Robert Greene: The Secret Psychology Behind Attraction and Influence | E159 - In Search Of Excellence

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Randall Kaplan (00:00):
How does one get over insecurity? To become more

(00:03):
vulnerable. The best way to notbe insecure is to succeed.

Robert Greene (00:08):
What's an anti seducer. They talk too much.
They know everything. They'repeople who have a talent for
repelling others. They'redifficult. The best advice I've
ever received is do what youlove, and the money will come.

You're listening to part two of my incredible
interview with Robert Green, asix time New York Times best
selling author. His booksinclude the 48 Laws of Power,
the artist, seduction andmastery. Incredible interview.
If you haven't yet listened topart one. Be sure to check that
one out first. Now, withoutfurther ado, here's part two of
my awesome interview withRobert. Your second book, The

(00:48):
Art of Seduction. You're 42years old, another massive hit.
Why did you write a book aboutseduction, and where did the
idea come from? Well,

it came from several places. First of all,
the Laws of Power. I havestories of seduction in there,
because the ideas I mentionedearlier, if you get people to
like to do what you want, butthey think it's for their they
want to do it, you seduce them,and it's the highest form of
power. There's no resentment atall. They actually enjoy doing

(01:21):
what serves your interests,right? Because you made it
pleasurable. So seduction is ahigh, high form of power. Okay?
It's not just sexual seduction.
Seduction is social, it'spolitical, it's marketing, it's
psychology. So I want to write abook about the psychology of
seduction, focusing, yeah,there's a lot of stories in
there about sexual seduction,but there's stories about

(01:43):
political seductions and JFK andand Malcolm X, and there's
social seductions, and there'smarketing as stories about
marketing. So

what are the differences between those three
types of seduction, political,social and marketing? There's

nothing. They're all the same. It's the same
thing. You're lowering people'sresistance. People are naturally
resistant to you, the naturalthey don't want to vote for you.
Why am I going to vote for JohnF Kennedy? He's a Catholic, he's
too young, he's too liberal.
He's from Massachusetts. Youknow? Why am I going to buy your
product? It's new. Never heardof it before. I don't know
anybody else who's using it.

(02:20):
People are resistant to you. Whyam I ever going to go out on a
date with this guy? I don't knowwho the hell he is. You know, he
could be a serial killer. Forall I know, people are naturally
resistant to you. Seduction is aprocess of lowering those walls
one by one till they fall underyour spell and they do what you
want, right? It's the sameprocess. That's what fascinated

(02:40):
me in this was to get the commonpsychology involved. The other
aspect was in my 20s, when I wasyounger and and had all that hot
blood in me, I was playing a lotof that game of seduction. It
fascinated me on a personallevel. I You mentioned that
hotel I worked in Paris, I was22 years old, a receptionist. It

(03:03):
was the hotel where all of themodels stayed when they came to
Paris. Yeah, fun, right? It waslike shooting fish in a barrel.
Yeah,

I stopped you there. Hotel receptionist
frowned on sleeping with guestsof the hotel. Is that? Was that
like a thing? We're trying toget around that. And so how'd
you do that? It's

France. So you can just say I was in France.
I'm

out. 10 o'clock.
My shift is over. Hey, I'm gonnago upstairs with one of the
guests. No problem.

If you're in France and you're not doing
that, something is wrong withyou, right? That's how the
French people look at it. Okay?
So you know, it wasn't just, themodels that I was like after but
I met a man there who was aBrazilian, man who was very
tall, very handsome. He was mostunbelievable seducer I've ever
seen in my entire life. He wasso smooth. Women were just

(03:54):
melting in front of him. And Iwanted to go, why? What is his
secret? And I kind of followedhim around, and I sort of saw
some of his secrets that endedup kind of inserting themselves
into the art of seduction. Sothere was a personal interest.
And also I kind of love theliterature of seduction, the
great novels that have to dowith seduction. So there were

(04:15):
many angles that fascinated mein this subject.

Explain the difference between a warm
seducer and a cold seducer.

Well, you want to be a warm seducer the cold
seducer, typically, or could bea woman, but often it would be
the male who is just predatory,and he's just basically after
sex, right? And so, you knowhe's he is. Well, it could be a
woman who's just after money. Orback in the day when that was
the case, it's not so much thecase anymore, a courtesan who's

(04:45):
basically just a gold digger. Ofcourse, there still are gold
diggers. I don't mean that, but,you know, so there are men who
are just after sex, and they'repretty good at it, right? But
there's nothing. There's no realemotion in it. They don't feel.
So they feign interest in thewoman, and the moment they get
her, they move on to the nextone, right? But the hot seducer

(05:08):
is what you want to be. Is whatI was. I considered myself more
like, which is you genuinely areexcited by the person. You're
not just faking it. You're notjust faking that. You're
interested in it. And you're notjust after sex. You actually are
interested in the person. Youactually maybe want to fall in
love with them, right? Andbecause you have that genuine

(05:30):
desire for them, it has amemetic effect on the other
person. They get kind of caughtup in the infection of it. They
get infected by your ownemotion, and they fall under
your spell as well. So that'sthe difference between a cold
and a hot seducer. You want tobe

more of the hot variety. What's an anti seducer?

I encounter them in life, and they're difficult.
They're people who have a talentfor repelling others, right?
Okay? So they talk too much.
They know everything, okay,right? A lot of women have this
experience. The man will gettheir explainers. They know
everything, and they just talk,talk, talk about themselves, and

(06:11):
they know, you know answer toeverything, very anti seductive,
because it shows that you'reonly interested in yourself,
right? People who preach andmoralize is very anti seductive.
A seducer wants to be open,wants to be non judgmental,
wants to be tolerant of theother person. That shows that
you're kind of secure, you'renot insecure. You can reduce all

(06:32):
of anti seductive traits togreat deals of insecurity that
come out right? You're alwaysyou're on a date, and you're
always thinking about yourself.
Am I saying the right thing?
Does she or he like me? Youknow? Am I, you know? How are
they viewing me as opposed tobeing interested in them and

(06:54):
their world? What are theythinking of, you know? What is
what are their likes andpreferences? Not about you. It's
about them. That's what makesseduction successful and very
therapeutic as well. So antiseducers are too self insult
involved. They're too worriedabout themselves. They talk too
much, they're vulgar, theymoralize, they preach. I could

(07:16):
go on and on.

You've talked about seduction is also a matter
of vulnerability. I thinkvulnerability is one of the most
underrepresented qualities ofbeing a leader. How do people
become more vulnerable and peelaway all that exterior armor so
they have better relationships?

Well, you have to, you have to let go. You
know, that's that's part of theprocess. You have to be willing
to accept pain and being hurtand being rejected. So the word
vulnerable comes from the Latinvulnus, which means wound, a
wound. So to be vulnerable is tobe open to being wounded, right?

(08:01):
And a lot of people,particularly in the world today,
they're deathly afraid of anykind of wound, of any kind of
hurt, so they protectthemselves. If I don't go out in
the world, if I don't datepeople, if I protect myself,
then I'm never going to feelhurt. I'm never going to feel
rejected. And you want theopposite thing to be rejected is
okay. It's a good thing in life.
It teaches you something. Itteaches you about your limits.

(08:24):
It teaches you about what maybeyou did wrong. It also gives you
a little bit of a thicker skin.
You can endure it. I tellpeople, if you've been rejected,
you've been hurt, on to the nextperson, just go on, find
somebody else. Don't internalizeit. So feeling vulnerable is
letting go of your ego, lettinggo of that tightness, letting go

(08:47):
of that ability to protectyourself at all costs from any
kind of hurt. You want to failin life. You want adversity.
Failing in life is the besteducation that can ever happen
to you, right? And failing inlife is a deep wound, but it
teaches you very valuablelessons. So if you go through
life where I don't want to everhave feel hurt, I don't ever

(09:08):
want to feel criticized or tofail, you're never going to
learn, you're never going tosucceed, you're never going to
be powerful.

One of the reasons why we're not vulnerable
at times is because we're veryinsecure. We're insecure about
the way we look, we dress, wefeel, our relationships, our
personality, anything in oursphere of life, at some at some
point life, we all are. So howdoes one get over insecurity, to
become more vulnerable? Becauseinsecurity is a bad thing, or is

(09:37):
it a good thing?

Well, it's neither good nor bad. It just
is. I mean, the best way to notbe insecure is to succeed. Is to
have is to have to do somethingto accomplish something that
gives you a degree of realconfidence, because there's fake
confidence. There are people whothink that they're wonderful,
but they're not reallywonderful, and that's masking a

(09:59):
lot. Of insecurity, and we cankind of read that off them. But
if you actually achievesomething, if you actually reach
a goal, you set yourself a goal,I'm going to start a business
when I'm 25 you start thatbusiness and it fails, okay, but
I had the cojones to start thatbusiness in the first place. I

(10:20):
can feel pretty good about that,right? That gives you
confidence, but if you never tryit, if you never try to start
that business, you may feelprotected, but you're insecure,
and that insecurity will hauntyou the rest of your life,
right? So the best way to notfeel secure is to accomplish
something. Is to get off yourbutt and do something to act in

(10:42):
this world, to try and achieve agoal and so and if you do, then
you know you'll feel lessinsecure. You have something to
rest upon. You have laurels torest upon. You have a sense of
Damn it in a world where peopletalk and talk and talk pretend
to be something, I actuallytried. I didn't talk. I did it

(11:03):
well. That will help youovercome some of your
insecurities.

I think one of the plays, and this is an
unusual thing to say, but Ithink this is very true for so
many people. People are afraidto tell their partners, even
their wives, some of theirsexual fantasies. So it could be
mirror on the ceiling, could beswings. I didn't

know we were going this way. Could be, could
be, could be

all different things. Yeah, right, but people
are afraid to express theirsexual desires, even though the
people they love the most,because they're insecure of how
people are going to perceivethem, yeah. How should they get
over that? Oh, do you talk aboutthe swing? Hey, I you know, I
really want a pole coming downnext to the bed.

Well, no, I think, I think you have to be
kind of subtle about it, right?
I don't think it's just come outof nowhere, but there has to be,
already a base of comfortbetween you, the two of you,
where they're not going to bejudgmental. They're not going
to, you know, the worst thing isyou're going to say, Yeah, you
know, sometimes I like to be, tobe dressed up as an infant and

(12:12):
be spanked. And that comes outof No, well, God, I didn't even
know who this person was. Getthe hell out of my life, right?
Yeah.

So there has to be, it's a big thing.
Apparently, they may havepaddles. They got outfits. They
got whips.

I remember once I was on a movie set, the first
film I was on, and we'reshooting in somebody's house.
They're not living there, andthey have the doors that we're
not supposed to open. And ofcourse, we go and we open a
closet door, and they had, like,you know, adult infant outfits
with all the paraphernalia withit. We were like, Oh my God. You
know, it was pretty shockinganyway, so it is out there. But

(12:54):
you know, if you revealsomething like that, the other
person's gonna go, God, I didn'tknow Randall at all. I didn't
know he had these kind of tasteget me out of here. I'm getting
a divorce, right? So it's got tobe a level of trust already
established between you two, andthe context has to be kind of
not so heavy, like no has to bekind of fun and playful, and

(13:16):
maybe you introduce it subtly inthe context of of of, you know,
you're actually doing something,quote, unquote intimate. I'm
getting a little embarrassedhere. You're getting doing
something kind of intimate, andyou in, you know, introduce a
little element of this. So it'snot like a total shock. I'm just
saying, you know, you have to besubtle about these things, and

(13:36):
you have to kind of preparethem. So it doesn't seem like,
Hey, I don't know who thisperson is, who I'm involved with
for 20 years. When

I got divorced, I was single for seven and a
half years. I go to Line. Ithree guys who I was friends
with, and they were all 60 plusolder in age. They were all very
wealthy, and it was sodepressing to talk to them,
because the what they told me,and they were all divorced, too,

(14:05):
and they said, Yeah, I mean, youlose sexual desire for your
partner at some age in life, andit doesn't really matter as
much, so you're just going tohave to accept that going
forward. And I know a lot offriends, I'm sure you do too,
who barely have sex with theirhusbands or their wives. I have
a friend I've known for a longtime. She hasn't had sex with

(14:26):
her husband in 15 years, yetshe's still in the relationship.
You talk a lot aboutcompanionship and compatibility.
What's your advice to thosepeople on how to reignite that
spark and get back into it andjust want to get in there again.

Well, you know, everybody's different. I don't
if it's something that you'remissing that's painful for you.
Then Then I understand. But youknow, you. You have to, it has
to be a mutual thing. You can'tjust come from one side. So

(15:06):
relationships, you know, peopledon't understand that it's this
continual back and forth.
There's an energy that happensbetween you two, and sometimes
the current is cut off on oneside, but it's generally both
people are kind of responsiblefor it. So it can't be just you
bulldozing the other personsaying, Come on, let's go have
sex now. Kind of thing, youknow, or judging them or doing

(15:29):
that, you have to, kind of, youknow, go at it subtly. You have
to kind of get them asinterested as you are in it. It
has to be a mutual back andforth thing, and not something
where you're just foisting it onthem, because that's the whole
thing about when we're talkingabout seduction, is when it only
comes from one side, when it'sonly like, god damn it, I've got

(15:50):
to have sex with this woman,right? And you're manipulating
her. It lacks that juice, itlacks that energy that happens
with like, an electrical currentthat goes back and forth. So in
your scenario, you want to havethat current opening up between
the two of you, however you dothat. You don't want to be like,
imposing on the other person andmaking it seem like you're

(16:11):
judging them. Kind of thing.
Does that make sense? Yeah.

Can you fix something if you're not
attracted to somebody physicallyand still have a great
relationship with a spouse or asignificant other? Yes,

of course, you can. I mean, you know, you you
have, you have a deep affection,you have a love, just like you
have a love with for yourchildren, and that's not
crossing a boundary. You know,you can. They're all forms of
love, and they don't have toinvolve sex at all. You know, we
have to widen ourinterpretations of things. If

(16:44):
you're with somebody for a verylong time, you have incredible
memories, you know, you havethings that you've shared
together. You have all that kindof years of affection. Yeah, you
have, you've had yourdisagreements, but you've seen a
lot. You've grown together, youknow, you've experienced the
world together. I think it's agreat thing to go through that.

(17:06):
And it doesn't have to be, youknow, when you're in your 20s
and you have that kind ofintense physical relationship,
they tend to burn out prettyquickly, right? And so you're
going to mellow out as you getolder anyway, and it's okay.
It's okay because it can be kindof more of a deeper bond in some

(17:26):
ways. And yes, you still havesex and still intimate, you're
still physical, but it's not thesame thing. Why does everything
have to be the same? You're notyoung anymore. You're not in
your 20s. Just get over it so

you're accepting the fact that people have less
sex, and they should have lesssex when they're 40, 5060, years
old.

I'm saying it's if that it's nothing wrong with
that, is what I'm saying. If youthink there's something wrong
with that, that's fine. I'm notjudging you. I'm not a
judgmental person. It's okay,but it's also okay to feel like
things are mellowing. I'm older.
I don't have the desire that Iused to have. I'm not freaking
out about it. I'm not going outand getting massive injections

(18:05):
of testosterone to change that.
You know, I'm not swallowingViagra every few hours. It's

okay. My nice question.

It's okay. You know, that's what happens. Look,
I'm in my 60s. I had a stroke,right? Your body doesn't change.
Your mind changes, and your bodychanges as you get older, and
you have to kind of acceptthings. It's painful, but you
have to accept some dating

today is way different than when we were
growing up. I mean, it's justI'm a lot older than you. It's
just different. I'm 56 so you'vegot, I think 10 years on you 10
years. I mean, not that much. Mydating life when I was younger
was similar to yours. There wereno online apps. I mean, you can
go on these bars, and by theway, I had to pound down a few

(18:58):
brewskis to even have thecourage to go talk to somebody
today, you can go on an app.
There's apps, I know they'reswiping. There's fucking apps
where you just, you're on, youknow, you put in your menu, and
you're there, and it's just,it's just one and done. What is
your advice in this kind ofworld where social media makes
it so easy to hook up withsomething on dating? Well,

I know I'm gonna sound like your grandfather to
those people out there, but whatthe hell I probably am the age
of your grandfather? You knowit's you're doing yourself a
disservice if you're doing thatokay? And it's not just because
I'm this old guy who never hadto deal with that. It's because

(19:43):
I've been studying human natureand people for many, many years.
I'm not good at a lot of things.
I can't shoot a basketball likeI used to. I'm not good at a lot
of things, but I understandpeople very well, human nature,
I wrote a very thick book onthat and your ability to UN.
Understand people, notvirtually, but in the flesh, eye
contact, being able to be infront of them, to talk to them,

(20:05):
not through a screen, butactually there. To actually have
to be funny, to actually have tocommunicate, to actually have to
say something interesting, toactually express interest in
their world, you need to be infront of them. You need to be
there and see them. And in doingthat, you run the risk of doing
the wrong thing, because on thatcomputer, on your phone, you can

(20:26):
kind of make yourself seem likeyou know, hottest thing on the
planet. You can create a wholefantasy that's not real, but
when you're there together,there's nothing, everything's
real. And you're going to saysomething stupid, or you're
going to not look so great, oryour hair is going to be all
messed up, whatever. It's okay.
You've got to learn humanskills. You've got to go out

(20:49):
there and you have to deal withpeople. Because if you don't, it
will go it will ripple outsideof your dating world, into your
into your work world, into yoursocial world. You won't know how
to deal with colleagues, youwon't know how to say something.
You won't know how to becharming to people, right?
You'll be all shy and nervous.
Well, swiping, swiping, swiping.
It doesn't take anything but togo to a bar or to come up to a

(21:13):
stranger and try to talk to themand try and get them interested.
Man, that takes guts, and you'rebeing timid. You're being weak,
you're being a coward, putyourself out in the world, face
rejection, and try and developsome real people skills, because
social skills are a muscle, andif you don't ever exercise that
muscle, you're just going to bereally flabby and you'll never

(21:36):
get anywhere you want toexercise that muscle through
real experiences, Not throughvirtual experiences,

you wrote a book called Mastery, yeah, when
you're 53 years old,

you know more about me than I know about
myself. That's pretty great.
Okay. Why did

you write the book? Yeah, and what does
mastery actually mean?

I wrote the book because I was a little bit
worried people were were takinglike, the 48 Laws of Power is
all that matters in life, if I'mgood, if I have the people
skills, if I can be like a conartist, if I can kind of bluff
my way through life, that'spower. There's something missing
from that scenario, and thatsomething is you actually have

(22:15):
to be good at what you do. Youcan't bluff your way through
life, right? You could be theCEO of a company. You can master
all the 48 Laws of Power, but ifyou're incompetent, if you don't
know, if you don't have thenecessary skills to see it
through, then it's all going toblow up in your face. So mastery
is an extremely importantcomponent in the game of power,

(22:36):
in your success and your feelingof fulfillment in life. And
basically what mastery is, isessentially using the human
brain, this immense organ, thisgift that you have been given,
the most powerful instrumentthat we know in the universe,
the billions of neurons that arethere, the connections. It's
immensely powerful. Mastery isusing that brain that you were

(22:59):
gifted with to the maximumeffect that it has to reach a
level of not just creativity,but to have an intuitive feel
for exactly what's going to comenext. So if you're a soccer
player, you know exactly, likePele did or Messi, exactly where
the players are going to be, youcan anticipate them with a great

(23:19):
pass, or like a great basketballplayer, you're a chess master.
The chess board is in your head.
You have seen 15 moves inadvances, whereas the other
person's only seeing a couple ofmoves in advance. You're a
piano. You're a pianist, and thepiano is so deeply inside of you
that you know, after you look atyour fingers, just comes flows
out of you. That is mastery.
It's an intuitive feel for theinstrument that you were using,

(23:44):
and to tell you the truth, it isthe most joyous experience a
human being can have, you know,maybe even more joyous than the
sex that we were talking about.
But I'm not going to go thatfar. Brandy

love, who is a porn star, and she's kind of an
icon in the industry, I thinkshe hit it right. I think she
said sex is the most pleasurableactivity in the world. You know,
we haven't taken any scientificpolls, but I think, I think a
lot of people say that, butmastery beats sex. I

think it does.
Because, you know, sex is like,I'm not, I'm not. You know,
don't get me wrong here. But youknow, sex is like a continual
hunger. You never really feelsatisfied. You want more and
more and more of it. And thenthere are moments of pain, you
know, and you feel likeafterwards, like sometimes, I
know, as a man, sometimes youfeel kind of almost sad or

(24:33):
depressed afterwards. Mastery islike this high that just
continues on and on and on. Youdon't have to think anymore. All
these great ideas come to you.
Now, granted, this is somethingthat not many people experience,
because it's they talk about10,000 hours. This is 20,000
hours. This is 25,000 hours ofwork, and it's very high level,

(24:57):
but it's like a continual mentalor. Orgasm, because things just
come to you. The greatest ideasyou know, you see perfectly,
exactly what has to come next.
It's a wonderful feeling.

You study some of the most iconic figures in
history, Darwin, Einstein, HenryFord, Da Vinci. So how does a
guy like Freddie Roach, who is aboxing coach, Benny Pacquiao and
some other people who retired atage 26 and who bit a guy's eye

(25:31):
out in the ring, make that list?
Well,

Freddie is a great guy, and he's probably the
most successful boxing coach. Healso does mixed martial arts as
well. In history, his recordspeaks for itself. But what
interested me in the story ofFreddie Roach was, and I met
him, and I got to know him verywell, is he was not a great
boxer. He was not a masterboxer. He was a journey man,

(25:58):
right? You know, he took a lotof punches. His record was good,
but wasn't great. He was notbad, but he was maybe a mediocre
boxer. And his career is over atan early age. He took too many
punches. I don't know exactlyhow old, early 30s. And as a lot
of people in that situation,like you mentioned, Olympic

(26:19):
athletes, he was very depressed,and he's wandering around Las
Vegas trying to make a living,and he's doing telemarketing,
you know, and he's like,reaching the bottom there, and,
you know, he's, I don't know ifhe's suicidal, but he's close to
it. And then he wanders into agym, and he starts sort of
seeing some boxers trainingthere, and he starts helping one

(26:42):
of them. And I mentioned thatmoment where Yost elfer said,
Robert, you have any ideas forbook? And suddenly, Whoa, yeah,
helping this person. Suddenly hehad that, that light bulb go out
in his head going, this is whatI was meant to do. I'm not a
very good boxer, but I am agreat teacher. I know boxing, I
know the strategy. It's all inmy head. I couldn't perform the

(27:05):
right thing, but I know about itin my head, and he was able to
translate that skill. So I lovethat story for the ability, the
lesson that it has that youmight be that lawyer who's 29
years old, who's like FreddieRoach, who's boxed out, who's
taking concussions. He's takingtoo many punches to the head,
and you can segue into somethingelse and become a master, as

(27:26):
long as you understand that.
Freddie didn't go say, I'm goingto become a politician, I'm
going to become a writer, I'mgoing to become a rocks. No,
he's going to take his boxingskills and become a great
teacher. And over the course of1015, 20 years of teaching, he
knew every little aspect of thatbook we call the beautiful
sport, the strategy of boxing.

(27:48):
He had it in his head. He wasn'tthe man punching, but he was the
man telegraphing, telling peoplehow to punch. I think it's an
amazing story, an amazinglesson.

One of the phases of mastery is
apprenticeship. He just talkedabout 10,000 hours. But you said
it's 20,000 hours. I think whenpeople hear that number, Robert,
they say, Holy shit, there's noway I can do that to master
something. It's that's a lot ofhours.

You know, when I was pulling nails out of those
boards on the island of Crete toget my pay my way off the
island, and that was prettymiserable. If I ever looked at
the 500 boards that I had topull out, the nails, I would
have killed myself. I just dideach board at a time, each rusty
nail, and took them out oneboard at a time. You don't sit

(28:34):
there and go, Wow, I've got 20I've got 19,800 hours ahead of
me. You just do what you have todo. So here's the beauty of it.
Randall, if you're starting out,you're 21 years old, and your
apprenticeship starts, whichusually about seven to 10 years
long, whatever field you're in,and you have chosen something
that you want, that interestsyou, that excites you in some

(28:57):
way. It doesn't have to beexactly what you're gonna end up
doing, but it excites you. Thosehours. Just float by. You're you
know, yes, it's painful. Yes,you have to learn things. You
have to practice. You have totake your punches, you have to
take some pain, you have topeople have to criticize you.
But in general, you're having agreat time. You're learning.
You're young, you look good, youhave energy. People like you.

(29:20):
You know, when you're in your20s, life is beautiful. I don't
care. You know, how depressed,how poor you are, you're 20 and
you have all this energy. Itshould be wonderful. Okay, so
you're not sitting therethinking about each hour. You're
enjoying it, you know? So ifyou're Kobe Bryant, God rest

(29:41):
him. So if you're 20 years oldand you're just starting in the
NBA, you're not thinking of allthe jump shot the next 10,000
jump shots you have to take inthe moment. You're getting
better each day, you'reprogressing, you're competing,
you're getting better, andyou're enjoying it. You love it,
because he had a great love ofbasketball. So you don't sit
there and. Count the hours,you'd kill yourself if you did.

(30:02):
You're in the moment. But if youdon't find the career that was
meant for you, if you have a badmatch, if you were meant to be a
basketball player and you're alawyer, that's a terrible
metaphor, but it's somethinglike that, you're going to be
miserable. You're going to becounting those hours. You're
going to be going, damn it, Ihave to do law for eight more
years, and I have to put 10,000hours. I'm never going to make

(30:25):
it. You're going to tune out.
You're going to be a failure.
You're going to start takingdrugs or something.

You said, everyone in life has a purpose.
Life's purpose, a uniquepurpose. Is that really true?
You talk about life's tasks.
There's so many people I knowwho are lost and they don't have
a purpose. So for those people,how do they find it? Well,

it's the million dollar question. If I could
summarize that in two minutes,I'd be a billionaire. So it
takes a little longer. But thegist of it is, I'll put it this
way, when you were born, youhave a DNA, a combination of
genetic factors that have neverexisted in the history of the

(31:06):
universe and will never exist inthe future. The number of
permutations of combinations inthat code are just
mathematically impossible tocalculate. So you are a unique
individual at birth. Right, yourbrain is wired in a very
particular way. Your parents arealso wired in their own
particular weird way. They'regoing to be raising you in their

(31:28):
own unique, weird, unique styleof raising parenting. And then
your early years and yourencounters are going to be
unlike anybody else, but you area unique individual. You're like
a flower that has never existedbefore, right? There is
something about you that willnever be replicated in the
history of the universe. Thatuniqueness points to something

(31:54):
that is your life's task. Whatyour brain is, how you're wired
differently, what thatsensitivity is in you is an
indication of what you weremeant to do. And if you look at
anybody who succeeds in thisworld, anybody who's powerful,
anybody that you admire, you cansay one thing, they're one of a
kind. They're unique, right? I'mnot a great admirer of Elon

(32:16):
Musk, particularly nowadays, butthere's he's very successful.
There's nobody else like him.
There was nobody else like SteveJobs. There's nobody else like
50 cent. 50 came from the worstpart of America, South Side
queens, all the cards stackedagainst him, and all the friends
that he knew are either dead orin prison. Yet he succeeded.
He's unique. He's one of a kind,because he understood what made

(32:40):
him different. Understandingwhat makes you different is your
life's task. If you understandit, if you cultivate that seed
and make something unique, youwill have found your life's task

when we're younger, our brains function
differently. We're moreemotionally engaged in things
that we're interested in it getsharder and harder when you're
2535 or 45 so can you learn aseffectively to master something
as you get older you haven'tfound life's purpose at 45 or 55

Can you still do it? Look, my advice to people
is, don't get into thatsituation. Avoid it at all
costs. But

there's a lot of people listening to this where
30 mid career professionals,

30 is very possible. 45 you're pushing it.
Okay, I'm sorry to say I don'twant to be giving faults. I
mean, there are examples ofpeople who, at that age have
figured, have taken their careerand what they've learned,
because really, what it's aboutis so for instance, in mastery,
I talk about the story of PaulGraham, the man who founded Y

(33:46):
Combinator, the most successfultech startup school that ever
existed for entrepreneurs,right? He sold it, and Sam
Altman became the owner of it.
We all know what's happened toSam Altman, somebody I met when
I was interviewing Paul Graham.
Anyway, Paul Graham started outstudying computer coding and AI

(34:08):
even back in the late 70s. Hewas a hacker his whole life as a
kid, and he studied programmingin college, and he got a PhD in
it, and he burned out it, and hewasn't interested in it anymore.
He got sick of it. He wasinterested in art and design,
and he went to Italy, and hestudied painting in Italy, and
then he comes back to New York,and he's painting in his loft in

(34:30):
Soho or whatever, not making anymoney. And he hears an ad on the
radio for Netscape and how thefuture and the Internet will be
selling things on the internetwhich nobody had ever heard of.
So the light bulb goes in itshead goes, I can take my coding
skills my programming and I cantake my skills in art and

(34:51):
design, and I can combine themto design a very esthetically
pleasing and very grabbing andvery effective. Uh, internet
shop, which he ended up sold,selling to Yahoo, the first
internet shop ever created, madehis first fortune, and then the
rest is history. The lesson I'mtrying to tell you here is he

(35:13):
reached this point in his early30s. He took his skills that he
had loved, and he put themtogether in a unique way, and he
developed something monstrouslysuccessful. Even if you're in
your mid 50s, you've probablyhad several different careers,
several different things. If youcan loosen yourself up and not
be so rigid in your in yourthinking, you could probably

(35:34):
take the different skills you'veacquired and combine them in
something unique. If you're openand creative. The problem is,
when you're young, you're openand creative and willing to do
things. You're flexible, youknow, you have an open spirit.
And when you're older, you thinkyou know everything, and you're
so rigid, you're so on a onetrack. So that's the problem
that you face, how

much of our mastery is determined by our
passion and just how far ourcompassion take us to be
successful.

I don't like the word passion because it sounds
like a perfume ad or something.
It's not I don't like that word.
I like the word desire, okay, sobecause passion is like
something kind of uncontrolled,it's too strong you want to have
the desire for something. Sowhen I first, when I was in

(36:21):
college, I studied French fortwo, three years, because I was
I love foreign languages. Andthen I went to Paris, where I
worked in a hotel. And damn it,I couldn't speak three words. I
couldn't order breakfast. Icouldn't tell you know what. I
wanted a room for this kind ofthing. I couldn't I couldn't do
anything. I hadn't learned athing. And then when I was at

(36:43):
the hotel, I think before I wasat the hotel, I met this French
girl that I was really excitedabout. I wanted to seduce her,
right? She was fantastic. In twomonths, I learned more French
than three years of collegebecause I wanted to. I had the
desire. So if you desiresomething, you learn at a faster
rate because you're motivated,your mind is open. When you

(37:07):
don't want to learn something,you're 26 and you have to study
algebra you're never going tolearn because you don't want to.
You're tuning it out. You're notfocused. But if you're focused
on something and you desire it,your mind just is absorbing it
at a much faster rate. So desireis the key to learning in
anything I do

a lot of coaching. I do coaching with
interns, and I have aprofessional coaching business
now where I'm coaching peoplewho want to grow their
businesses be a betterprofessional. One of the things
that people are motivated mostabout in their jobs is money,
and money ranks usually at thetop of the list. When you ask

(37:45):
people what they're mostinterested in. You said in your
book that people should takehalf salary to learn more, but
at some point in people's lives,that's not practical. So at what
point do you say we should doit? At what point you say it's
not practical. We shouldn't doit. Well.

Look at it this way. One of the richest men in
the world at his death was SteveJobs. You know, I know there
were other people wealthier, buthe was worth several billion.
And if he was still alive, he'dbe worth incredible amount of
money. He was never interestedin money. It never crossed his

(38:23):
mind. It was never somethingthat motivated him. What
motivated me, if you read thebiography by Walter Isaacson,
you'll understand this. Whatmotivated him was creating the
perfect design. He was aperfectionist. He was obsessed
with creating the perfectdesign, and because he created
the perfect design, he becamefabulously wealthy. If money is

(38:44):
your primary interest, you'renot going to be creating
something unique and different.
You're going to be followingwhat other people are doing. The
path to money is what thatperson did. I'm just going to
imitate them, because businessis full of imitators. Believe
me, I know I served on the boardof directors of a publicly
traded company business. Peopleare very frightened. They're
always following what the otherguy or other woman did, right?

(39:05):
Okay, that's what's gonnahappen. If money is your
motivation, you're not gonnastick your gut neck out there
and start a business that's arisk, that could lose a lot of
money, but could be fabulouslysuccessful if it takes off. The
other thing is, if you join asmall a company that's small,
that's just starting out, but ispaying you a pittance, 20,

(39:28):
30,000 a year, or whatever thatwould be, you're going to be
learning so much, because youcan be hands on, there's going
to have responsibility, whereasif you take that Six Figure
Figure at Goldman Sachs. You'renot going to be learning
anything because you'resurrounded by all these other
whippersnappers from Yale whoare just as motivated as you
are, and you're all sittingaround. You know you're not

(39:50):
you're not hands on. You haveany responsibility. So if you're
young, be willing to be poor. Bewilling to be hungry. You. You
can eat, you know, ramen andthings like that. I know I lived
on that for several years. Youcan't when you're 30s and 40s,
you get it's depressing, but youcan eat. You can live more
cheaply, and you're going tolearn, and you're going to be

(40:12):
excited. You're going to takerisks. If money is your only
value, you're never going totake risks. And risks is where
the money, real, true moneyreally lies.

When I was an intern in Washington, I worked
at the National Crime PreventionCouncil, the Watergate Safeway.
Man, you had a lot of differentyou put more jobs than me. Well,
this is internship. I have had alot of jobs. We would buy a box
of Kraft macaroni and cheese for99 cents. We got four meals out
of that bad boy. It was great.
You know, really makes you,makes you stronger. One of the
things, and it's, it's youpointing to, I've had a lot of

(40:46):
jobs, a lot of people I knowhave had lots of jobs. You were
at this job for seven years, andthen you said, Oh my god, I just
wasted all that time. It's notwhat I want to do now. I want to
go into something else. Nottrue. Would it be not true, is
it you said that nothing's awaste of time. Your your career
will will follow you, and younever know what you learn, how
valuable it is. It's

all in your head.
It's all in who you are. So I'vegiven advice to people who were
depressed they had like theequivalent of a fast food job,
flipping burgers. It wasn'texactly that, but something like
that, and they were reallydepressed. I said, look, look at
your job differently. Okay,first of all, you're learning

(41:31):
what you hate. You don't want tobe doing this forever, so
there's a motivating factor,okay? So you're learning that
every day on the job. You'retelling yourself, I've got to
improve myself. The second thingis, you're dealing with people
all of the time, people youdon't necessarily like,
customers, etc. You're learningabout human nature. You're
learning about people. Okay,everything is a learning

(41:53):
experience. Even the worst thinggoing on, the horrible smells,
the food frying, etc, you'relearning, you're learning.
You're learning, if that's yourmindset, right? So then when it
comes time to move on tosomething else, you have feel
like you've wasted your time.
That's what I talk about, alivetime and dead time. Dead time is

(42:15):
just, oh, I can't wait for thesethree hours to pass. I just got
to get there, or I'm gonna, youknow, I'm I'm learning in these
three hours. I'm learning what'sgoing on. I'm learning about the
observing, observing myself. I'mobserving people. I'm observing
the craft of the trade that I'mdoing, etc. That's not dead
time. That's a lifetime. You'relearning, okay? So that's the
attitude that you want to applyto any circumstance in life. And

(42:39):
so I would tell people stuck inthese horrible jobs, I would
say, look, you've got, this wasone case. I'm thinking, you're
27 you've got a wife, you've gottwo kids, and they're depending
on you for support. You've got acrap job. You can't quit because
you need to support them, but ifyou keep going on, you're going

(43:00):
to kill yourself. You're sounhappy. Here's what you do. All
right, you get online. There'ssomething that excites you, that
interests you. First of all, wediscussed what maybe could be a
career that interested him.
Okay, all right, get online andstart researching it a little
bit, researching that theschools, the night classes you
can take, the things, the greatthing about the internet is you
can learn skills online. It'sall kind of online courses. Find

(43:21):
something like that. Okay? Wediscussed it. He found it, and
then I said, All right, an hourevery night after you come home,
you're going to devote tofollowing these courses online.
Okay, in six months, you'regoing to take classes at a real
school, just telling him that,just coming up with that plan
flipped a switch in his brain,and he wasn't unhappy anymore.

(43:41):
He was feeling good. He wasfeeling hopeful. He had a plan.
And that's what it takes inlife. We just have to have some
hope and a plan.

One of the things I think that's important
to our growth and our success isfinding great mentors in life.
We're here today because you'rementoring. Max schlemmerhorn is
an incredible guy. He's sittingright over there right now. How
important is mentorship in allof our success? And how does
someone have Robert Green becometheir mentor?

Well, first of all, Max is more successful than
I am, so I should be mentoringunder him. Max is a fucking
stud. Yeah, when it comes tomoney, he's certainly making
more money than I ever did. So Ishould be studying under Max.
But anyway, by the

way, for those people who don't know Max, he's
20 years old,

yeah, exactly, exactly. How do you think that
makes me feel? Right? I didn'tget I didn't make any money
until I was 3738 anyway,mentorship is very important,
because important because it'sit can accelerate the learning
process. So if you sit there andgo, God, 10,000 hours, seven

(44:50):
years, how depressing. But ifyou have a good mentor who can
steer you in the rightdirection, that knows the
mistakes you're going to make,that knows don't go this path,
follow. This path. Don't dothis. Do that. Instead, you're
going to save time. You're notgoing to make the same mistakes,
you're not going to slog yourway through the battlefield.
You'll have more energy and moredirection. It can save you time.

(45:13):
It's also like the equivalent ofa second parent, because you
don't get to choose yourparents. Sometimes that's okay,
but sometimes it's not. And thesecond parent is somebody you
get to choose. And you choosethem not because they're highly
successful, not because theylook good, or they've got
charisma. You choose thembecause you want to follow their

(45:36):
path. There's somebody youadmire, your spirits align, and
it's a really enriching humanexperience. We were talking
earlier about dating and howinhuman it can be. Well,
mentoring is a very human one onone experience where you're
interacting with someone whoknows a lot more than you, and
it's very exciting, and it'svery direct and it's very

(45:56):
immediate, and it can save you alot of time and energy. It's
it's a very enriching experiencethat not many people really get
to have in life. And I'm tellingyou, in the book mastery, I
explain the kind of mentors,mentees, mentors, I'm sorry that
you should choose, because youneed to choose wisely. But as
for me, probably besides Max,well, I can't take credit for

(46:21):
Max's success, because that'spretty much on his own. But I
was the mentor to Ryan Holiday,who we all know is a highly
successful, Best Selling Author,yeah, yeah, he's written more
books than I have, and he's, youknow, like half my age, and he
was my mentee, and it was greatbecause he was so smart, and it

(46:45):
was a lot of fun for me, becauseI spent so much of my time alone
in my office thinking I don'thave as much human interaction
as I like. And here was somebodythat I could bounce ideas off
of, and he was he was reallysmart, and it worked, and it was
very satisfying for me to takewrite and instruct him I cannot

(47:08):
take credit for his success,don't get me wrong, but I helped
him figure out how to write. Igave him the scheme, the bare
bones of how to write a book andhow to write a best selling
book. I showed him the way, thepath, I gave him my system of
taking notes, I showed him howto research, and he took it to
another level. But it'simmensely satisfying. I don't

(47:31):
have any children, you know, forgood or for bad. I consider my
children my seven books, right?
But having Ryan, he's almostlike with sun. To me, he's
almost like the kid I'd neverhad. So it's very satisfying
feeling for

me. One of the things that's contributed to my
success is something I callextreme preparation. I'm writing
a book by the same title. It'ssomething I coach and teach. How
important has out preparingeverybody else. When someone's
spending 10 hours for something,you're spending reading 200

(48:08):
books, preparing for your nextbook been your success.

Preparation is extremely important. It's one of
the most important laws in the48 laws plan all the way to the
end. And you know, people don'tunderstand planning and
preparation. They think of it askind of drudgery, something
that's kind of painful. Butactually, preparation and
planning can be a hell of a lotof fun, if you if you look at it

(48:33):
the right way, all of yourcreative energy goes into those
years of preparing, youforeseeing the consequences of
your action. What could gowrong? What if this happens?
Well, I'm going to go in thisdirection or that direction. It
gives you freedom. It's a veryliberating sentiment. I talk in
my war book, I talk about thegreat film director, Alfred

(48:55):
Hitchcock. And if you've everbeen on a film set like I have,
it's utter chaos. Everybodyyelling and screaming. There's
so many millions of dollars atstake. Actors have their ego.
The producers have their ego.
It's hell, right? It's actually,literally hell. Okay? Alfred
Hitchcock would be on the set,and he'd be falling asleep. He'd
be snoozing. People canunderstand what the hell's going

(49:16):
on here. He's not evendirecting. They nicknamed him
Buddha because he was just likecalm, almost to the snoring on
set. The reason he was he was soprepared. He had figured
everything out in advance, tothe details of the costumes that
the women would wear, the colorsthat they would be, the way he
would edit it, exactly thelighting that he wanted, how

(49:36):
they would deliver their lines.
He worked on the script inadvance. So it would be the kind
of script that he wanted.
Everything was prepared inadvance, so he could be calm.
Being prepared allows you thatkind of calmness, because you
foresee all of the possiblethings that can go wrong, and
when they do go wrong, you havean answer. You don't panic, you

(49:57):
don't. Go make some stupiddecision that's going to set
everything make everythingworse. You've thought it in
advance. You don't have theperfect answer, but you have a
good enough answer, and thingsgo back on the tracks, and
everything's sort of smooth.
Preparation gives you thatfeeling of calmness and
confidence. The more youprepare, the calmer you will be,

(50:19):
and the more confident you willbe heading into any kind of
situation. So, you know, life islike a battlefield. It's
chaotic, it's messy, the smokeeverywhere, the soldiers dying,
and when you look at the levelthere, everything seems
confused, confusing. But if youclimb up 100 feet and you're on
the side of a mountain, you lookdown, things kind of make sense.

(50:40):
You can see patterns. If youclimb to the top of the
mountain, you see everythingclearly. You understand exactly
where people are, where, whatthe battles, how it's going to
progress. Climbing up thatmountain and seeing further into
the future. And being betterprepared is being like a god.
You have you understand thesituation, kind of a God like
way, preparation is extremelyimportant, and I use it in great

(51:04):
detail for my work. We're

at the end of our show, and I always conclude
the end of my show with a gamecalled fill in the blank to
excellence. Are you ready toplay? Not really.

Unknown (51:14):
I'm not good at these kind of things. Here we

go. Well, we got some great questions for you.
The biggest lesson I've learnedin my life

is, don't learn lessons. Just be open to the
moment. No circumstances thesame, and you have to kind of
see what's going on in thepresent, and don't be trapped in
the past. So if I learned alesson when I was 21 it will not
be relevant to when I'm in my60s.

My number one professional goal is to write a

couple more books that maybe go off in different
directions. I've always beensomebody who was kind of a
failed novelist. I'd like towrite some fiction that would be
my professional goal, to havelike, three or four more books
in me before I die, and to kindof get out some of my weirdness
that I have in my head. Mynumber one personal goal is to

(52:00):
live as long as my mother and tobe healthy. The one thing

everybody should say to themselves when they wake
up in the morning is it's insane

to be alive. It's like the strangest experience
anyone could ever have imagined,to be in the year 2025, and to
know who we were, 50, 60,000,years ago, to know the history
of the planet and the cosmos, tobe alive, and the chances of you
not being alive and being whoyou are are so incredible. You

(52:30):
should wake up and just say,Man, this is awesome. This is
unbelievable. It's like being ona drug my biggest regret is, my
motto in life is, as they say inFrench, moi generos, I don't
regret anything, becauseeverything had a purpose to it.
Amour Fauci is my motto. Mybiggest fear is writing a book

(52:53):
that nobody likes. The craziest

thing that's happened in my career is writing
a

book with 50 Cent and spending six months with him
and going and having thisweirdest experiences I've

ever had. The funniest thing that's happened
in my career is, I don't know ifit's the funniest,

but for so long, I was just this writer of books,
nobody knew what I looked likeor anything. And now all of a
sudden, people are coming up tome on the street, which I've
never had before, and, you know,my wife is with me and like,
it's really weird, and it's kindof makes me laugh, and it makes
me feel really good, but it'shappening more and more when
it's all because of socialmedia.

The best advice I've ever received is

do what you love and don't when the money will
come. The worst advice I've everreceived is become a lawyer or a
doctor. Robert, if

you could pick one trait that contributed to
someone's success, it would bebeing able to take criticism.
The most important quality of

a leader is continuing to learn and not
think like they have all theanswers.

The one quality that's gonna make you a horrific
leader is the opposite

thinking you know, everything 10

years from now, I'm going to be alive. The most
important thing that'scontributed to my success is,

I think it's not being afraid to be weird and
unique and different.

The biggest problem in the United States
today is

too many fearful people, not enough people
willing to take chances andrisks. The biggest problem in
the world today is, well,unfortunately, I would say it's
global warming and climatechange.

The biggest problem with young professionals
today is

they're too much of in a hurry to make money. The
one thing

I've dreamt about doing for a long time, but
haven't, is

my body is the way it is. But you know, I was a
long distance swimmer, and Iwanted to, like, do this
incredible long distanceswimming in the ocean and never
be able to do it.

If I could go back and give my 21 year old
self one piece of advice,

it would be, you're doing fine. Don't worry,
everything will work out in theend. Don't listen to my advice.
Just do what you're doing. Ifyou

could meet one.
Person in the world who is alivetoday. It would be Bob Dylan. If
you could have dinner with anyperson in the world other than
Bob Dylan,

who would it be?
Maybe Shohei Ohtani, somebodylike that. My guess

is you could probably have dinner with him.
Probably have the right theright people, and I'm sure
there's a lot of fans that workfor the Dodgers. Oh, God, I'm a
huge Dodger fan anyway, so yeah,if you were President Trump
today, the next thing you woulddo is resign.

Sorry, I'm letting out my true colors, but
that's what I would say.

If you were on your deathbed, and you had 30
seconds before you passed away,and had to tell your girlfriend,
Anna of 29 years one piece ofadvice before you died. What
would that be? Enjoy

the rest of your life. Marry someone else.
Remember me, but you know,don't, don't get stuck in the
past. The

one question you wish I had asked you but didn't,
is

you didn't ask me about the book that I'm writing.
Tell us about the book thatyou're writing. I'm writing a
book on the sublime. It's alittle bit inspired by my near
death experience six years agowhen I had my stroke, but it was
a book that I've been planningto write since probably the year
2005 and essentially, it's myidea, is that there's a realm of

(56:29):
experience out there that wedon't we don't get to have
because we're afraid and becausewe live in these kind of limited
circles of conventions and rulesand what other people are doing,
and outside that circle areexperiences that are new, that
are unpredictable, that areexciting, that reveal to you

(56:49):
that life is this incrediblystrange and bizarre journey, but
you're too enmeshed in yourphone and your small worlds,
whereas there's something cosmicout there trying to open your
eyes to the strangeness of beingalive, to the one, into the
insanity of living on thisplanet earth, in this in this
infinite cosmos of what it meansto have a brain, of to share the

(57:14):
planet with these strangeanimals that we share it with,
you know, on and on and on. Andso I'm trying to mind this
feeling I've had, because it'snot an intellectual book, it's a
feeling, sensation about howthere are things that you can't
put into words that are sopowerful and they're the best
experiences that you can have inlife. That's sort of what the

(57:34):
book is. It's a departure forme. And a lot of people are
going to scratch their heads andgo, Is this the guy who wrote
the 48 Laws of Power. Whathappened to him?

Is there a publication date next year, fall
of next year. My last questionis, are there any questions that
you want to ask me? How

did you think this interview

went? I loved it. I absolutely loved it. Okay?
Your answers are insightful,educational, motivational and
inspirational, and that is thegoal of my show. Did I keep them
short enough? Hey? Well, youknow, we had a lot, we had a lot
to cover, and I know we're herefor some period of time, but
this one of the best interviewsI think I've ever done, and

(58:13):
you're one of the mostfascinating, talented people
I've ever I

wasn't fishing for that, but, yeah, but I thank
you. Well, thanks Randall, thatwas really exciting.

I really appreciate you being here. Shout
out to max again for Thank you,Max. You know, setting this up,
grateful great guy. Great futureahead of him. Thank you. I look
forward to getting to know youbetter and seeing you again.
Yeah, I

do too. Since we're practically neighbors,
we're neighbors. My mother ispleasure to

meet you.
Pleasure to meet you too, manyou.

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Robert Greene: The Secret Psychology Behind Attraction and Influence | E159

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Robert Greene: The Secret Psychology Behind Attraction and Influence | E159