Follow Hala on Instagram: www.instagram.com/yapwithhala Check out our website to meet the team, view show notes and transcripts: www.youngandprofiting.com

Hey guys, if you're an avid listener of Young and Profiting Podcast, I'd like to personally invite you to YAP Society on Slack. It's a community where listeners network and give us feedback on the show. Vote on episode titles, chat live with guests, and share your projects with the group. We'd love to have you. Go to Bitley slash YAP Society. That's BIT.L.Y slash YAP Society. You can find the link in our show notes. This episode of YAP is sponsored by Fiverr, a marketplace that over 5 million entrepreneurs used to grow their business. I've been using Fiverr for years. In fact, I got the Yap logo made on there, and if you've seen my cool audiograms with animated cartoons, I get those images from Fiverr too. They have affordable services like graphic design, web design, digital

marketing, whiteboard explainer videos, programming, video editing, audio editing, and much more. They have over 100,000 talented freelancers to choose from, and it's super affordable. Prices just start at $5.00. If you're interested to give Fiverr a shot, hit the link in our show notes. You're listening to Yap, Young and Profiting Podcast, a place where you can listen, learn, and profit. I'm your host, Halitaha, and you're listening to Part 2 of my interview with famed author Robert Green. In this second portion of the interview, we're diving into the law of compulsive behavior, the law of grandiosity, the law of gender rigidity, and the law of death denial. In my opinion, this is one of the best interviews I've ever had,

and I hope you find it as valuable as I did. Without further ado, I give you part two with Robert Green. Something else you're an expert on. You've had interviews just on this topic is the dark side of people's personality, which I think relates to this narcissism topic. You call this also the shadow self. Could you explain to us what this dark side is

and why we shouldn't repress these feelings and how we could spin it to be used in positive ways. Well, once again, we have to kind of look at early childhood. If you can remember your own childhood or if you've had children yourself, you know that children are like these complete selves. They experience all sorts of emotions. They experience love towards their parents and can be very angelic and giving.

At the same time, they can be very angry and very selfish and very domineering and they want everything for themselves. They can be very nice and sweet, and they can also be incredibly aggressive and vicious. Even, you know, boys and girls, I include in that, have aggressive impulses. They feel envious. They want the attention that the sibling is getting. And they're not sitting there managing their emotions. They're not trying to play a certain self to get what they want.

They can't control it. This is who they are. They feel all of these certain emotions. They're a complete person. And then what happens is you get older, is you get five or six or seven years old, is you're being taught, well, that behavior isn't polite. That isn't what you should be doing. You really need to tamp down those aggressive impulses.

You need to get along better with people. You need to be sweeter and nicer and appear to be someone who is very cooperative, who's very loving and giving. And so as you get older and you feel these pressures, all of that natural energy you have, all those natural impulses that are built in that are wired into the human animal. You repress because your whole goal in life is to please other people as you get older. You want them to see you as this kind of perfect, great person who's not insecure, doesn't have these problems.

And so you kind of craft a mask that isn't really who you are. And you wear this throughout your social life. And it can get you very far in the world. But those emotions that you have that you've repressed in childhood, they don't go away. They're lingering in you. And what you'll discover even with you or with other people in life is that suddenly that dark side, that shadow will spring to life when you be suspected. You'll get angry and you don't even know why you get angry.

You will fall in love with exactly the wrong kind of person for you. And you don't even really know where this came from. You will put all of your money in some investment because other people are doing it. don't even really know why. And this is that dark side that's coming out because you haven't come to terms with it. It's not part of you anymore. It's something you've repressed. It's a shadow. And in moments of stress or moments where you're not very happy or you're not completely feeling fulfilled, that shadow will emerge and it will come out and it will cause all kinds of weird behavior. And so my point is, I want you to be aware of this dark side that everybody carries with

them. You know, it could be, this dark side can be that you're an extremely competitive, ambitious person. I know I have that problem. And you're not comfortable with it because you don't want people to think that you're this scheming ambitious person. But I'm trying to tell you, you need to come to terms with it. You need to accept that part of yourself that you repressed, that child within you that felt these strong emotions. And you need to look at it squarely. And you need to see that this shadow, this dark side, actually contains incredible amount of power if you learn how to tap into it. So, I mean, I think a lot about great athletes, for instance. I think of somebody like Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan. These are people who are extremely

competitive. And if they didn't do this competitive instincts in basketball and sports, they might get involved in things that weren't very good or very productive, they'd be in a lot of trouble. But they channel all of that into something very powerful. So you can take that ambition and you can channel it into making it the best possible product, into destroying all of your rivals in business and making it. You're the number one seller for whatever it is. Or you can, I tell a lot of people who are interested in the arts, using your anger, using your frustration, using that dark side is really powerful to bring out in your music or in the books that you write because people are really excited by any expression of the dark side.

Look at all the movies that we watch and all the television shows. We're fascinated by Machiavellian characters, by the con artists, by people who seem to get away with things. We're fascinated with it because it's a part of ourselves that we haven't come to terms with, that we're repressing. So in your artwork or in your music, you need to bring that out. You need to bring out that edge in your own pursuits in life, in your own ambitions, et cetera. So I give you a template for how to recognize your shadow, how to embrace it, and how to use it in your life for very productive purposes. And the other thing is, if you look at people, you know, we all kind

of admire certain actors or certain, let's say, rock musicians who are more complete, who show more of their dark side, who seem to not be so repressed, who are more comfortable with themselves. And I maintain that getting rid of that kind of hypocritical need to be so saintly will actually make people more interested in you because you will see more human and more authentic. That's a really good point. It's kind of like Gary V. who like curses and things like that, but people love him. That's a good point, yeah. Related to this in some capacity is character

and the fact that you say that character is a primary value that we should evaluate people on when it comes to working relationships and things like that. So how can we determine if someone has a strong or weak character and how is the law of compulsive behavior related to this? Well, it's one of the most important things in the book because throughout life you're going to have to choose people, to work with, to be a business partner, to hire to help you to work on a project,

or you're going to be choosing someone to be your intimate partner on some level. And making the wrong choice can destroy your life. It literally can. If you choose somebody that has a toxic personality, if you choose a deep narcissist and get involved with them, it can take you years and years to ever recover from the experience. And the reason that you fall for the people of a bad character is somebody who's a toxic narcissist, for instance, not just one type of toxic character. They don't go around announcing themselves with a big neon sign saying, hey, everybody, I'm a toxic narcissist.

People learn very well how to disguise themselves. And narcissists can often be very charming and very charismatic because they've learned very early on in life. They always need to get attention from other people, so they're very good at that, and you can easily fall under their spells. So it's very easy to misread people's character, because what we do is we tend to take their appearances for reality. If someone appears charming, if they appear to like us, if they appear pleasant, we naturally assume that that's who they are. And then a year later, whoa, wow, I didn't realize this person was so aggressive. I didn't realize this person was actually a snake. They're actually there to steal my business from me.

Why didn't I completely misread it? They must have deceived me. It's something they do is that you misread them. So not being able to judge people's character and only looking at their appearances is a terrible, terrible fault that you carry along with you in life. And so I want you to be constantly judging people, not for their charm, not for their intelligence, not for their resume, not for how much you like them, but for their character.

And character is something that is deeply engraved in a person. It means these are the patterns that they have in life. This is who they are. This is their nature in the deepest sense of it. And so I talk about there are people with strong character and there are people with weak character. And finding people with strong character, particularly in a business sense, is the most important thing that you need to do.

People of strong character, what are the parameters that kind of determine the two? The biggest parameters is stress. So somebody of weak character will tend to fall apart under stress. They'll get emotional. They'll act out. They'll become this kind of child. And you'll suddenly, wow, I didn't realize that person will have that problem.

I hired them. I thought they were really smart and reasonable. And suddenly you realize that they're not like that. Whereas this person of strong character rises to the occasion. They keep their emotional balance. They're able to not react. There's relatively calm to the circumstances. So that's one barometer.

Another barometer is how they treat other people when you're not looking. So a person of weak character, they'll pretend to be very nice to everybody around them. They're very nice to you. But behind closed doors, there's meanest a hold to their secretaries, to their assistance, to people who work for them, to their spouse, their two-faced. They wear one face for you and another for the world. And you need to see that. You need to see what people are like when they're not necessarily around you.

People of strong character don't need to do that. They're consistent with that. They treat everybody the same way. They treat assistance with dignity and they're not abusive. And you need to see that. The other thing is how well people can take criticism. A person of a weak character can't stand the slightest bit of criticism. You take that as if it's a judgment on.

who they are and they crumble. Of someone of strong character, you criticize them. They don't take it personally. Their first reaction is, how can I learn from this? Maybe you're right. Maybe I can use that criticism to get better. I'm going to work on myself, that strong character. And finally, how people work with others.

Someone of weak character can't work with other people. They can't delegate authority because everything has to be on their term. Everything has to be according to their agenda. they're very weak and selfish. When somebody is strong character actually enjoys giving other people credit, enjoys working with other people, enjoys the team process.

And so that's another sign of a strong character. I have other signs, but knowing this language of how to read people's character will save you so much emotional drama in your life and will help you avoid the wrong choices. And believe me, I've worked as a consultant for people in business, for over 20 years now.

And that's the number one problem that they have is they hire the absolute worst business partner or the absolute worst lieutenants and they realized it later. And boy, if it caused them problems. So this is a very important chapter for people to understand. Yeah.

Something really fascinating to me is that you mentioned that character is partially genetic. What do you mean by that and what do we do if we genetically have a bad character? Well, nobody genetically necessarily has a bad character. Although you can't say that there are people who have

psychopathic tendencies, that's true. And I don't know really what you're going to do with that. You know, you're not going to have people who are truly toxic are very difficult to be self-aware. But the genetic component is more like some people are born introverts and some people are born extroverts. And it's been pretty much established through science,

that that's a genetic thing. That is not your parents who made you. an extrovert or introvert. That's the way your brain is wired. So I want you to be aware of who you are on that spectrum. This is very important. That's also important to know that let's say you're an extrovert. You're naturally inclined to not like introverts, to judge introverts negatively, and vice versa. This will help you get over that kind of prejudgment. It's better to not have these kind of snap judgments and to appreciate people no matter if they're not exactly like you.

So these are some of the genetic components. Another genetic component will be the level of aggression, will be the level of how hungry you are for power. Some people are more what I would call greedy. And one psychologist identified greedy babies, that they needed more attention from the mother than other babies. And they can't almost not help it. But the whole point of this book is,

knowing who you are frees you up. So if you know that you have a genetic disposition to needing more attention to being greedier or that you are an introvert or that you are an extrovert, you now are more aware of who you are. And so you don't have to always constantly fall to these patterns in life that are kind of dominating you. So the genetic component is one thing.

But even more important are your earliest years. Your parents and how they raised you has a huge impact on your character and will create patterns for you in life. And you're not even aware of how these patterns are dominating you, how they determine your choices in relationships based on your relationship with your mother or your father, etc. So knowing your character, knowing the patterns that you have in life, and the reason I call them patterns is if you look at yourself and you're honest, you will realize that you're continually falling into patterns.

You're continually doing the same things over and over again. You're falling in love with the same type of person. When you get into a job situation, you make the same kinds of mistakes. A pattern that I'm continually falling into is I start a book and I go, all right, Robert, this time you're going to make this book shorter and easier. You're not going to do as much research as you did. And then I can't help it. It turns into six years.

And I'm like, why am I doing that? Why can't I control this? Well, there's something probably negative in my past about that. It's a compulsion to please people. It's a compulsion to do more than it's necessary. So you have to be honest with yourself. You have to look at the patterns that are pushing you into certain forms of behavior. You know, what is the elemental wisdom carved on the Oracle of Delphi in ancient Greece?

It was know thyself. knowing who you are and knowing your nature is the source of all wisdom. That's great advice. You know, you keep mentioning that a lot of these habits and patterns, they really come about while we're young and even babies. So maybe a new idea is like good parenting and how to prepare somebody to be like a healthy, not narcissistic human might be a good idea for you.

You know, I have a lot of people who read this book, who just had two kids and they go, this book actually has really, really opened my eyes things I don't want to do for my children. I don't want to be that kind of parent. I don't want to create that kind of pattern for my child. And it has actually helped them a bit, but that's a very good idea to me.

Yeah. I kept thinking about that as I was reading the book, like, man, like we need lessons on how we're supposed to raise our kids. Let's move on to the law of grandiosity. Basically, the law says that the more successful we get, the more superior we feel, and we get disconnected from reality. In the 48 laws of power, you wrote something that resonated with this. There is nothing more intoxicating than victory and nothing more dangerous. Usually people are very weary of failure and do everything to achieve success.

However, success or victory can also be dangerous, according to you. So tell us about this. Why do we need to be careful of feeling too superior? Well, not only is success dangerous, but failure is a great thing. Failure is a great way to learn about yourself and it's a great way to improve. If you've ever tried to learn anything like a skill, like the piano or a sport, and you make a mistake or you do something wrong, a red light goes on and you learn, okay, this is what I have to improve.

Without failure in life, you would never, ever get to the point where you can actually begin to work on yourself and improve your own defects. So failure is great. is important. Embrace failure. Failure. It's the best learning tool you'll ever have. Success, on the other hand, is extremely dangerous. And why is that? Well, whenever you have success in life, whether it's writing a book or starting a business or running for political office, because of various things that I've talked about earlier, about our self-absorption, etc., your first tendency is to go, wow, I'm great. I've got the golden touch. You know,

know, I really nailed it this time. People really like me. They really responded to it. It's amazing what I accomplished here. But the truth is, in any kind of success in life, there are contingencies, there are circumstances. First of all, there's luck. You know, if I wrote the 48 laws of power in 1980 or in 2016, I don't think it would have sold nearly as well as it did when it came out. So luck and timing play a huge role in your success. Other people. Other people helped you a lot in this process. So it's not all you. It's not all about you. If I hadn't met that man in 1996 who produced my books, I don't know where I would be right now. Okay. And then also your education, your parents, all these other people who have influenced you in life.

You know, your teachers, et cetera, have helped shape you and giving you the skills that you need. and the master's that you apprenticed for. So your success is contingent on all these other factors. It's never just about you. But what happens when you're successful is you tend to forget about all that. You want to take all of the credit. You want to imagine you did everything yourself. You're hungry for that kind of self-validation.

You tend to discount all the other factors that went into it. And so I maintain that in daily life, all of us are but say, two or three feet off the ground. And what I mean is we walk around with an opinion about ourselves that's slightly elevated from the reality. And studies that show us we tend to think that we're smarter and better and more independent than an actual reality. But the discrepancy is never big enough for us to be insane.

For us to people go, that guy is delusional, that woman's delusional. But success will slowly make you go five feet, ten feet, twenty, thirty, thirty, 40, 50 feet off the ground, and you'll start losing touch with reality. And you'll imagine that no matter what you do, it's destined to success. And I looked at this when I worked on that book with 50 cents. And we talked about this. This was the bane of a lot of rappers and people who were coming from the hood, who had a successful first album, and it was like a drive.

They got intoxicated because they came from very poor circumstances. Suddenly they have adulation. They have attention. They have money. And then they did their second album, and it was a total flop, a disaster, a one-hit wonder, because they lost sense of reality. They didn't realize that it wasn't just about them, that a lot of it was timing, et cetera. So success will feed into these animal-type properties that we have. It will distance you from reality of who you are.

And your second attempt, your next attempt, will probably fail because you won't be so careful. You won't realize that maybe you don't have the golden touch. You know, when I write a book, I've had a lot of success with my other books. But when I start my next book, I go back to square one and I go, this book is going to fail. I'm going to be homeless. No one's going to read it. I'm a terrible writer. I've really got to work hard at this.

I don't let that voice going on inside me say, well, how are you can mail this in, Robert. No matter what you do, it's going to work out. you've got to avoid that voice inside that keeps seducing you into thinking that you can just mail it in you that whatever strategy you used a year ago you can repeat and just like a magic formula it doesn't work like that so that's sort of the idea behind that chapter yeah that's super super super interesting and so many gems that you brought up is there any real life maybe historical examples napoleon comes to mind but i'll let you choose whoever you want to talk about of somebody who let success get to their head and it led to their downfall.

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but we can look at our president right now because I feel like I'm sure he has a high degree of grandiosity. The chapter is about grandiosity. And one simple example with him is he had a lot of pressure from the Mueller report because he thinks the success, first of all,

he's winning the election in 2016, which he did win. was contingent on a lot of factors. First of all, he was Stacey Hillary Clinton, who was a very kind of weak candidate. In other words, timing and lust played a huge role in his success. Also, he lost the popular vote by a very large margin than it before, and perhaps he had some help from foreign entities that had some influence on.

In other words, there were contingencies. There were factors that much of success. He doesn't consider that. But then, you know, in June of this year, the Mueller report finally comes in, or earlier, I'm sorry, like in April, and he reads it, or maybe in some degrees, it sort of exonerates him. And then Mueller testifies in front of Congress in June, and it's kind of a flop. And the whole thing is kind of sizzling. And he's going, wow, I'm great. I can get away with anything.

Nothing I can do is wrong. And so in that moment, he then has this phone call like a month later. or several weeks later with the president of the Ukraine, in which he's now going to probably be impeached for, in the House at least, in which he went way too far in the 48 laws of power. It's victory. No one to stop. No one to stop.

This was a total act of grandiosity. He believed that I can get away with anything. I can do anything I want because, look, I got away with that other thing. So the success that he had, and that one is could very well be. be his downfall. And the ancient Greeks had a name for it. They called it nemesis. When you are successful, the god of vengeance, the goddess of vengeance, nemesis, is going to come and hunt you down and make sure that you fail the next time because that's the nature of it, because you have hubris, you have grandiosity. In the book, I talk about Michael Eisner and Disney and how

the incredible success he had with movies, with Paramount and with Disney, led him to believe that he could do anything, that he was just a genius. So he designed a new theme art, the Euro Disney, and he worked very heavily on the design, and it was a disaster, and it led to his downfall because he thought that his success in one area translated to another area, which is another example of grandiosity. There are many examples of it. I think to some extent, well, the book is still out. On that, we could say that Elon Musk suffers from that a little bit, where he thinks,

because of the attention and all the lots that he thinks that he earned from PayPal and some of his other things. He has the golden attention no matter what he does. He will succeed. He can piss off the investors on Wall Street. He can tell people in Thailand how they need to. He can build a better machine to rescue those kids who were trapped in the case. He thinks he can do anything. He loses a sense of his own limits and the element of luck and timing and circumstance that want to do success.

Those are sort of three moderate examples. Yeah, that's great. Thank you for those examples. The next law is one of those ones where I thought was so unique that I've never heard before, and it was the law of gender rigidity and how men and women think differently. Why do you suggest that we should channel both our male and female tendencies? Well, we're all a mix of both genders. Men have female hormones, women have male hormones.

obviously in different balances, and it depends on the individual. And then very early on in life, for boys, for instance, we're extremely influenced by our mother. For two years, 90% of our interactions are with a woman, and it has a huge impact. We internalize her nature, her spirit. For women, a lot of their energy, they're dealing with the father figure of a male,

and they internalize a lot of his spirit. It's not as intense as the gender gap between the body. mother and the child because the father is usually not as involved, but it's still very powerful. And so we naturally have these elements of both genders in us. And they actually, as we get older, we feel the pressure to kind of become one or the other. For most people, for a man, it's to be more rigidly masculine and to repress that kind of more sensitive, empathic side, emotional side that many. naturally have. And for women, it will be to repress their kind of aggressive, ambitious,

kind of hard energy. Not to say that women don't have that naturally, they do, but there's a lot more of that maybe from a father figure, et cetera. And so we become kind of half of a person. We repress who we are. We repress that natural energy in it. And my point is don't be afraid of that energy. For a man, that female part of you is actually very powerful. It's not going to make you some weak. You know, I don't mean to put this label weak on the feminine because I don't feel that at all.

My idea is that the feminine is actually a lot stronger than the masculine in many ways. But men have this belief that it's kind of weak and emotional, et cetera. And so you have to repress it. And I say, no, for a man, being able to think in a sort of feminine style is what makes a lot of great scientists, what makes great artists, what makes people more creative for a woman to happen to that male energy

is what actually will make you successful in life. It will actually, you know, there's nothing to be afraid of that, you know, to be able to stand up for yourself and to say, here's the limits. I'm not putting up with this kind of behavior. Because women are socialized in an early age to be more pleasing

and to always do what will please other people. And so they're afraid of that more confrontational side of them. And I'm saying, be a rounded person. Know how to use that other part of your character. I had a lot about that in my book, The Art of Seduction, where I talked about women with a masculine edge, like a Marlina Dietrich or like a Madonna, are incredibly seductive.

Men are fascinated by them and find them incredibly exciting. And women are obsessed and fascinated by men with that slight feminine edge. Edge. Bill Clinton have that or, you know, rock stars like a Mick Jagger or whatever. So bringing that side of you will actually make you much more appealing in the public eyes. It's very interesting to bring out those mix of qualities. So instead of repressing them, see it as a source of untapped power. Yeah, that's great, great guidance. So interesting. And something that you really often don't consider or think about for myself, it makes me want to, you know, channel my masculine set. a little bit more. I think I'm really girly in terms of like my vanity and things like that,

but I think the things that I choose to learn about and my podcast and my entrepreneurial spirit is more masculine, but definitely can improve there. Thank you for the Enlightenment. The next law I want to cover is, I believe, the last chapter of your book, The Law of Death Denial. And this one is an example of humans not facing reality. We avoid thoughts about death. We fear death. We're all in this death denial. Why do you feel that it's important to accept our deaths? And how will our lives benefit by doing this? You know, we could all disagree about what is real, about politics, about whether, you know, some people will deny there's global warming, although that's kind of ridiculous. But we can argue endlessly about things in the world. But there's nobody can argue

that death doesn't exist. It's the ultimate reality. I don't care who you are. You're going to die at some point, and it could be tomorrow, it could be five minutes. So not coming to terms with that is like turning your back on what it means to be alive. It's turning your back on reality. It's making you into a distorted person. You're not facing the ultimate thing that is facing you in life, and it's causing you all kinds of problems. A lot of times you feel in life, you feel anxious about your life, about things going on, about your decisions, and you don't really know why you're feeling anxious. You have this

kind of deep well of anxiety in you. Well, a lot of that anxiety comes from the fact that you're not confronting your own mortality. It's eating away at you. Because if you try and repress it, all that happens is that it eats away at you in the form of this kind of nameless anxiety. Whereas the other way of life, of looking at it squarely in the eye and saying, well, you know, my life is short. I'm in my 20s, but I could be dead when I'm 30. I only have so much time in life. And this is the reality. Well, number one, it wakes you up.

It makes you more urgent and desperate. I better get things done that I wanted to get to do. I better put that business together or secure my children's future now. I better not keep delaying things. I am on death ground. I better have that sense of energy and necessity at my heels. And the other part of it is that being aware of death will connect you to other people in a kind of grander way.

Everybody is mortal. Everybody that you know. So look at that person that you sort of take for granted. It could be your spouse. It could be your friend. And imagine that tomorrow they're gone. And with that feeling, suddenly your level of appreciation of them will be much more heightened.

But look at yourself. You know, tomorrow, it could be all over. So the things that I appreciate now are much more beautiful, are much more heightened. This should be the last time that I look out my window and see those trees and hear those birds. So life has a greater intensity. Colors are more vibrant.

The world is more exciting and intense when you come to terms with this reality. And then I kind of connected to what I call the sublime. We humans are the only animal aware of our mortality. And it's the cause of so much of our problems in life, so many of our destructive impulses. And our ability to actually look at death and come to terms of it and accept it and see it as a beautiful thing. And it's something natural and wonderful. It's like the ultimate human triumph.

It's like becoming truly human. We take our natural fear, our greatest weakness. and we turned into a strength. And I don't know if you know this, but this particular chapter is something personal to me because two months after I wrote that chapter, I suffered a stroke, and I came within five minutes of dying

or within a few minutes of having permanent brain damage. And I survived, and so I can speak from real experience what it means to actually go through death and come back alive. how it changes you. You don't have to go through that to have this happen to you is the point here. You can actually do it through your thinking and through your daily meditation and through confronting this reality. But it's not something to be afraid of. It's something to embrace and incorporate into your

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accept your death and kind of helps you like find your purpose, live life with a sense of urgency and appreciate the people around you and things like that. It's a beautiful message. It seems negative, but it's like a truly beautiful message. So thanks for sharing that. staying on this topic, I know that you have an interesting technique when you meditate that samurai warriors also do that's related to this death denial. Would you share that with us? Before I had my stroke, I would imagine what it's like the last day of my life. I would visualize, here I am in a bed, that's how I die.

And this is what it's going to be like. This is how it's going to feel. These are the people that's going to be around me. or if it's an accident, if something happens, these are my last second, my last bit of consciousness. And it has different effects. One is it kind of brings the reality close to home.

It makes it very much a part of your blood. And it's in your brain. It's not just an abstract thought, something very real. It also really makes you, as I said before, appreciate things that are around you. So as I'm there and I'm going, well, all the things that I take for granted,

and I shouldn't take for granted because this is what's facing me. It just brings it, it makes it very real, as opposed to just this kind of vague, abstract thought. I'm literally conceiving what it could be like, what it will feel like, what will happen to me. And then it's not so bad. It's like a warm thought. It's not a negative thought.

And the other thing that it does, and I said this is probably the biggest effect is, all right Robert in 500 years you will have been dead for like 480 years or something what does it matter today that you're having this problem that you're worried about this particular issue it's all very petty nothing matters compared to the fact that some days it's all gone so it gives you a sense of really what really matters in life and what doesn't matter those are sort of the main effects Yeah. Well, I want to be respectful of time. So this is going to be the last topic that we cover. I thought it was a really big one that my listeners would find interesting. You talk about how the generation you're born into really shapes the way that you are and presents different opportunities for you. Back in the 14th century, the Egyptian historian Ibn Khaldon suggested that generations run in cycles, four different cycles, to be precise. Could you share more about this with our listeners, explain what these generational cycles are and how we can use them to our advantage.

There's what we call the zeitgeist. It's the spirit of the times. And what that means is every generation, millennial, boomers, et cetera, have what I call a personality. It's like almost like an individual. And that personality is formed because all people who are millennials and a generation is 22, 23 years. So obviously there's a bit of a difference between people, person born in the first year generation, person born at the end. But more or less, the people in that generation are experiencing the world in a similar way. Different kinds of technology. Millennials, they grew up with the digital world, or even the younger generation, it's even more pronounced.

It's certain crises that occur. For my generation, it was the Vietnam War and Watergate to have a big impact. There are certain cultural things that a generation grows up with. And so you have a kind of a personality. and it forms a lot of your values and your thoughts, and you become kind of a product of your generation. And when you add in all the generations that are alive at one particular moment, you have the boomers, you have Gen V.

Those four generations at one time create what we will call, the zeitgeist, the spirit of the time, how they get along, their conflicts, who is what's dominating, etc. of. And so the zeitgeist literally means the spirit of the time. And if you're a business leader, if you're creating a product or a book or anything, it's absolutely essential for you to understand this personality of your own generation and of the times that you live in, because the people who are really the most powerful know how to anticipate where the world is going. They see the next trend on the horizon. Okay, there's a generation Z that's coming up now that will be in power

in 10 years, they will be the dominant generation. I need to make something that appeals to them. I need to understand their spirit. So you need to be continually aware of how the times are changing, how the spirit is changing, and not be admired in the past. And you also have to understand your own generation. You have to understand that personality. So you can appeal to it so your product will be geared into what their spirit is.

And I talk a lot in the book about how to do that. But ultimately the best thing is to kind of transcend your generation, to be someone who's free of that so that you can be someone who can kind of see the larger trend, that you're part of the future. Because your generation kind of nailed you into the past. And as you get older, you become more and more of a dinosaur kind of mired into the values that you have when you were in your 20s. And the best thing is to be able to stand outside of your generation and create who you are on your own. without necessarily having to conform to the values and ideas and spirit of all the other people around you. So that's sort of the main thing about the zeitgeist. It's an absolutely critical skill to be able to understand the generation that you're born into in the spirit of the time

so that you are somebody who's not just following trends, but is able to even set them because that's the most powerful position to be in in life. That's wonderful. What a great way to end the show. Robert, it was so wonderful to have you on. You gave us so much insight. Honestly, I know we could go on for hours and hours. But where can our listeners go to find out more about you and everything that you do?

I have a website, power seduction and war. Power seduction and the end is spelled out andwar.com. And there you'll find links to my other books to 50th law, to mastery, to the laws of human nature. you'll find links to my Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and an email link for emailing me, any thoughts or ideas that you have. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining Young and Profiting Podcasts.

We love to have you. Thank you very much, all of my pleasure. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for listening to Part 2 of my interview with Robert Green on Young and Profiting Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to write us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to the show.

Follow Yap on Instagram at Young and Profiting and check us out at Young and Profiting. And now you can chat live with us every single day on Yap Society on Slack. Check out our show notes or young and profiting.com for the registration link. You can find me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn. Just search for my name, Hala, Taha. Big thanks to the Yap team for another successful episode. This week, I'd like to give a special shout out to Timothy Tan.

Young and Profiting Podcasts is gearing up to launch a podcast course this upcoming November. Tim has been heads down working on course content. and we're so thankful to have him by our side. This is Hala, signing off.