Robert Greene: How To Seduce Anyone, Build Confidence & Become Powerful | E232

some of the greatest seducers who are not good looking at all what are the qualities of a great Seducer I'm revealing stuff I shouldn't be revealing Robert Greene is one of the best-selling authors in history an internationally renowned expert on power strategies and referencing songs by Jay-Z Kanye West and Drake written six International bestsellers that have become legendary why did you write a book about seduction seduction is in high form of power people will do what you want without ever even realizing seduction is a mating ritual you can't just swipe and get it but because of all the dating apps if you are able to understand the

language of Seduction you're going to have so much more power and success than anybody else one thing about words is people can lie but body language it doesn't lie you master that language you can start deciphering all these people are giving you it's about psychology and it's about how you carry yourself if you feel confident it will naturally radiate through your gestures but what is real confidence and how does one build it confidence comes from you've talked about the topic of powers but in 2018 you had a stroke in that moment it sounds like your power had been taken from you the left side of my body is paralyzed and that was not easy

I've got to find a strategy to deal with all this please understand that the ability that you have now to run to walk to type you can be taken away from you it's miserable please don't take it for granted foreign before we get into this episode just wanted to say thank you first and foremost for being part of this community um the team here at the diver Co is now almost 30 people and that's literally because you watch and you subscribe and you um leave comments and you like the videos that this Show's been able to grow and it's the greatest honor of my

life to sit here with these incredible people and just selfishly ask them questions that I'm pondering over or worrying about in my life but this is just the beginning for the day of this year we've got big big plans to scale this show and to every corner of the world and to to diversify Our Guest selection and that's enabled by you by a simple thing that you guys do which is to watch so if there's one thing you could do to help this show and to help us continue to do what we do it's just to hit the Subscribe button if you like this show if you like what we do here if you watch these episodes please just hit that subscribe button means the world

let's get on with it [Music] what do I need to know about you and your your earliest years to to understand the life that you went on that Journey you went on and the person you came to be well I grew up here in Los Angeles not far from where we are in a neighborhoods called Baldwin Hills and then we move to another neighborhood a very nice childhood very middle class family my father was a Salesman his whole life worked for the same company for 40 years just sold chemical supplies um and you know my parents kind of left me alone a lot I was basically my sister almost kind of raised me in a way and

and you know I had a very nice childhood kind of left alone sort of an introvert books kind of shaped me I became an Avid Reader in early age no knew I wanted to be a writer got heavily into drugs I'm afraid in high school because that's that was the time and where I went to school and in college had some great experiences I looked very fondly back even on my drug experiences even though they got kind of depressing after a while but it kind of shaped me in in some ways and you know that was that was me growing up you know and if I had an attitude or a lens in which I looked at people from a distance like I was always

sort of Obsessed with people wore masks and the way I looked at it even when I looked at my my parents and their friends and I said what is really going on behind their the masks that they were in all the social nice cities going on what is behind what is really the human animal like and so these are kind of the themes that that were make big part of my Me growing up from what I read you had a lot of different jobs and a lot of different Industries up until the point when you wrote um the first of your many books called

the 48 Laws of Power back in 1998 and I was looking at all of these different jobs you'd had and they all seem to be completely different from one another so then trying to understand how you arrived at a moment where you then wrote a book on the topic and subject matter of power um having not been you know a psychology graduate or seemingly worked in any industry related to like human psychology seemed to be really peculiar to me yeah and also I never really had a lot of power up until that point so it wasn't like I knew everything about being a leader or anything

um you know a lot of things that happen in life are kind of by coincidence or serendipitous you don't necessarily plan on it which is sort of when you look back on it you can see a kind of an odd plan going on like a Destiny or fate but in the moment I didn't feel that um I had all of these different jobs as you mentioned some of them completely unrelated you know I worked in construction I had a construction job I worked in the detective agency I was a tour guide to help write an encyclopedia I taught English in Spain you know on and on and on and on and on but I was searching I wanted to be a writer and a writer needs experiences

I just was hungry for weird experiences you know I never really stuck at any one job and by the time you're 37 38 you know my parents are starting to worry about me I'm starting to worry about me I'm getting a little bit depressed even have moments for suicidal thoughts are floating in my brain like I'm very ambitious I know I could do something well but it's never come together and so here's the Serendipity part I'm in Italy for a job one of my 80 different jobs and I meet a man who's a book packager there on this particular job we're on and he's he's a Dutchman I'm not going to imitate him but he asked me if I had any ideas

for a book and suddenly all of the painful experiences in my life working in Hollywood all the I've worked for all these weird politicking all the manipulative games all the crap that I had seen it just came like almost vomiting out of me and I said you know here we are it's 20 this was 19 20th century back then here we are in the late 20th century and people don't dress like they did in the days of Machiavelli right they don't wear wigs and stuff but it's the same damn thing it's the same bloody battles going on the same manipulations the same kind of you know people don't reveal who

they are and it's a Timeless game of power just the same as Louis xivari Borgia or the people the CEOs in the late 20th century it says tout this Timeless thing and I as I'm telling him this his eyes are lighting he's wow this could be this could really be a book and you know he said look Robert I'll pay you to live while you write half the book and then we'll sell it and as I told you before I was desperate it was my get rich or die trying moment I went back to Los Angeles I borrowed money from my parents because I was that poor

and I wrote a treatment and he loved it and that the rest is history that's sort of my long-winded answer to your question that's so interesting it's crazy how in life things can just take such a ton out of nothing and you never know what that thing is going to be and I mean you say the rest is history there give me an idea of the success of that book the 48 Laws of Power because I mean I've seen it everywhere for for as long as I've been looking at books so what's the give me some quantify the global success of that book quantify yeah well here in the U.S it's it's sold

quite a bit over 2 million copies which is great and the weird thing is it's selling now more than it ever has sold before in other words the the percentage of books that we're selling here in 2023 is greater than any period before so it's accelerating which is insane you know and even my English Publishers having the same uh is telling me the same stuff so it's kind of accumulated it it started off a little bit slowly I mean we got press but it became this kind of cult thing I've had very little publicity in mainstream media which was big back then it's not big anymore thank God but um

it was word of mouth it's like if you heard about this book it's kind of dark blah blah blah blah it got on a few television shows there was this show a reality show with boxers I think it was called the contender in which the finalist held up a copy of the book and said this book helped me get to where I am now and it sold like crazy it got into the hip-hop stream you know Jay-Z was the first person I ever saw quoting the book in in print and in Playboy interview and then you know 50 Cent and all that and Drake and all these people that really kind of set it into the stratosphere so it's it's slowly become a bigger and bigger thing and um

I had no idea you know I thought it was a weird book and it could be successful but I had no idea the journey I was about to begin it's it's weird that journey of writing this book has your have your feelings towards the book evolved or changed over time because Society moves on you move on as an individual as a human you learn new things you mature and then the book is kind of held in time not really um I I my philosophy in life is is never look back regret nothing you know it's it's there I did it it came in a particular moment in my life and in in the Zeitgeist and things have changed a

little bit but I was it was a very serious effort to try and get it something Timeless now yes there's a dark side to it and maybe I've moved on from that and I did honestly when I wrote my fourth book mastery I was a little bit concerned that young people were getting to were thinking that the whole game of life is about politics manipulation so I wrote a book to kind of counter that but I I think the book is is true and it's held up I think if I look at business what's going on in the business world I kind of got I think I hit it on the nail about what goes on

in the Dynamics and the power game you know I wrote a book on human nature and the idea is we were formed hundreds of thousands of years ago in particular circumstances our brains are wired a certain way yes we're very sophisticated yes we have the internet yes I'm here being interviewed by you on a podcast it's pretty insane but we haven't fundamentally changed the same raw emotions of Envy of aggression of of you know worrying about our status about having to disguise ourselves and appear like we're saintly and loving that we don't have a shadow which we all have none of that has changed so yeah I wouldn't write that book now because I'm

at a different place in life and and I understand that but I have I don't I'm not ashamed of it in any way I stand by it and I think I hitted something real what is in your definition what is power you know I was really compelled when you're talking about the evolution evolutionary roots of power but like at its Essence what is power it's not what you think it is it's not you know Vladimir Putin or presidents or Biden or all these political figures and these big games Power is a feeling it's in essence it's an emotion it's a it's a human need and desire and really what power is is a sense of

understanding yourself and and being able to control yourself so the way I look at it I like to look at it not through the lens of great power politics but as an average everyday human being here in the United States or in England the feeling that you have with your children with your spouse with your colleagues the people who work for you the sense that you have no control that you can't influence them with your ideas that you can't get them to maybe you know soften some of their ugly Behavior if they if they have that that you can't get them interested in helping you with a project or whatever is the most miserable feeling a human being can have

Malcolm X out a quote that I love which is absolute power corrupts but absolute powerless corrupts even more I'm I'm butchering it but that was the gist of it the feeling of powerlessness is actually more corrupting than the feeling of having a lot of power you it makes it turns people into being passive aggressive into playing all kinds of weird games negative games to get power you want to feel that you have a degree of control over events in your life over people over your future and that to me is what a power is right and so some of that involves these games that I I

mentioned in there and some of it goes beyond the 48 Laws of Power which I've tried to indicate in my other books but it's the sense that I'm not helpless in this world I remember when I first entered the work world as a very naive college graduate with all these ideals and things I'd read because I was studying literature and languages going man this is weird people are playing all these kind of games I mean over my head I made mistakes I got fired for being you know too Brash for outshine the master it was painful right and so learning you don't have to abuse the

loss of power I don't Advocate crushing your enemy totally I hope I don't have any enemies ever that I need to crush ever you just need to know these things so that when you enter the work world you're not naive you're not stupid you don't make the same kind of mistakes that I made you spare yourself with pain you understand the most fundamental thing about human nature people have egos even your boss has an ego you think he he or she doesn't because they're powerful they have they're even more insecure than other people you need to be aware of these things so that you

don't inadvertently make them feel insecure and suffer the consequences so um that's I don't know that's sort of my idea of power that I was trying to describe there the way you describe it is more of a sort of intrinsic um Force perception of yourself when people think of power they think of having control over others or their influence over others but you've kind of made it more of a internal Force yeah well if you can't control yourself then you're in a lot of trouble in this world right because when you just naturally are yourself doing things you're going to offend people you learn early on we're social

animals I have to tailor my behavior you know if you go on babbling about all about how you feel and think Etc and you just say what's the first thing on your mind you're going to end up having a very very short career you're going to be saying things that are going to offend people you're going to be making a fool of your yourself you'd be saying things that you end up regretting right so you have no self-control and if you see somebody who has no self-control it makes them it makes you look like you're not powerful if you can't control yourself how can you control anything in your environment how can you be a leader right so you have to

learn certain things about about your nature about who you are and and not just just be anybody you have to kind of tailor your appearances as well because for good or for bad I'm a Believer in looking at the human animal without shame and embarrassment just as we are right and appearances matter it's the animal part of our nature we we're we look at we look we judge people by how they how they how they appear how they dress their tone to voice their body language etc etc it would be in an Ideal World we wouldn't judge people by appearances we just judge them by what's inside of

them yes I agree with that but that we're not ideal we're not descended from Angels we're descended from primates so you have to understand that appearances matter and this is part of of the game and so you have to control your appearances a little bit you have to tailor it you have to be a bit of actor in this world on and on and on you know these are things that people don't like to admit about ourselves we like to think that we we're much more have much more idealistic that we're that these things really don't matter in the end and I wish it were that way but it's not

and so um I'm a bit more of a realist when it comes to things like that but yeah as you were talking about this need to keep up appearances to some degree in order to survive and to fit into the the tribes that we form in our lives it made me think about how many guests I've had on this podcast who work in maybe the entertainment industry or other Industries yeah you know they're famous whatever and they report that Keeping Up Appearances had a really detrimental impact on their happiness and their fulfillment in life because in some cases they you know it meant that they were doing a job as a presenter and

had to always be happy when inside they didn't feel that and maybe the contrast of reality and um and perception caused them a lot of harm or they've built a life around things that they're not interested in I think you touched on some of that in Mastery yeah um that's the that's the question I have which is keeping up appearances and the impact that that has on your happiness are you wearing a mask um and happiness what's the relationship I talk about it in the 48 Laws of Power where you have to play this this game in life it's a con to me it's a form of wisdom

which is it's a wisdom that used to exist like in the 18th century I read a book that had a big impact on me many years ago called the fall of public Man by Richard Senate in which he described like Cafe life in London in the 18th century or France and he was saying back then when you entered the public Arena or your Cafe you knew you were an actor you left the house you put on the mask and you had fun you know you knew it was like fun it was play you know when you're a child you like playing games you like putting on costumes you like playing your parents or some character you saw on TV it's part of human nature we like to play

these games where role players we're actors and he was saying in the 18th century that was just a given in life that when you entered the public realm you knew you were an actor and then when you went home to your wife your family or your husband or wherever you drop the mask you went you breathe the Deep Side relief go now I can be who I am right and and it wasn't a problem it didn't create neuroses it didn't create this like what's wrong with me I'm I don't know who I am anymore so people now the problem now is we don't have distance from that social realm and so we think that if we're

acting that's who we are but it's not it's just that's part of being a social animal is playing a role you know I did a book with 50 Cent and he kind of exemplifies a lot of that he plays a role in life you know when I met him I I thought uh oh I was kind of intimidating I was a little bit afraid you know the thug this is a guy when I met him he was you know just a few years away from being shot and all this stuff and I met him and he was the nicest person well he was almost kind of sweet he'd hate it if I said that word but he was sweet right he was very down to earth he was very calm

Etc he's playing a role when he goes out and he plays that person he knows it he knows it's like he doesn't take it seriously you know he had this big beef with Kanye West back when I was doing the the the book with him and then I met the two of them in Vegas when they were there for the awards they were like the best of friends they were joking it was just a game they were playing right so what I tell people is we all are actors humans are born actors we learn at a very early age to play that kind of game it's kind of fun sometimes to do that you know have it enjoy that part of life but don't think that it don't get

confused with who you are in your essence that's sort of the dance you're playing between those two things I understand what you're saying and a lot of it has to do as you said related to Mastery where people end up in a career that doesn't suit them and I look I I think I understand what you're getting at or I look at like presenters or people in the news and they have to smile and be so cheerful like man what a drag I'd hate to be like that you know that is so false don't you feel kind of don't you want to take a shower after you being so cheerful and chatty and all that you know yeah I

understand that but if if that's the profession you chose and you love it then maybe you don't feel that way I couldn't do it personally but you know I think I think it's okay think of yourself as an actor I don't think there's anything wrong about that um the second very curious lower in your book that I uncovered was it was low number two I'm talking about the 48 Laws of Power here where it says never trust friends too much learn how to use enemies yeah do you trust your friends okay well everything in the book is context so when you take things out of

context it's a little harder to understand and what I'm trying to say in that I'm talking about in the Work World when you're out in the social realm and one of the worst things that people do is you have a job and I've been guilty of it myself even after I wrote the damn book you're out in the work world and you need to hire somebody you need to find a colleague you need to find some a partner or an employee your mind naturally gravitates towards a friend right because they know you you trust them you have a relationship you know and you feel comfortable with them

and it's a terrible mistake so many of the worst things have happened in history are because of that very problem because friends is there's all these emotions involved between people right and those emotions confuse the issue so what I'm talking about in that law is when you need to get results you need to think when you have a job or something you have to think in Practical terms not in terms of emotions not in terms of friendship etc etc so you want to keep your work world separate it's not everything about life is having to be friends and having nice things and

everybody like you sometimes what matters is getting results done and sometimes the best person to work with isn't your friend because they don't have all this other stuff that we're talking about in fact a very powerful move is if there's an enemy out there somebody who you never got along with if you say if you approach them and say let's bury the hatchet you know I have a job and I'd really like you to work with me I know you're really smart that per the turnaround of emotions is a very powerful thing where they're going wow yeah sure that's that's great I never expected that and they're all

they're highly motivated to now prove that they're worthy of of your of your change of mind so it's not about not trusting your friends in the realm of friendship in personal relationships it's about being aware that the work world is different from the realm of personal relationships the other point I found really curious was was put 0.3 about concealing your intentions and yeah I I find this curious because I've never really known where to land on this when people ask me for advice on the subject matter about how much of your hand should you show whether it's in business or life or

whatever there's a there's a group of people that think you should always just keep everything you're doing and your intentions totally secret because then people might copy you or they'll attack you whatever and then there's another school of thought that says when you're building something when you're doing something when you have a mission you need to share it with as many people as possible because that will Galvanize people to to come along with the journey with you and they'll want to support you and help you so when I read um Point number three about concealing your intentions I wanted to ask you about what what you

think about that which side do you land on well everything depends on circumstances so the laws are never meant to apply to every situation right so when it's with your own team and you're trying to inspire them and you're trying to give them a vision you try to get them on your side yeah you share your vision with them you share this is where the group is going this is where I want things to be in three years let's all get together we're trying to do something very positive for the world okay here we here's my plan right but then there's circumstances where revealing everything that you about what you're planning to do is actually very

counterproductive right so the business world in the 21st century is extremely competitive it's getting worse and worse by the day as more and more people now are entering the power Arena and I think it's a great thing where it used to be just a realm where only older white men had power and now it's the doors have opened everyone the comp level of competition is that much more intense particularly now even with the internet you have Rivals out there you have competitors out there even as we talk right now maybe you're not thinking about them but they are they're going to steal your ideas they're looking to take

your business away from you etc etc just be aware of that phenomenon and just always saying what you're planning on doing isn't always the wisest thing to do sometimes if you're in a tricky situation making putting people off the scent giving them a red herring and saying I'm planning to do this when in fact you're planning to do that it's very powerful technique it's deception but all's fair in Love and War and business I'm I'm afraid so you know there are moments where you don't want to lay all your cards out on the table right you want to either create a little bit of mystery so that people don't know what you're going

to do next and they're wondering what you're going to do next and as they're wondering what you're going to do next they're kind of on their heels a little bit what's the next thing that that Stephen is planning I don't really know wow you know it makes it it's a very powerful approach there are other times and other experiences and moments in life where you do want to reveal what you're planning to do because there's a purpose behind it I'm just saying be aware don't just act in this world be aware have a strategic mindset sometimes concealing is what you need to do sometimes not concealing is what you need to do it's funny when we

have this conversation about power and the Darkness and the Shadows that people have in them I think a lot of people listening and probably it seems that way because I'm the one asking the questions is if I'm questioning society that I'm not part of um they'll think they don't they might think they don't play these games right they might you know so that's the question I have is like have you ever encountered anybody do you believe there's anybody out there that doesn't play power games manipulation have shadows have darkness in them no I don't but um so in my War Book uh I I read the

biography of Mahatma Gandhi well the Saint Louis figures in history right and I realized that Mahatma Gandhi was actually a brilliant strategist now I'm not saying his use of non-violence and Civil Disobedience didn't come from the heart he didn't mean it he wasn't actually he didn't actually believe in the peaceful method he did it was very sincere but he was very strategic about it and he planned a campaign several campaigns like the Salt March in the 20s where he knew for instance that the English public was very liberal-minded they had this idea of themselves as being this very they weren't

colonialists they weren't imperialists they were doing the best for the world and he deliberately had these marches where he knew that that on they would be reading in their newspaper and seeing photographs of Indian people being beaten up by Englishmen and and their Indian officers on the streets of wherever it would have a terrible impact on the public he thought in terms of strategy okay so there's Gandhi then there's Martin Luther King who's somebody I wrote about a lot in the laws of human nature another great icon whom I admire who actually was inspired by Gandhi and had campaigns of Civil Disobedience and

there was a campaign I believe it was in Montgomery or Selma Camp which remember which one where um he was getting fed up they weren't getting very far the Civil Rights moved they're reaching a stale mate and he was getting very frustrated and um somebody an advisor came to him said look we're going to have this massive March and and I I can get a lot of Elementary School and Junior High School students to be on this March because they believe in you and they're very fervent and I think it'd be great and his advisors go God you can't do that

you can't have put 13 year olds at risk and Martin Luther King thought about Virgin he said no we're going to go ahead and do it because damn it I want the American public sitting in there all fat and watching their televisions to see these brutal you know Paul Connor the the police chief then I want to see these children being water hosed and beaten and it's going to have an incredible impact he was being strategic and his advisors were shocked by it but it ended up proving to be one of the most pivotal important moments in the Civil Rights Movement so here you have Gandhi and Martin Luther King I'm

never and Martin Luther King was a flawed individual as we know right he had a private life that wasn't exactly in the same as his public life I don't judge him for that because he was a brilliant man and I admire him I love him deeply reading his biography made me even admire him even more seeing that he had a human flaw outside to him but these are icons that we set up and they reveal what I'm talking about in human nature you can't escape it but yeah maybe there was some Saint born in some Century that I've never heard of that maybe got pretty far away from everything I've talked about

but you know you know we all have this idea like in the laws of human nature I write about irrationality Envy aggression we go or narcissism narcissism is a good one oh they're a narcissist I'm not a narcissist I'm not self-absorbed but they are yeah yeah I don't have any of those traits well damn it every single human being has self-absorption traits we can't help it we naturally think of ourselves first yes there are people who are much deeper narcissists in life no doubt and there are toxic narcissists but we all have a touch of it I want you to be a little more humble in this world

and not be so arrogant and not think that you are somehow exempt from having a dark side that somehow you were born with a halo over your head that you were born different you don't have human nature that you're a saintly person you're much better get rid of your moral superiority because I find that deeply offensive we are all Cut From the Same Cloth we all have the same flaws and when you look at yourself and when I wrote the laws of human nature I'm going damn it Robert you have a dark side you're a narcissist you know I had to come to terms with my irrationality my grandiosity my aggressive instincts but it's the only

way to change yourself is to be aware that you have these issues I have the narcissistic Tendencies now I see it all right now when they prop up pop up I can control it better I can say damn Robert you're being too self-absorbed you think more about the other person but if you go around in life thinking I don't have any of these problems I'm not a narcissist you're never going to have the awareness to stop the fact that you are actually one being a narcissist is that objectively a good or a bad thing because when you when you was obviously I know people are having a bad thing it's a narcissist cause a lot of harm and that's very true

but in the context of the human animal and why the human animal develops certain attributes and qualities to to you know maybe further it survival or its ability to stay within the social pact is it just a consequence of being a human to have these like Shadow traits and to be coercive and manipulative is it good or is it bad or is it neither it's neither neither um because it just is right um so with narcissism for instance um there's a reason why we're narcissists so I explained in the book it's not my own Theory it comes from some great psychologists like kahoot the

origins of narcissism right so when you're have to leave you when your parents have to kind of not abandon you but have to not give you as much attention as you used to have and you're three years old or four years old you don't remember it but it was very painful like oh they don't love me as much what's wrong with me right you know I have to get that love and attention not just naturally I have to do things to earn it etc etc and what happens with a lot of people in that situation when you're a child is

I have to develop my own I have to be my own mother or father I have to find a way of loving myself when something bad happens I have to retreat Inward and go I'm really not so bad at all I'm actually a decent person I like my own tastes I like the clothes that I wear etc etc you're developing the shreds of self-esteem right and people who never develop that because they were abused or they were abandoned or even if they were suffocated never developed that self-esteem and so what happens in life is whenever if you don't develop that and you get older and people attack you and yell at you or criticize you you can't Retreat inward

to that self-esteem that love you have the only thing you know is to get angry to get the call it narcissistic rage and to yell at people and say God get away from me you're evil etc etc etc right and then the other problems evolve where the only way I don't have that inner self-esteem the only way I get people to love me is by being incredibly dramatic and overly dramatic Etc et cetera et cetera and always making myself the center of attention that's what creates a deep narcissist that's their only way of getting the love that they need so children we all need that degree of self-esteem that anchor in our life so narcissism self-love is not a bad thing

but what happens is as you get older if you go too deep into it it becomes a problem and so what I say is you need to take that self-love and it's it has a good function and turn it outward slow as much you can and turn into empathy and love and consideration for other people more that's your task as you get older in life that's how I approach all of these flaws you can't run away from them you can't run away from your Shadow your dark side you can make it work for you can make it positive and productive and healthy you can become a healthy narcissist which is a a name that I use in the book you can use your dark side for positive

purposes let's say you have a lot of anger in your inside and I had a lot of anger when I was younger I was a very angry young man right channel that into some kind of cause like and you know that I have a lot of causes that I believe in very deeply and when I was younger I was like that channel that energy into something productive and helpful and put it into something that goes to something that helps Society that's using your dark side for positive purposes because the Dark Side Of Human Nature has a lot of creativity has a lot of energy an artist has to have a dark side you use your

dark side because all those dark emotions all the people that shat on you in your life they inspire you they create your best work don't run away from your Shadow don't run away from your narcissism use it in a healthy way and acknowledge it I think that's the hardest thing for people to do right yeah so few people I think including myself like have really fully understood what their their shadow in their dark side is I mean doing this podcast has really helped me because I learn things from other people vicariously and then I look at reflect on myself or keeping a diary has helped me to understand that but

that first step in someone having the self-awareness to understand their dark side I mean there's even a lot of people who confronting their Dark Side would be so it feels like it would be so impactful on their self-esteem in a negative sense that they spend their life putting up a wall to never go there I mean there's some people who you even mention something to them and they would triggers triggers them yeah you know we can all think of those people um we can all think of those people that the really interesting thing there is the role that your early years play on

your relationship with power because when I think about some of the nicest I don't know if this is just a general a stereotype or a narrow observation I've had but some of the nicest people I've met in terms of you know being the opposite of whatever and toxic narcissist is seem to have really comfortable loving secure safe early experiences and then is that is that broadly true in your view it's a generalization but there is is some truth to it I mean there's things that called attachment theories where uh psychologists have looked at the kind of attachment you had to your parents and they categorized it in four different

ways and there's the ideal the best one where you have this incredibly loving mother and father and they they're they're giving you unconditional love but they know also how to give you your Independence Etc it's not terribly common I don't know what the percentage would be then there's levels and levels and then as you get to the fourth level it's like the abandonment one where or abusive and abandonment where you basically leave the child alone you don't give it any attention any love and it's very crippling right but the thing is children are much stronger than we think they are they're very resilient they're

very resourceful they're gonna find their love they're going to find a way to compensate for it in some way and what's something very interesting when I was doing seduction in some of my other books and I look at people who were like very charismatic like a Malcolm X like a Marilyn Monroe I could go on and on and on these are people that came from very very bad families right they had no love Marilyn Monroe was a was an orphan essentially raised in an orphanage you know her whole life was I gotta get people to love me I need love so desperately and her way of doing it was to literally make love with the

camera nobody ever done that before you could sense that she needed it and it was so powerful that you sensed it that she drew it to herself great charismatic individuals John F Kennedy is someone who had a lot of Charisma he came from a very bad childhood right his father was very mean to him Etc some children in the worst circumstances it ends up bringing the best out of them they have to find their way in life and some people who have everything don't go very far because they don't know how to find things for themselves so life is weird some people who have great childhoods do well some people

have great childhoods are spoiled and never learn how to get things on their own and some people have the shittiest childhoods learn how to be resourceful and and and and and get what they need on their own you mentioned seduction there The Art of Seduction why did you write a book about the topic of Seduction seduction is in a high form of power because you make people feel pleasure you make them feel excited or interested in you and then their their resistance to your ideas slowly lowers and you have the ability to influence them and to move them in the direction that you want if you yell at them like how we talk

about your child and you tell them do this do that they resent it and for good reason but if you're subtler if you're more seductive in your approach if you're more indirect people will do what you want or go in your direction without ever even realizing it so it was a sub theme in the 48 Laws of Power and so I was sort of interested in the psychology of that and why some people are good at it and some people are awkward about it so when I finish the 48 Laws of Power I thought this would be a natural segue the next book what are the qualities of a great Seducer

well I like to distinguish between cold seducers and warm seducers a cold Seducer is something you don't want to be that's the typical image that we might have of a male Seducer but even of a female Seducer like the great courtesy set up or they're just after money or the men are just after sex that's not my ideal my ideal is kind of a back and forth quality where it's not domination it's sort of like a game that you're playing it's like a mating game it's like a courtship ritual where both part people are kind of seducing each other and so what makes for a great Seducer is very simple I can summarize it very simply you are outer

directed so when you meet somebody for the first time or you're on a date or whatever it is you're not having that internal monologue going does she like me or does he like me am I dressed well am I saying stupid things what can I do to impress them no you turn it off and you're out or directed and you're listening to them and you're entering their spirit and you're hearing them say things that that give you idea of what they're missing in life of what they want of what their needs are of what makes them an individual you're absorbing it you're entering into

their spirit and then you can reflect it back to them you can give them gifts you can take them to places that show that you're attentive to them because if you look at how we are in our day-to-day life normally people never pay us attention they're always so self-absorbed they're never thinking about us I mean the times where you get the sense that people are actually interested in who you are as an individual is pretty rare if you give that feeling to someone it's incredibly powerful because we all want to be validated we all want to be recognized

so what the Seducer is not someone who's all worried about him or herself and thinking they're involved in the other person they're absorbed like a sponge inside their psychology inside their world a lot of this is you know very applicable to romance and dating etc etc it fails for whatever reason I you know not necessarily something I've read much about in your work but it feels like dating and romance and relationships have become much more complicated in the modern world that it's become much more difficult to seduce somebody um what is the what are the attributes

of someone then that is not good at seducing anti-seducer has many qualities I have a whole chapter on the anti-seducer I try and Define it uh there there are several of them I can't I don't have them all memorized but one quality that's very anti-seductive is preaching and moralizing is like telling people oh that's wrong what you just said or your politics are ugly or you're not a really you're not really good at this or something or other having a moral superiority a sense of sanctimonious sanctimony in a realm

which should be about pleasure where should be that kind of equality that kind of dinette back and forth Dynamic where you're asserting your moral superiority is deeply deeply anti-seductive the element of preaching to people not being generous and I mean not just with money money is important but not being generous with your spirit right you want to be open you want to give as much as you can to the other person of yourself of your time of your money of your energy Etc so being all kind of crimped and I don't

want to give I don't want to spend money I want to take you to the cheap place to eat I don't want to give you much time is very very anti-seductive when you're talking a second ago about the person who goes on the day and they're thinking about themselves and what they you know what their hair looks like or whatever else that spoke to an insecure person is insecurity a seductive quality or is it a anti-seductive quality it is anti-seductive now there is a part of weakness that is seductive so I would say vulnerability is seductive but insecurity is

anti-seductive and there's a big difference why does vulnerability draw people to you because the sense so if I can Define seduction in in in simple terms um most of the time we are closed to the influence of other people particularly now we have these walls up because life is Harsh people are coming at us with their advertisements with their pleas with their wanting money with this than the other and we've all learned to be very defensive right and seduction is an openness is the opposite of that and you felt it when you were a child towards your parents you felt very vulnerable

and open and and there was an element of your parents and how they treated you that was very much like a seduction right so seduction is about being open to the other person to the extent where you can even fall in love you can fall under their spell and the sense of letting go of your ego letting go of your defensiveness and letting other another person enter your world is being seduced it requires vulnerability if you meet the typical um scenarios of a man who's not vulnerable at all he's so powerful and in control and everything has no vulnerabilities it's frightening you know for a woman it could be very

frightening like this he's he's so strong he's so invulnerable that there's something wrong about it you know maybe he's a serial killer maybe he's got skeletons in his closet something isn't right about that what what seduces you about a puppy about a child about an animal is their vulnerability it makes you want to hug them it makes you want to help them right the sense which If You Came Upon A a tiger that's there and that they don't need that well that's not seductive I mean on your screen it is but if they're there in your living room that's not seductive but that puppy is Right vulnerability the sense that somebody needs protection or help brings

out qualities in us that we don't normally have that I think allow for seduction so that is being vulnerable that is I can be influenced by that other person I am open to the to their Spirit right that's being vulnerable the word vulnerable I hate to sound like a professor so excuse me in seduction it comes from the wrong the root of it means a wound vuleness so you have a wound inside of you and you need healing and the other person naturally wants to help you right but being insecure is the off means I'm so self-absorbed I'm so worried about myself

that I can't get out of it and we've all had that experience when you meet somebody and they and you can sense you can smell their insecurity in them I'm not judging them because we all have insecurities it makes you feel insecure it makes you feel a little bit awkward whereas if you meet someone who's not like that who's confident Etc it brings out that quality in you so if you're on a date and there's someone who's you smell that kind of insecurity it makes you awkward and insecure it creates a kind of a problem so that would be the difference between the two there's going to be a lot of people

listening to this that are single and ready to mingle um what advice would you give them in terms of being great at dating you've talked about the importance of vulnerability there and how that kind of forms connection between humans in a very innate way what else is great dating advice for this for the single people out there well the thing is okay there are several things so first of all we live in a culture where people think you don't you shouldn't have to put effort into something like love and romance you should just be who you are man I don't have to put on a rule I have to play a

game that's manipulative no I'm sorry love and romance is something that is almost biological if you look at animals and mating rituals they're incredibly elaborate seduction is a mating ritual and so the worst thing you can feel is that this person isn't putting any effort into something let's just say it's it's uh it's from the woman's point of view this man he just shows up wearing jeans and his usual sloppy outfit he doesn't come's hair etc etc etc he takes me to the pub for dinner on our

first date you know he's not thinking about me he's not willing to put any effort into it if he's not willing to put any effort into it what's it going to be like three months down the line when he completely takes me for granted which is what happens in a relationship am I not important enough right whereas the ability to have a little bit of effort to think of it as kind of theater and drama and that there's nothing evil about it so I'm going to dress nicely I'm gonna I just have to be fancy just that I'm gonna you know I'm gonna put some effort into how I look I'm going to take her to

a place that isn't is you know I'm not talking about candlelights and roses and that kind of crap doesn't that you can be creative it can be somewhere that that's scuzzy that's on the wrong side of town but it's different and it's appealing to and you put some thought into it there's a reason you're taking her there right I have a friend who went on a date and she came back from the date and was complaining because the person that she date went on that first date with was using a took it to a spot where he had an available valid discount code and and talk about anti-seduction there you go why is that anti-seductive in

that case one might say that male is being you know economically Savvy financially savvy that you know if you're not able to let go of your of your kind of tightness when it comes to a woman something's wrong with you man just let go spend some extra money spend the extra 10 quid that you might need to spend on taking you to someplace different but it signals a kind of cheapness and it's not about money it's about a cheapness in your spirit right she's not worth you know letting go okay maybe you don't have that much but my God you have enough it's not gonna like if you're

that poor then then you know okay maybe but probably not you could afford it show that you that it means something to you let seduction is a language it's not a language of words it's a language of gestures that we're paying attention to we're paying attention to people's body language we're paying attention to their actions to the things that they never say so when you signal that discounts are so important to you that even on the first date you have to have a discount you're signaling that it's not there's something tight about you in your nature

and it's not very pleasant I from doing this podcast and speaking about topics like love and sex and dating and you know dating apps even one of the um comments I saw quite frequently was from young men who are struggling to seduce a woman yeah or vice versa um specifically young men that you know and then I read some stats I think Scott Galloway came on the podcast and talked about how I'm gonna butcher these numbers but a staggering amount of men haven't had sex and the young men haven't had sex in the last 12 months um and then when I looked at the comments section specifically on YouTube

I saw I kind of saw that energy reflected where it looked like young men in particular were struggling to seduce a mate a partner in the modern world is is that real in your view is there is there something that has changed in society has that always been the case um is there anything we can do if we're a young man that's struggling in the modern world because of the internet and computers and this and dating apps and well a lot of it is I'm afraid to say is internet porn where you get the idea that you know sex is something that should be very easy and quick and that women should have look how that kind of body and physique

etc etc and that becomes your Norm Etc that can be that can be very damaging but the idea that things must come easy and quick is is very prevalent and to win over someone like oh say you're a man it's a woman who might be reluctant to have sex for good reason or reluctant to have a relationship requires some effort it requires some thinking you can't just hack well you can't just swipe and get it you can you can have your internet sex but you're not going to get that in real life it doesn't work that way it takes time it takes patience you know and you're gonna have to work and you're going to be rejected

being with people is a skill being a social animal although there's a part that comes naturally if you spend all of your time here you're losing that skill of how to respond to people's body language you know half of the thing is you're sitting in a bar opposite let's say it's a woman and how she crosses her legs how she sips her drink how she looks at you how she touches her hair she's signaling things it's a language it's a beautiful language right you have to learn it and you're not going to learn it here because you can't you have to be in person it has to be skinned skin you have to get a feel of what other people

are thinking and feeling and we're actually really really good at that humans have that's what makes us human it's called mirror neurons I can sense what's going on in your mind I can read your body language you have to get out in the world and you have to be put yourself physically out there and try and try and try and have rejection and I know it sounds awful but it is a skill in a way where you're learning how to like understand and deal with people and and and understand that what they're who they are and get inside their Spirit it takes time and effort and patience so for young men you have to realize that

right you if you think everything has to be easy and quick it's never going to work for you and I talk about the actor the Hollywood actor Errol Flynn who is perhaps numerically the greatest male Seducer ever because estimated that he had seduced close to 3 000 women and he died when he was 50 and if I I did the math one day what how can that possibly be um and I tried to research what was his secret and it was hard to find out finally I found a book written by a woman whom he had seduced another actress and she said he was so relaxed and so comfortable it

was like being it was like an animal type thing and then what I would sit with him it was almost as if I had drunk two martinis just sitting next to him his comfort and his security and his confidence his relaxed attitude it just made me drunk so feeling relaxed feeling confident and not defensive and comfortable with yourself is a very powerful seductive quality I mean there are many of them but that's one that I would point out have you ever figured out what builds confidence you earlier on you were talking about how children need to experience things first hand you can't just tell them you can't just tell

someone for example to be confident preaching doesn't seem to work what what is it in your view that that does build that true or you also can't fake confidence no I remember we talked about rejection a second ago I was rejected by pretty much every girl that I was pursuing between the ages of of 16 and I'd say 22. really yeah like and I do you know what it was I I was faking confidence it all changed when I was actually had a sense of security in myself but in the period where I was like faking confidence I was pretending I was confident um it was like they could they just could read past it that's almost how I

look back on the situation so I came to learn that you can't fake confidence you can't pretend to be it because there's so many sort of micro Expressions that yeah that you that look that end up reading more like insecurity than confidence um but what is real confidence and how does one build it in your view well you've kind of answered your own question there in a way so um you know conf fake conferences like bravado right and you're putting on an act and particularly women who've had to deal with this for you know Millennia they can smell it they can sense it they don't have to it doesn't have it's not

in your words it's the body language etc etc real confidence comes from actual um actions from your actual things you've accomplished right so you know when you're 22 21 it's hard to have that confidence because what is it based on you know maybe it's based okay maybe you're you're really good looking if you happen to have that good fortune and you can feel confident about that and you don't have to try so hard all right maybe that might work or maybe you're really good at sports or maybe you're a really good dancer or you're a really great singer but it's based on something real you have a skill you have

something that separates you you have something that you can do that you can accomplish because when you're 21 it's hard to have those you know I look back on myself when I was that age I had nothing no wonder I got rejected you know um so it comes from what you do in life okay the the finest sense of confidence is actually creating things and having success and meeting goals and achieving things and having a record of that you know and maybe what goes with that is having some money but it's not necessarily because you don't have to have a lot of money and you don't have

to be good looking to seduce that's a myth that I try to explode in The Art of Seduction some of the greatest seducers male and female were not good looking at all it's about psychology and it's about how you carry yourself but the confidence comes from actually what you can do not how you feel or what you say well it is how you feel but the feeling is based on things that you actually can do skills that you have that separate you that make you feel really confident you know so body language yeah I find it fascinating that you know there's quotes and things that say 80 of our communication is non-verbal etc etc

um body language is so interesting to me because again I think that's one of the things that it's just impossibly hard to fake I was reading you know a couple of books on there was a phase when I was I don't know 20 probably just after being rejected all the time when I was maybe 22 where I started reading books from pickup artists and they would obsess on the topic of body language and one of the things they'd say is and I I was explaining this to my girlfriend a couple of weeks ago that when when a man is lower confidence when he's desperate he does this thing called pecking in a nightclub where he'll like lean in and like shout in your ear and when he's

higher confidence he kind of leans out and he'll he'll wait for you to lean in small things like that subtleties like that that intuitively we we're reading and understanding and communicating and Etc but someone that doesn't have the confidence probably isn't even aware that they do so when I reflect on my rejection phase I think gosh my body language must have been exuding desperation and low status and low value low self-esteem what's your thoughts on body language and well um in my last book human nature I wrote a whole chapter on it I quoted the figure 95 but who knows

what it really is the thing it is that um we evolved for hundreds of thousands of years before language existed right and our earliest ancestors depended on the group for their survival and getting along and their powers came from observing other people and their body language you could read it so it's a skill that's wired into US wired into our brains it's very unique skill that we humans have it's just that you don't learn that when you're a child when you're two years old you have it because your life depends on it you you have to see what if your mother is is loving you or is or your father is

kind to you because if not you know you could be abandoned your life depends on it you're great at reading that and children have are incredibly Adept at picking up body language so if someone is fake if someone's an imposter they hate being around children because children see through you you know like you know like radar right because they're so attuned to it you had that skill when you were very young but you lost it because you became so oriented with words and you became so self-absorbed that you're not paying attention but it's extremely important right so the whole body is involved in it so

you've got to first stop thinking about people's words so much because the one thing about words unfortunately is people can lie they can say whatever they want they can say I love your screenplay that was fantastic you were great in that movie I thought you were great senator they can say anything to please to flatter to control you but body language man it doesn't lie right so I talk in that book about the eyes and the fake smile the fake smile is something you see every single day but you're not paying attention it's like it's kind of tight right it's like yeah right but a real smile you're the whole face gets animated and

there's a little crinkly thing here as your face as you as it lights up and your eyes light up it's it's hard to even put into words but it's there you can see it it's real it's not faked knowing the difference between a fake and a real smile is really important in seduction in business or whatever to know if someone is like yeah I like that idea you know they don't really they're saying that to please you they actually hate your idea you master that language you can start deciphering all this people are giving you the face you can disguise it a little bit actors know that but you know what you can't fake it's your voice

if you're nervous not even the finest actors in the world can fake that your voice betrays so many things about you it betrays your weakness it betrays your lack of confidence or it portrays the other quality Etc right so pay really attention to the tone of people's voices to how fast they talk people who talk fast are very nervous someone who's talked I know I'm probably talking a little too fast too sorry uh my mind races so I can't do that normally I don't talk so fast but um you know you talk slowly you have a certain tone you have a certain intonation that kind of reveals

confidence okay body language posture you were talking about pecking right when you go and look at a meeting of people in in a business meeting you'll see all the employees kind of leaning forward nervous and you'll see the boss kind of leaning back arms for us like this you know I'm the powerful one you come to me I'm the leader I'm the I'm the top dog or she it's a woman I don't need to be like this I'm like this body language reveals a lot about leadership qualities etc etc etc you know if you go you're at a party and you come up to someone that you're

meeting for the first time and they're talking to you and you notice that their feet are angling away from you that means that they're not really interest they're looking for any moment to try and walk away and Escape they're not really into you whereas their feet are facing you they're engaged they want to talk to you right this is a whole art you can learn and you can sit there and you can read it and I talk about I give the story in laws of human nature of a man named Milton Erickson the founder of NLP and hypnotherapy probably one of the most brilliant psychologists who ever lived when Milton Erickson was 19 years old or

so he had polio he nearly died his entire body was paralyzed the only thing he can move the only muscle he could move with his eyeballs now imagine that he was a young man with a very active mind he can't talk he can't do anything all they can do is move his eyeballs a little bit he was so bored can you imagine how bored you'd be like that you can't read you can't do anything people would come in to visit him all they could do was look at them and study them he became the greatest reader of body language ever in the history of mankind people said it was he was almost had ESP he could read everything about who they

were just by because he ended up recovering he became a psychologist because his life depended on developing this skill he was going to just die from sheer boredom if he didn't learn how to read body language he mastered that language much like somebody could Master French and it's an incredibly powerful language that I I can't emphasize enough you know we can go about learning the language of body language and I'm sure that will help but it's such a complex um like VAR there's like a thousand things with my body language at all times like how I'm speaking my eyeballs why where I'm looking my posture my arms

like am I crossing my arms am I crossing my legs all of these things so the the challenge of mastering all of that feels a little bit overwhelming am I right in assuming the easiest the easier challenge to master is in fact just like my sense of self very well put because you know if you feel confident if you feel secure if you're not all Inward and insecure and worried about yourself it will naturally radiate through your gestures yeah you don't have to sit there and pay attention to your fingers your arm your ears your eyes it's just there it's natural so yeah that is the solution so the two

game parts of the game it's your own body language be aware that people are judging you for that right and you can't as you say be monitoring everything or you'll drive yourself crazy and you'll look very weird right so the best solution is to feel these certain things that are going to radiate and to not give the fake smile but when you really happy to just show it and show your emotion that way and the other side which is more is I think really important is learning other people's body language and that can come from study and is much more a logical thing than than constantly thinking about

everything that you do your next book that I have here mastery why did you write a book called mastery well to be honest with you it came the idea for it was around the year 2010 2009 I was getting a little worried that people who were reading my books particularly young men who were reading power and seduction they cut they were thinking that's all I need in life man I just need to be a manipulator I just need to play political games that's what success is all about and I was worried that you know if if you don't understand how to make something what's going to be the future

of mankind are bridges just going to fall down our hotel is going to collapse people don't know how to make things anymore we don't know how to use our hands anymore right so being able to be good with people is extremely important as a social animal but perhaps higher up in the hierarchy is being able to do things to be able to have great skill and to be able to create something and know how to master a subject and to you know build something that can last that's really important and I'm feeling like because young people this is back in 2010 imagine now had this idea that everything comes

quick and easy because you can click click click and things come to you that everything in life should be that way that we're becoming alienated from the human brain how the human brain operates because the human brain requires time if you know how the human brain operates we have what are called neural Pathways and every time you repeat something a neural pathway is created and strengthened and strengthened and strengthened it's why we get addicted to things but it's also why we develop skill so if I'm sitting there shooting free throws day in and day out and day out my brain is wiring it it's learning it it's learning that motor skill that hand mind thing and

it's getting better and better and better at it it takes time it takes repetition to build those Pathways and I explain in Mastery that you reach the proverbial ten thousand hours which some people dispute nowadays so it's just a number it's not it's not a fact you've spent so long learning something that there's so many Pathways it's like this amazing inner landscape with all these connections going on in your brain and now you can be creative now you can come up with things that nobody's ever thought of you can play chess on a higher level you can be Pele on soccer or Lionel Messi making passes that no

one had ever seen before because you're not having to think right you don't have to think anymore your body just does does what it wants imagine twenty thousand hours which is possible just people sometimes detain in certain Fields you're almost like a genius you're almost like superhuman right if you're someone who's so locked into the internet to getting things instantly you can't get past hundred hours let alone ten thousand you're never going to develop skill and you're going to find life really really difficult for you so I wrote the book because I was actually deeply worried that we were losing a

part of of how the human brain operates something Elemental part of our wisdom the interesting three line between that and the subject matter we've discussed in power and seduction is that by learning to master something you build that sense of self-esteem and confidence that we're looking for um to to be good at the former topics mentioned but on the topic of um Mastery the first chapter in this book and really the first question a lot of people ask is this question about finding your passion and I've always had a difficult relationship with this question because it sometimes assumes that there's one of

them and that you have to go in search of it somewhere in the first chapter of your book you talk about discovering your life task um why why is it important is it the same thing is is finding your passion and finding your life task the same thing no I just recorded this yesterday uh on my own podcast I went on a rant about how it's not about passion it's not about finding your passion I actually don't like that word passion it kind of makes me cringe because if you think about it passion to succeed at anything requires time and effort and boredom and tedium so let's just say a simple example

you're learning to play the piano when you first sit down at the piano you have to play these really insipid Tunes it's so boring you have to learn you know um I forget what they call it a finger exercises and scales on any instrument you have to learn scales Etc it's tedious man if you think it's got to be passion forget it you're never going to get far the thrill comes after a year of playing the piano and you get better at it and better and better and now it starts coming fun then 10 years it's more fun than 20 years it's fantastic you know I'm not I'm not trying to name drop here but the other night I had dinner with

Stevie Wonder it was the most amazing thing I ever seen he's absolutely I wish I'd interviewed him from my book speaking of Genius you know and he's blind obviously everybody knows but I was watching him you perform for us we were they prevented his recording studio I was watching him play the piano and he's blind right and he's improvising and it's just absolutely brilliant and amazing as I'm seeing this I'm thinking I could see the thousands of hours he's been putting in just touching these keyboards and knowing where the where the where the keys are you know it was just mind mind

blowing how amazing it was that is the power that the human brain naturally has through hours and hours and hours of effort that's how it works so you know he didn't get there because it was passion he got there because he was a child prodigy at an age of 11. he was assigned to a contract with Motown records right he was playing that as he was a kid hour after hour after hour after hour he had a love for the piano but it wasn't like every time he sat down it had to be passionate about it he had the patience to put up with all of the boring stuff okay so you want to discover what you were meant

to what you have a connection to what you have a love for right when you're a child hopefully or when you're 18 or 19 or 20 that's the best time to discover it all right you decide and it doesn't have to be something highfalutin or or worth uh you know like intellectual you could be great with your hands you could be great with your body you could be great with images and visuals you could be great with words you could be great in many different areas okay they're all equal they're all great you as a child are naturally so there's a book I always recommend for people called the five frames of Mind by Howard Gardner in

which he talks about the five forms of intelligence that humans have the each brain by genetically is wired in One Direction or the other you want to know that you want to feel it inside of you it's like a feeling it's not an intellectual thing you feel when you're doing sports that it's it's good it's a natural thing it's what I'm meant for when you're involved with words like I was when I was eight years old you felt right it felt like a natural fit I have to follow this path when you're three or four years old and it's music like Stevie Wonder and you're hearing this in your head wow that's that's it for me

right okay you feel it you feel this connection all right now you fast forward to when you're 18 or 19 years old and you're having to make a career choice okay so I call that your 20s the most important phase of your life that's going to make or break you in some way if you spend your 20s trying to learn skill in something that connects to you deeply right then things are going to happen to you by the time you reach 30. you've discovered your life's task it may not be something so specific for me it was writing words but I didn't know

what to write I tried novels I tried journalism I tried theater I tried screenwriting but you know it it gives you a direction and you try and you try and try and you know that's what you were meant for that's what you were destined for you you feel connected to it you feel a love for it and so when it comes time to do the tedious stuff you're able to do it because you know in the end it'll pay rewards you'll get better and better at it and the connection is so deep that to not do it would be miserable so you can't think of everything in life having to be pleasurable and having to be passionate it's going to be boredom

there's going to be tedium how do I deal with it you have to feel a greater love than just mere pleasure or passion it's got to be something so deep within you that to not do it will make you deeply and happy for me not to write or be a writer I don't think I'd be alive right now I would have been so miserable I would and so alienated from who I am so that's what will get you through that's that's what a life's task is when you think about that in the book you talk about the first phase which is you know your apprenticeship on your journey to mastery when you're in that apprenticeship phase you know when you're maybe early in your

career you're early on your journey to becoming The Pianist the violinist the podcast the entrepreneur whatever what are the the most important things to be um selecting for as it relates to the job you take the people you're around that kind of thing like if there's a 23 year old listening to this that is a you know an apprentice at a floristry shop making bouquets of flour and they're being offered five different jobs in the industry of floristry which one should they be looking at if they're in the early steps of their apprenticeship very easy question to answer thank you um you want to look for the job that

offers you the most possibilities of learning so if you're going to go to a florist shop where there's only one other person there it's like an entrepreneur who started it and you're going to be like their right hand man or woman and you're going to learn and the pay is half of what you could get at this very fancy you could be of working at the shop at some department store where they'd pay you triple take the job that pays one-third where you're going to learn the most you're going to learn about the business you're going to learn from the ground up and you note is going to be a level of excitement where you know we might not survive another

few months we've got to work hard we've got to be motivated we're all on the same page here a lot of people when they're 23 they grab the job with the biggest paycheck and that's a mistake because if you go to like a large large firm you're kind of lost you don't have as much responsibility you suddenly have to deal with all the political games the 48 Laws of Power you're not paying attention you're not developing skills as much you don't have as much responsibility take the job that has one half the salary but you're responsible you're going to be learning and it's up to you

that's that's the most important thing you can do when you're at that point in your life you say there's three steps in that apprenticeship deep observation is that what you mean when you say deep observation you mean like being able to observe the job happening would you mean something else well it means that it also means so most people when they start a job their whole their first impulses I've got to impress people I've got to make them like me that's that inward Direction that's so deadly and seduction and it's deadly in life you want to be outer directed you want to observe the codes and conventions of your field the

social codes you know what what's acceptable behavior what's not acceptable behavior the skills involved the the various heuristics the various things that you have to learn that create skill you want to be a sponge absorbing what's going on around you what are the things you need to learn what are the valuable skills what are the things that aren't valuable what are who are the people you need to avoid who are the people you need to emulate you're a laser you're just observing everything around you and not worried about yourself that's the proper that's deep observation you talked about skill there it's all well and good seeing

skills and knowing what skills are important but acquiring those skills is pointing two when you're in that apprenticeship phase in life skills acquisition and this kind of goes to what you're saying with the working in a florist shop next to the entrepreneur you're going to be Hands-On you're going to be doing which is also goes to what you said earlier about parents and children like putting them in situations where they get to do stuff yeah a lot of jobs don't offer that a lot of jobs don't offer the difficulty the challenge right Hamilton is that well we call it learning by doing and you see some

things play into how the human brain operates that which that's what you want I'd give the image in the in the introduction to master the pardon the alliteration here but the brain has a grain to it you want to work with that grain you don't want to work against the grain because it's counterproductive and one of the grains of the brain sorry is learning by doing when you know flashback 300 000 years ago and we're sitting there we're making tools out of Bones out of wood Etc the way the skill was passed on to other people and didn't die with with one generation was you watch this person

making the tool and then you watch them and you learn and you imitated them flash forward to the medieval period in Europe where they had apprentices apprenticeship schools seven years you're learning masonry you're learning carpentry you're learning whatever for seven years you're sitting there watching somebody make things and you're doing it that's how the brain operates you learn by doing not by thinking not by thinking oh this is how things are fitted in more you know with mortars etc etc no am I doing it with my hands the human the brain and the Hand have the most connection of any part of our body because so much of our power as a

species depended on our hands we don't have much of that anymore but learning by doing things with your hands or making things is how the brain is wired so you want to go with that grain so you want to do things you want to make things you want to be learning through action not through just a lot of talk and you know as you might know the show's not sponsored by Airbnb I can't count how many times airbnbs have saved me when I'm traveling around the world whether it's you know recently when I went to the Jungle in Bali or whether it's when I'm staying here in the UK or going to business in America but I can also think

of so many times where I've stayed in a host's place on Airbnb and I've been sat there wondering could my place be an Airbnb as well and if it could be how much could I earn it turns out you could be sitting on an Airbnb gold mine without even knowing about it maybe you have a spare room in your house that friends stay from time to time you could Airbnb that space and make a significant amount of money instead of letting it stay empty that in-law that guest house that Annex where your parents sometimes stay you could Airbnb that and make some extra income for yourself whether you could just use some extra money to cover some bills or for something a little bit

more fun your home might be worth a little bit more than you think and you can find out the answer to that question by going to airbnb.co.uk host one of the things that um that you referenced at the start of this conversation I think maybe even off camera was in 2018 you had a stroke um and that changed your life in a very fundamental way can you tell me what what happened and how it's How it changed you well it was a terrifying experience um you know I was in a coma uh I emerged from it and suddenly I'm somebody who's very physical I I

Sports was a huge part of my life I would swim very long distances I love mountain biking I I was doing all kinds of um hiking it was extremely important to me I was every single day I did something physical to take my mind off things Suddenly It's taken away from me the left side of my body is basically paralyzed I have no control over it to this day I still have problems with it can't swim can't mountain bike can't hike right I can't take my mind I can't think while I'm taking a hike I can't type for a rider that's not much fun I had to deal with crap that I've never had to deal with my life I had a pretty

easy time compared to this I had to learn new life skills when I'm already 62 years old you know that is an easy stuff I don't want a whine or complaint because people deal with worse stuff all the time a lot of people get cancer Etc but it's this anybody who's had a stroke knows what I'm talking about it's very hard because you can practice and practice and practice and practice hours and hours of therapy I do over an hour of therapy every day and you hardly notice any results the frustration you takes you 10 minutes to tie your shoes you can't button your your thing you have to get other people

to do that it's hard to cut food you have to be patient you have to accept this you have to find another way of loving your life of accepting these things that you took for granted before and I tell people I look out my window now where I'm writing and I see people walking their dog and I put myself in their shoes and go God that must be so great just to walk your dog down the street what a pleasurable thing they don't realize it you take it for granted now please don't take it for granted understand that the ability that you have now to run to walk your dog to swim to type it can be taken away from you and just appreciate your

life what you have because the things that I love were taken away from me and I wish they hadn't been so I've had to adjust myself you know when something like that happens in life when you when you are the the victim of an of a tragedy or instance or circumstance or something that happens there's often a degree of unfairness surrounding it when I when I read about that incident in 2018 I've read that it was a bee sting that caused a clot that caused the stroke yeah I know it's actually I think a wasp but if that wasp had been like moving the wind a bit a little different and it

would move this way instead of this way may not have had a stroke you know but I can tell you this so um in May of that year the the stroke was in August in May I'd finished the laws of human nature which took me five years and when I finished that book I felt like I was near death I was so exhausted I was so drained you know my wife was really worried about me because I just looked really Haggard slowly I kind of recovered but then in July I went to New York and I forgot my blood pressure medication that I'd take so my blood pressure was starting to rise and then I came back to LA and I walked in this

park and the bee the wasp stung me here and my whole chest turned red and it was like the most unbearable feeling so I went to the hospital they gave me this drug called Prednisone to relieve the itching prednisone increases your blood pressure and so when I ended up having the stroke the blood clot it was right where the wasp sting was so the neurologist said probably all this cholesterol was released from that drugs that from that wasp being here and that's where the blood clot occurred okay but there were all these other circumstances that kind of led to it a kind of a perfect storm and maybe if I hadn't had that wasp

sting it would have happened four months later under different circumstances and I would have died because what happened was I was driving my car when I got my stroke my wife was in the other seat she saw something really strange going on my face I didn't notice it she forced me to pull over the side of the road 90 of the time I'm alone I'm swimming I'm hiking I'm driving could have happened four months from then she wouldn't be there I'd be dead right now so I can't really think in terms of oh if that wasp had been diverted it would be a good feeling but it's too painful for me to imagine I like to

think of fortunately someone was there who saved my life because it could have very well happen four months from then because I my body was worn down and something much worse could have happened that that Journey you described of having to rebuild and relearn and re redesign your life it's we've talked about the topic of power so much in this conversation in that moment it sounds like your power to some degree had been taken from you you know um you you learn like at least for me when I looked at people I Look to people differently after my stroke I had more empathy for them I'm normally

an empathetic person but I was looking at people in the pandemic who got long covered who were having Strokes or were having terrible circumstances or when I look at people who are disabled because I'm essentially disabled now I understand them I and and also the other thing is when I look at people who are really poor um who are struggling in life they feel really dependent and helpless I felt that physically I don't feel that materially because I don't have that problem anymore thank God but I I have more empathy I understand it not an intellectual way but in a visceral physical way that sensation of

I don't know where my food's coming from I don't know what's going to happen the next day I'm weak I'm dependent I'm helpless it's miserable I kind of understood that feeling now on a on a different level on a level that affected me personally and it's a lot different than having it affect you in an intellectual way the phases in that journey to where you are today the first phase after the incident you wake up you realize that your your life has changed what's what's going on in your psychology what's going on in your mind you talked about helplessness and to be honest with you what happened to

me was right afterwards there was the level of delusion in my mind I kept thinking well in three months I'll be back at it I'll be in six months I'll be swimming in a year I'll be hiking again I deluded my I wasn't aware of how hard the process was and then six months eight months a year down the road as I realized I was wrong that's when the depression sat in that's when it really started hitting me I thought I'd be back here I am four years on I thought it'd be back to my life but I'm not you know so that's what was the hardest struggle was actually a year in there and going

there's a phase where you kind of plateau where you're not really progressing anymore that's the worst part of it I'm progressing now again because I have a great therapist but I had to deal with really bad depression about a year a year and a half in when it started realized this is my life man I'm gonna always have this funny arm that's Bowing in I'm going to be walking like this I I don't I never expected this in my life so I've had to deal with that and I've had to kind of find a way to not let it get me down to find other pleasures and joys in life Etc which I have

how how do you find a way to not let it get you down I'm thinking now about people that are listening to this that might be struggling with their own subjective struggles in life they've been they've lost their job they've you know they've they have a disability whatever it might be what are what are the successful strategies you've deployed to try and remain I keep that peace of mind well I don't know how much of it is applicable because I'm at a phase of life where I don't have material worries you know and I could have had a kind of stroke where my physical element would have been untouched but my brain would

have been damaged which is another part that would have been worse because I wouldn't have been able to write another book and I have a very active mind um so for me being able to write another book is my salvation so when it's three o'clock in the afternoon when I get down to writing it's the happiest moment of my life I feel at peace I'm back to my work and I love my work and I love what I'm writing about it saved me a lot I do meditation I've been meditating now for about 12 years I think more more than that every morning it's a ritual I have to meditate if I don't something is wrong and I've

never missed a day I can honestly say and it it just calms me down it just gives me a strength throughout the whole day so I get up seven o'clock you know the sun's usually showing because it's Los Angeles and um I'll go it's the morning I'm greeting the morning I'm greeting the sun it's like I'm in like I'm a you know somebody four thousand years ago in a tribe here's the sun it's it's a miracle that there's even something like that the birds are chirping I'm looking at the Ivy the sky is blue calm myself down intrusive negative thoughts start popping into my mind you didn't do this

you have a podcast today at two o'clock Robert you want to do this that and the other I'd get rid of them I go calm down put that away ground yourself and it's helped immeasurably the other thing is always keep in mind that there are people who have it worse than you so I don't want to feel sorry for I don't like the sense of feeling sorry for myself in fact sometimes I turn it around and I look at that person walking the dog or jogging they go I actually feel sorry for you because you're not aware of how precarious life is you're not aware of how this can be taken away from you

you're not aware of how precious it is to just be alive and just to see the sky and the birds so I feel better than you in a way I turned it around I don't want to feel sorry for myself the things they're people who have it worse I read in the newspaper all the time you know cancer you're in Ukraine or I was dealing a lot with people in in Iran right now what they're dealing with I don't have to deal with that kind of crap like being in Iran and dealing with that daily life how how horrifying you know these are thoughts that take you out of the moment where you're feeling sorry for yourself and you're kind of grateful for certain things so those are

some of the strategies I've had to kind of create for myself I find it so um I find it so I guess powerful to hear those strategies because we all get caught up in a narrow perspective and our own subjective feelings that we're suffering or that life is against us and then that kind of torments us in many ways as you've post-stroke in 2018 um is there anything else that you have learned about the nature of Happiness from from that incident that we that you might not have known before that incident that I might not fully understand now

the things I heard you talk about are the importance of a sense of purpose how perspective and gratitude are Central to are feelings of happiness but is there any other observations you've had that I'm just saying this from my own selfish perspective because I want to know well first of all I don't want to give the impression that I've solved everything so I'm a work in progress I have moments where I get so frustrated it's almost like I have Tourette's Syndrome like I can't you know I'm still four years in and my arm is still like this and I still can't brush my teeth if I want I get very frustrated so

I'm getting better but it's still a work in progress I don't want to give the impression that I've somehow this I've mastered it because it has mastered me I have a long way to go but I'm getting a lot better A lot better at it day to day um you know I don't know I think I've kind of touched on everything only in the sense of what about connection you talked about your wife yes he's helped me a lot God bless her soul she's had to take care of me you know and I was somebody who's always prided myself for being independent I was trapped that was another thing

that was taken away from me I was traveling around the world doing book tours going to book festivals doing interviews doing consulting in various different countries I could still travel but it requires a lot more so I lost my Independence I had to have somebody help me with food every single day I need things being done for me and I I feel terrible that you know she's been put in that position but she's been very gracious about it and she understands she has a lot of empathy because she knows what I've lost so having somebody in your life if I were alone I couldn't deal with it man I wouldn't have been able to deal with it

it just would have been too much for me it would have been too depressing that depression that sucks after a year would have leveled me it just I couldn't have made it so that's an incredibly important aspect just appreciating the little things in life that I just you know it's a cliche and I hate saying cliches but um you know I have that feeling almost every day where i'm looking at somebody going man that must be I'm like riding my bike and I'm seeing somebody just sitting in a park reading a book on a bench and I'm

going God that is so much fun just to be able to do that I can't do that anymore but I put myself in their body the little things in life that you take for granted are some filled with so much happiness and joy that you're not thinking about if that person's sitting on a bench reading that book only realized what this person riding by thinks maybe they wouldn't take it for granted so some of those little things that you don't think about have incredible importance at least to me having lost them so I don't know if I'm I wish I had something better but no I think I could only come from my own

experience I can't make it up your books tend to focus on the nature of The Human Condition what how we are as humans For Better or For Worse and it was it was interesting because as you were talking over several topics when you're talking about seduction and the full weight loss of power and mastery it was a part of me that's you know that started to feel a little bit I don't know feel the darkness that is innate within humans a bit a bit too much maybe that we're a little bit too contrived and manipulative and conniving and whatever else and I was thinking do I

really like humans you know I'm one of them I don't I'm very conscious of trying to separate myself I hear people doing interviews when they're talking about society and I always think you are Society I am human I am I'm all of the things you've described in many many ways but has your journey of learning about humans and Human Nature Made you personally more loving towards humans more optimistic about the human race or has it made you the the opposite honestly well it's maybe more loving but it hasn't made me more optimistic okay um you know there's so many things that are seem to be going awry in the world today

now I happen to be um the form of meditation I do is Zen meditation and in Zen meditation there's this idea of what's called the tathagata which means it was it was another name for Buddha and it means things as they are and one thing you meditate is the world is in good or bad or ugly or evil or unjust it just is things just are this is just the way the world is this is the karmic chain the wheel of Dharma that's been going on for thousands of years it just is it's just the State of Affairs it's you're discriminating your mind it's your mind that creates all of these things let go of that and you can

connect to the way the world is without judging it and it becomes this very beautiful place and so I a part of me wants to think of this is just the way things are but a part of me goes this isn't good the way things are and I hope their change so knowing human nature and knowing how human nature tends to twist things how whenever we invent a new piece of technology it could be the telephone it could be the television it could be the internet it could be cryptocurrency or it could be you know AI it tends to twist and darken and degrade and and pervert anything that was once

maybe in beautiful or interesting it makes me worried about the future so there I turned pessimistic and I'm worried but then I always think that there's hope with young people and here I'm spouting another cliche down I'm going to shoot myself after this interview but I feel like when I was young I was angry about things I didn't like the way the world was it was Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and yuppies and ugly you know values I didn't have and I thought there's something wrong I was angry and I wanted to change it young people are still like that and I think a lot of young people gen Z or

whatever the next one is whatever they call them I don't know yet um they're growing up in a world that isn't healthy that isn't right and when you're young you have all these energy all this physicality and you you don't like it you don't feel comfortable in it and I know a lot of young people don't feel comfortable and at some point they're going to Rebel and they're going to say I'm tired of all this virtuality I want something real I want some I want real experiences that Spirit of rebellion that I see seeds of and signs of gives me hope and I hope that it continues because I

remember once I had a dream probably the most memorable dream I ever had it was maybe about 15 years ago or so and I dreamed that I was there in the year 2072 or something like that I was walking around the year 2072 it was the streets of New York I was going wow everybody looks so happy humans finally figured out how to do well in this world they figured out how to what matters There's Hope in this world that was my moment in that dream this is always sort of stuck with me maybe that will happen maybe it won't I don't know I'm not Nostradamus but you know so this I struggle with that I struggle with part of me is pessimistic

and part of me seeks Seeds of Hope particularly in young people and I really really really wish they figure it out because my generation Generations before we've kind of screwed this world over things aren't good right now and I'm hoping that Spirit of rebellion that young energy will kind of come and kick the Apple card and say screw all this we want a different world we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest asks a question for the next guest not knowing who they're going to ask it for and the question that's been left for you to answer is in adult life

when were you most happy and why and then brackets it says are you this way now and if not why well I have to say the happiest moment of my life came at that turning point when I was 38 or so and I was given the opportunity to write the 48 Laws of Power and it came out and my life had changed and so the contrast from being in a in a small apartment rather poor rather desperate where

people were beginning to worry about me and suddenly things were clicking together and I was having fun and I was having all these adventures and I had reasonable out of money the shift was so radical and so dramatic that it was extremely exciting you know and it was almost like a drug high it was pretty damn intoxicating um I don't have that now because it's 25 years ago and I'm kind of still riding off of that and and the high is worn off but I can remember in my body how depressed I was and that feeling and I never lose it I'm very grateful for what I have because I know it could have turned out very

differently so I still feel that initial happiness because I know if you have success when you're 24 you're not ready for it you don't realize how evanescent it could be how it can disappear and how important it is I never had that because I struggled for so long and so many bad jobs so the happiness the Euphoria isn't the same it's not the same intensity but I'm still riding on that wave because I know where I was before it happened and it's been an amazing journey you know my wife who's been there for it with it goes can you believe that you were having dinner with Stevie Wonder

when you were 12 years old you told me Robert that was the first album you ever bought was intervisions and what would you told yourself when you were 12 years old this is what's happening whoa I would have I would have flipped out it's been an amazing journey I can't I can't complain my whining complaint card was taken away from me in 1998 when I published that book and so I'm still feeling I'm still feeling the the last vestiges of that Euphoria from back then Robert thank you thank you so much I've um I've been a tremendous fan of your work for what feels like forever in my

life and um your your wisdom your your willingness to confront difficult subject matter that a lot of people would avoid because there is darkness in laced in a lot of the subject matter that you've written about in some of your books but it is very it's very human important as you say objectively neutral darkness that just is and for you to confront that over and over again and your work is is it makes it some of the most important work I think anyone could do because it's the work that a lot of us avoid but your vulnerability and openness today as well have been like a shot at my ass in terms of gratitude

um and the importance of perception um as it relates to our happiness and our sense of a sense of self so thank you so much I've really enjoyed this conversation more than I could express in words thank you so much Stephen it was a great interview I was telling me that uh I've done thousands of these podcasts and I know I can tell I've done my ten thousand hours I can tell a great interviewer from a mediocre interview and you're on that Elite category wow because you ask really great questions and you're a great listener and it's been really fun so thank you so much I appreciate the opportunity means a lot to me thank you

Robert okay you're welcome quick one as you guys know we're lucky enough to have blue jeans as a sponsor and supporter of this podcast for anyone that doesn't know blue jeans is an online video conferencing tool that allows you to have slick fast good quality online meetings without any of those glitches that you'd normally find with other meeting online providers you know the ones I'm talking about and they have a new feature called Blue Jeans basic which I wanted to tell you about blue jeans basic is essentially a free version of their top quality video conferencing and that means that you get immersive video experiences you get that

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incredible Health experts and one of the things that's really come through for me which has caused a big change in my life is the need for us to have these superfoods these green Foods these vegetables and then a company I love so much and a company I'm an investor in and then a company that sponsor this podcast and I'm on the board of recently announced a new product which absolutely spoke to exactly where I was in my life and that is huel and they announced Daily Greens Daily Greens is a product that contains 91 superfoods nutrients and plant-based ingredients which helps me meet that dietary requirement with the convenience that hewell always