Exploring Human Nature with Robert Greene and Ryan Holiday

stop judging people and categorizing them that's the last thing what you want to do what you want to do is you want to understand them you want more understanding and less judging in your life and through that power you will feel the necessity for approaching life in this [Music] way it's an honor to have everyone here uh we were talking in the car right over this is the first event Robert has done in seven years uh so this is a rare treat uh for me and I think for you guys as well um I was thinking as well it was almost 12 years ago that I started as your research assistant I thought it was longer I I think it's been about 12 years so you were 19 years old I was uh so it's incredible to be able to interview you and you look the same is that a compliment yeah okay um you look the same too actually uh but I I was lucky enough to see this book happen you've been working on it at almost every day of those seven years um which which as a writer I'm just in awe of um I don't think people understand how hard it is to work on a book and the reward is events like this and to you know to to have it out in the world and you sort of delay that gratification for seven very long years why did you choose this topic like why why this book and why right now well it's a bit complicated so bear with me um over the course of several years after the publication of the 48 Laws of Power I received thousands of emails from readers who came to me with their problems and also I was approached by hundreds of people who wanted one-on-one Consulting for their problems as well and after much thinking deep thinking about these experiences and my own experiences with people I knew I came to the following conclusion namely that we humans and I include all of you in that category that's High Praise yeah it is we have a dirty little secret um it's a this secret is nothing to do with sex lives or fantasies or anything as exciting as that rather the secret is that all of us to some degree or another are in pain and it's a pain that we don't discuss or even understand and the source of this pain is other people hell is other people right sry exactly thank you meaning our kind of disappointing superfici icial unsatisfactory relationships with people um this comes in the form of relationships that connections that aren't very deep between people who we consider our friends Etc leading to a lot of loneliness it comes in the form of bad choices for associates and partners leading to all this struggle and messy breakups it comes from letting some toxic narcissist into our lives leading to all kinds of emotional trauma that can take years to get over if we even ever do and it also comes from our inability to persuade to move people to influence them to get them interested in our ideas leading to all kinds of feelings of frustration and anger um and so we are deeply social animals which is the major theme in our book and having dysfunctional social relationships lead to all kinds of problems it leads to depression it leads to recurring obsessive thoughts to the inability to focus on our work to eating disorders to even physical diseases such as heart disease Etc we only see the the surface phenomenon the lonely the depression or the or the physical El we don't see the underlying source and sometimes we're not even aware that we suffer from Lon liness and so about seven years ago while I was writing Mastery I decided what I really wanted to do was to write a book that would help people deal with and overcome this very deep pain that I felt a lot of my readers were expressing to me that they wanted a book like this but I just didn't want to write the usual self stupid self-help book that kind of throws little formulas at you little Pat phrases about you know know how to get along with people all that I wanted I wanted to write a book like I always do that gets inside of you that changes how you think about the world that gets into your skin and really Alters your perspective about people and the world and so with that modest goal in mind I asked myself a question like I always do when I write a book what is the source of this pain of this problem the obvious answer answer is that we are generally very poor observers of people around us we're poor listeners we're we've become so self-absorbed with our smartphones and our technology we're not paying attention and when we do pay attention we project onto people our own emotions our own desires or we're very quick to judge and categorize them that person's good that person's evil that person's likable that person's not likable and so seeing so just a small portion of who people are we naturally misunderstand and misjudge them leading to all kinds of problems to bad decisions to bad strategies and so if that is the source of our problem then the solution is that we all just become better observers and listeners which is what a lot of self-help books that deal with the subject say but I found that very unsatisfying for an answer that's not where I wanted to begin so I thought very deeply and I decided I wanted to ask another question which is are there moments in our lives in which we actually are feel different and we act when which we are actually paying deep attention to people and actually observing them and I said yes there are these moments first of all as children children are Master observers of people they are very attuned to the emotions and moods of their parents their survival depends on it Con artists hate children because children can see through their phoniness their fakeness so we were all great observers when we were children when we travel to a foreign country and everything's exotic and weird and the Customs are weird we're our our senses are heightened and we're paying attention to people they seem so different we want to we want to understand them if we start a new job and we're a bit nervous we're paying attention to all the little power dynamics going around obviously when we fall in love we're extremely attentive to that person we're picking out every little sign and detail that they're admitting about whether they like us who they are what their character is like and finally strangely enough if we read a really good novel or see a great movie We're fascinated by the characters that someone has created and we want to get inside of their their world excuse me so what do all these experiences mean I know this is a very long-winded answer I'm going to get to the I'm going to get to the point in a minute what do all these things have in common what they have in common is that in these moments our desire is engaged we're excited we're curious we feel the need to pay attention to people are survival could even depend on that so when we're excited and curious and we feel the necessity suddenly our eyes we come to life and we're we're watching and observing we're getting inside people and also in these moments there's less of our ego we're getting outside of ourselves and into the world of other people normally we don't feel that way we're actually have low interest in the people around us I hate to say that but it's true we're we're the people that we deal with every day we kind of take them you know they're too familiar to us we don't seem exciting and and we feel that our own thoughts and our own world is more interesting than theirs we have our own needs and our own problems to deal with so I decided what if I could write a book that would bring you back to those positions that you had in those moments if I could make make you feel like a child again if I could make you feel like those moments when you were in love or when you were traveling to a foreign country where you were excited and curious and really wanted to probe Inside the Minds of the people around you that would change everything you wouldn't have to suddenly imagine you were a better listener Observer you would become a better listener and observer so how could I create that kind of Magic by Tak taking you the reader and leading you deep inside the inner worlds of the people around you and making you see what their fantasies are what their lives are like from the inside so that it's my contention that the people you deal with are a lot more interesting and complicated and weird than you imagine you think that you have to travel to some foreign country like Bali or see some interesting movie find people interesting no that that salesperson at rid or whomever they actually have a really deep rich inner life they are fascinating you're just not realizing it so how am I going to be able to do this by immersing you in the study of human nature um and making you thank you and making you become aware of all the signs the hidden language that people reveal that show what's really going on in their lives behind all their fake smiles and the masks that they present and I'll do that by teaching you the language of non-verbal communication how to differentiate a a fake smile from a real smile how to read the language that eyes are how to tell a deep narcissist by their facial expression and believe me you can see a deep narcissist by just looking at their face I'm going to teach you the language of character how to actually see the signs of what a person is at their core through their patterns of behavior and how to see the Deep childhood wounds that they carry in their present life I'm going to teach you the language of opposites when people reveal some overt trait like you know the tough guy or the saint or the person who's so charming and meek I'm going to teach you that actually they are the opposite deep down ins sight that tough guy is riddled with weakness and insecurities I'm going to teach you the language of the dark side the shadow side of every human being those repressed desires and Fantasies that leak out in people that they don't want to reveal but that come out I'm going to show you how to detect the toxic people out there the narcissists the envers the passive aggressives agressiv and finally I'm going to train you to stop judging people and categorizing them that's the last thing what you want to do what you want to do is you want to understand them you want more understanding and less judging in your life and through that process that I'm taking you through I hope you are going to feel the power in this you're going to be able to develop better relationships with your friends and partners because you're getting outside of your own little circle of thoughts and getting into their world you're going to make better choices with Associates and partners you're going to avoid the toxic people you're going to learn how to actually persuade people and you and confirm their self opinion on and on and on and through that power you will feel the necessity for approaching life in this way and as I said I will alter how you perceive people from the inside out and once I get you to go that far you're never going to want to go back to where you were before so I'm sorry that's very long-winded answer that's great but that we can call it here if you want huh we can call it we're good I know it's very ambitious but that I'm not saying I succeeded but that's where the book came from well I'm curious you mentioned this idea of a dark side and one of the things you've said in some of the conversations we've done about the book is you were saying saying and and I don't think it's in the book but it's a great line you said um the the first rule of human nature is that we deny there is such a thing as human nature I'm curious why you think that is and what is it that we're so afraid of facing about ourselves or about other people will I tell you about seven years ago I was in Sydney Australia excuse me on a book tour and I asked the people at the hotel what should I see and they said go to the Sydney zoo and I hate zoos cuz I'm an animal lover and I think zoos are like prisons but but I thought okay I'll go because I I I really want to see a kangaroo and you have to take a boat there right take a fairy there I want to see a wom and I want to see a Tasmanian devil this is my only chance so I went there and I saw the kangaroos but then I came across this enormous pen of chimpanzees and it's like 30 chimpanzees entire Community that's what they call chimpanzees and I was like entranced I stood there for an hour and a half watching them I was so fascinated they were so much like human beings it was uncanny there was the little child with the mother and the mother was eating some food and the look on that child's face was intense Envy wanting it was just like a human child that doesn't like that adults have something that they don't have right there was the alpha male suddenly walking around and all the other chimps were walking behind him it reminded me of seeing Dove at American Apparel who was theing around string around and all the Minions walking behind them they were so human but was what was so interesting to me was to watch the other people who were watching the chimpanzees as well they were so uncomfortable with this they were giggling they it was clear that they were very uncomfortable so one of the things about human nature is that it tells us that we have a great deal of the primate in us we have a lot of the qualities of a chimpanzee and we're terrified of that kind of feeling we like to think of ourselves as so clean and modern and sophisticated and techsavvy and so civilized that that ugly little primate that's so brutal power it frightens us but that's who we are human nature also tells us that we're a deep social animal that a lot of our Behavior comes from the desire to fit in with the group right and that um social scientists have said that often when people do a good deed they want to do a good deed because they want other people to see them doing a good deed you know you see that on social media all the time people posting all the great causes that they support so but we want to see ourselves as as people who are autonomous and and that we control our own thoughts the idea that our social nature determines a lot of our Behavior we don't like that feeling human nature tells us that we're governed by emotions not reason that emotions are the primary thing that determines our behavior and we like to think of ourselves as so rational and above all that but most important human nature teaches us that we all of us all of us are cut from the same cloth that we basically share the same brain the same DNA the same wiring so that if some humans are narcissists are aggressive have Envy it means that all of us have these problems as well there's a narcissist in every single one of you each one of you has aggressive tendencies especially these people especially these people who read my books um so you know but we want to think no I'm not the narcissist I'm never aggressive I don't feel Envy it's the other guy so we are very much primed to denying that we have these aspects of human nature but that denial is actually a part of human nature right right sure and I want to take take all of you and say stop denying and accept us accept that primate in you that primate in you isn't ugly it's actually a beautiful thing the animal part of our nature is actually something very powerful there's force in that and I explain what that force is in the book and you're not necessarily saying to give into your Primal or aggressive ner but you have to accept them if you want to channel them or block them or whatever you want to do with them right aware that emotions govern you now gives you the opportunity to actually become rational I say that no human is born rational we have to train ourselves to become that knowing that animal part of our nature gives us the power to move past it but you first have to accept it you have to get out of your denial yeah and one of the things you talk about in the book is how part of one of the things our human nature does is it sabotages us we say we want to do something within our human nature or we say we want to be a certain way but then our nature sort of sneaks in you work on this book for seven years you're probing human nature The Human Experience you're working on this sort of big ambitious goal what do you learn about your what did you learn about your own nature sort of sitting having to sit alone with yourself for so many long hours I learned that I'm insane basically um uh I you know it was it was a revelation because you know here I am writing about narcissism going very deep into it and trust me I've known a lot of narcissists in my life you might even be out there um and um I was going wow Robert you actually are a narcissist you actually have a lot of these traits and it wasn't it wasn't a pleasant thought and it stayed with me ever since I keep catching myself going you can be quite a narcissist sure then I wrote the chapter on aggression the later chapter and I going damn it man you are a one aggressive son of a you know I'm writing about other people and how to overcome it but I've got these problems so it was kind of an eye open her in that way but I've noticed that people who it's only been out four months but people who've written to me who read the book and they they've had the same reaction they go you know it's been kind of pain it's a painful book to to read no it is it's a mirror about the things we don't want to necessarily see about ourselves so when you have a big goal like I'm I'm curious to to go go into this idea of self- sabotage you know Steven pressfield has this idea of the resistance this sort of force that blocks us from doing what we're wanting to do which just part of our human nature I'm curious if coming out of the other side of this book did you learn anything about that you might share with people who are trying to pursue some and they have some creative work they're doing it's a movie or a piece of art or trying to start a company what did you learn about sort of mastering your these forces in yourself towards accomplishing something excuse me my leg tends to do this sometimes so I have to put my hand down on it um well I wrote about it in Mastery pretty much but there's like four or five steps that you need for any great project and if you follow these four or five steps you will have tremendous success okay I'm not trying to be like Donald Trump and the school or whatever you created these are real these are real so number one you have to really love your idea it has to be something from deep within it has to be personal it has to excite you on a deep level because you're going to going to have to persevere for several years there going to be a lot of critics a lot of mean-spirited people who are going to say you can never do that your parents will say go back and go to law school all these things you have to really love it to put up with all that crap that people are going to throw at you right and I have this theory in Mastery that when you do when you create anything the spirit that you created with the energy the excitement is translated into the product itself so when somebody writes a book just for money you can kind of smell it when you read the book it kind of reeks of someone just trying to get some you know we can sense that sure but when the writer is excited it excites the reader so the love and the desire you put into your project will translate the second thing you have to do is you have to choose something that's just a little bit of a challenge to you so if it's too big of a challenge you will fail and you will blame yourself and you'll never recover if it's not a challenge of enough you'll get bored and you you won't but if it's just above your level so whenever I write a book I choose something that's going to be a challenge it's a little bit above my level this one was a little too much above my level but when something is a little bit more above you it brings out all of your energy you have to try harder you know you have to reach a little more and this will create a self-fulfilling prophecy the other thing is for readers who know like my War Book you have to put yourself on death ground death ground is extremely important death ground means it's from sunu if an army is fighting with its back to the wall it will fight with three times the force because it's either win or die now I don't mean you have to be that extreme but you have to feel that you only have six months to do it you can't wait two years to start your business you have to start it tomorrow you can't take two years to fulfill it you have to give yourself six months you need that kind of energy and that desperation to be able to rise to the occasion the fourth thing would be what is the fourth thing I can't remember well the other thing is I know there's something I'm leaving out um the other Factor though is you have to reassess your what your whole uh approach to Pleasure and Pain normally we think of what pleasure as something immediate and quick we you know we want to go to a movie we want to have a date we want to play a video game we want to watch a great movie to cre create something big and Lasting it's going to take time it's going to cause some it's going to entail some pain some sacrifice and what you need to do is you need to change your whole assessment of what is pleasurable what is pleasurable is actually a accomplishing something that you set out to actually reach your goals to actually take the time to make something that's meaningful to you I can tell you personally that fulfillment that I get from writing a book even though it takes a lot of painstaking and tedious hours of work is a feeling that is so Superior in pleasure to anything else in life it's like I could die tomorrow and it's okay I did what I wanted to do I said what I wanted to do I felt like I helped people and I worked on it and I gave it everything I had that is a much deeper form of pleasure and I want you to reorient your sense of pleasure to these longer term goals and not to these shorter term goals so those are some of the ingredients I know I left out one that's going to B me four very easy steps for everyone to follow I know there's something I left out but anyway no no I agree it's it's writing books is not fun having the books are very like getting it's getting to the other side of that challenge that's the rewarding part so you have to it's uh it's yeah I I and I can you your books take seven times longer than mine so I can only imagine uh what that delay the delaying of the gra gratification is it's it's interesting what what I thought was so remarkable about this book is you would think you know we talked about confronting your dark side but you know you talk if like the primary lesson in this book to me is empathy like that you're you're writing a book on the importance and the power of empathy which maybe people who who either love the 48 Laws of Power or hated the 48 Laws of Power might not have expected to hear in a Robert Green Book well the 48 Laws of Power is not as evil and this book is not as soft and Squishy as people might think but I I I agree with you um I think that um that we're having like a kind of a plague now of where people have lost their sense of empathy they're so quick to judge other people everyone especially in social media feels so morally Superior to other people so there's so much righteousness in the world and there's not enough of empathy and if you don't mind I'm going to read you a quote from my book from my my brother in spirit my favorite philosopher friederick Nicha who had a huge impact on me when I was a boy um and the quote is this follow I don't have my reading glasses on is he who really wants to get to know something new be a person aent a book does well to entertain it with all possible love and to avert his eyes quickly from everything in it he finds inimical repellent false indeed to banish it from mind so that for example he allows the author of a book The longest start and then like one watching a race desires with Beating Heart that he may reach his goal for with this procedure one penetrates to the heart of the new thing to the point that actually moves it and precisely this is what is meant by getting to know it if one has gone this far reason can afterwards make its reservation that overestimation that temporary suspension of the critical pendulum was only an artifice for luring forth the soul of the thing I love that idea of the soul of the thing so empathy is you're trying to get to the soul of the of other people you're not you're you're you're approaching them with a degree of Love even if there's somebody that it seems toxic or repellent in some degree you're opening yourself up wo Ryan sorry your book is too heavy this isn't my fault oh it's the book's fault I see write a smaller book BL people yeah that's one of the laws of human nature um so where was I um so empathy is extremely important quality and I'm trying to say in you didn't have much empathy For Me Knocking this glass no I didn't I didn't at all we're going to talk about that later um and I maintain that one of the things in our nature that's extremely powerful is that our ability to get inside the perspective of others and get inside their world but empathy is a really hard thing to write about because it's not something you can quantify we're such a a a culture that loves data and quantifying things you can't really write a book about empathy in any kind of realistic p practical way because it's a feeling it's a visceral emotion it has to be a feeling and we have this power because as primates for hundreds of thousands of years we lived without the ability of language in our early earliest ancesters and we had to understand each other without being able to speak words we're incredibly attuned to the emotions and moods of people around us and I know in my life I practice empathy on a very deep Lev Lev so when I go I'm out in the world and I'm in a store or something or wherever I'm out on the streets and I see someone I go through this process where I go what is it like to be that person what is it like to be them to feel like them you know what is it like to grow up in that a house I imagine a background for them and I use my imagination to get inside their world and sometimes I get this sort of shudder this feeling like I actually can be them that I actually can feel what it's like to be in their world now obviously I'm probably inaccurate but I get closer to it than if I'm sitting there judging and criticizing them and so I've been doing this for probably my whole life because it's kind of what a writer does a writer has to get into other people's skin so you might say well Robert it's easy for you because you know that's who you are you were born that way but I wasn't born that way it's a skill you develop practicing it endlessly using your imagination to get inside the worlds of other people it's obviously a little bit harder to cross gender and ethnic lines and socioeconomic lines but it's certainly not impossible and I know I've done it on several times occasions so it's an incredibly valuable tool that each and every one of you was born with but that you don't use that lies it's like a tool in your box that just lies there and just gathers rust and so I know it's hard to talk talk about and write about in a practical way but I did my best to sink into it and explain to you how you can develop this extremely critical tool and that sort of ties into a political question I wanted to ask you which is it seems like um and and you talk about this in the book there sort of Rise of the it seems like one of the big lessons in the book is avoiding the mob mentality yeah and so it's like you both have to understand what other people are thinking and acting but also not be not necessarily give into it so I was wondering as you see the sort of Rise of these populist movements all over the country in the world and you see this sort of visceral anger that's entering our politics like what reaction do you have to that and then how how would you suggest that leaders or uh people should think about these things that are happening well it's obviously very scary but I must tell you if you're depressed about the times that we lived in these moments occur all the time history is cyclical I don't believe in progress history is cyclical and this recurs over and over and over again periods of intense tribalism and then they pass the bad day these bad days will end someday soon could be take 10 years or whatever but humans can't live like this for very long we will somehow get over it but it's a very troubling time to live through and if I were a politician now say I was whispering in the ear of a democratic politic ition to sort of get rid of this evil empire that has taken over our country um excuse me for getting political for a moment I would say that the greatest danger is to fall for the divide and conquer strategy one of the oldest military strategies ever is divide and conquer in military terms they call it defeat in detail it means a small army can defeat a large army by putting it into PE Pieces by breaking it up and defeating each of those pieces in detail and it's what dictators and tyrants have used for Centuries by polarizing by dividing the public by splitting it up a small codery a small group of people can govern a huge country right because the numbers are against them if people were really act being able to act out and join together and oppose this authoritarian leader they wouldn't last so they divide and conquer CEOs do that dub Charney was the master of that you know that kind of leader he knows how to divide and conquer with his employees pitting one person against another and he's the one who rules it so Trump is a master polarizer it's the source of his power he's able to divide the enemy up and get them to fight amongst themselves and he can then ride in with his 38% to Victory right mhm that's the source of his ugly evil power and it's the source of all authoritarians divide and conquer so to counter that you have to counter his strength and you have to you know play the numbers game and the reality is in America right now that there is a 1% and there is the 99% and probably most of us here are 99% I know I am right right and the the vast inequalities in wealth in this country are not healthy there was an excellent book that I um encourage you to read called why Nations fail and one of the main reasons in that is incredible discrepancies in wealth which means that there's no money left over for education for infrastructure for large projects so somebody who's fighting this Force has to realize that we have we have the power of numbers right we have the majority of people on our side we're not going to file fall for the divide and conquer strategy that's the number one thing the second thing is a leader today has to understand the Zeitgeist I have a chapter on that I recommend reading chapter 17 about Generations in Zeitgeist and the Zeitgeist that we're going through now is is a very radical shift in spirit I feel that isn't out there yet but that it's going to be what's happening in the next 10 years a new generation is taking over the millennial generation they've been much criticized by people my age I think unjustly so but Millennials come from a generation it's part of a pattern that is much more Community oriented that is much more about the collective about working with the group they've reacted against the previous generations that were all about the individual and the entrepreneur so the politician today has to be very very attuned to the Zeitgeist and what's happening what the future is and so I think those would be the two elements that I think would be a successful Challenger I could go into greater detail but I I don't want no no I think that makes a lot of sense and and maybe I'd add to that and it's the theme in the book is is sort of not reacting emotionally to things that you see like one of the thing not only is Trump very polarizing but he's polarizing because he he sort of sped up the news cycle so everyone's reacting to things all the time instead of doing you know Pericles as one of the heroes of your book He's just sort of like no let's step back and look at this thing from a distance right and and become rational as you're saying we have trouble doing that well he knows how to push people's buttons you know he's a master Entertainer he's tell television is his realm he follows one law of power people blame me for Donald Trump being president because of the 48 Laws of Power and believe me that's my worst nightmare in life but there is one law that he's the master of he's probably the greatest genius that ever lived at this one law can you guess what that is thank you he's an absolute Master at court attention at all cost he sucks up the media attention he's absolutely brilliant at it every day there's some new outrage when somebody in his administration is about you'll see this every single time is about to get hauled into the M investigation and indicted he does some outrageous thing in the Middle East or or with NATO or with Merkel to draw attenion away it's unbelievable but it's because we live in a culture that is so easily manipulated that way through Twitter that we're so into these you know we're so easily manipulated and fall for this kind of thing so yeah you would need a politician who comes in with a larger Vision with a a grand strategy for defeating him and not get distracted by all of these little but also just the the world needs to be like the the audience needs to be less prone to to outrage because that's like I I was reading this interesting thing like one of Trump trump loves to watch cable news but he actually watches with the sound off he just sees like you go to your observing like chy Gardner yeah he just watches what people are doing and he can tell from that whether he's provoking the reactions that he wants which is very Primal and amazing Roger ALS did the same thing that's creepy it is it's very creepy wow I think we have time for maybe one more question then we we'll get into the Q&A por um so you've been writing about power and warfare and seduction and now human nature for 20 plus years yeah you're already starting your next book h and one one of the things I I love about Mastery and I recommend it to all these young people that email me they're like how to and and and I always recommend the book and then the question they come back to and I know you wrote about it a little but I thought it'd be a good place to leave it how how do people find that thing for themselves how do they find the thing to spend 20 years doing and I know you I came to writing early I came to what I wanted to do early you you had quite a few jobs before you became a writer so you you found it through the trial and error method so how do people discover their life's task whether it's writing or whatever it is I'm sorry about my leg it's all right it's like Doctor Strange Love I don't know if you soup um it's got a mind of its own I can't control it um well you know there's several steps the first thing is you have to know yourself deeply you have to go back into your childhood you have to know the great psychologist Abraham maslo called it impulse voices he noticed that babies at a very early age know what they want they like this food they don't like that vegetable they want to eat this they want to go there they want to grab that shiny object babies have a series of likes and dislikes from a very early age this is extremely human and Powerful you had that when you were three or four years old you hated this kind of activity and you loved this other one you don't like math you're drawn to words there's a great book I recommend for everyone called the five frames of intelligence by I think it's Howard Gardner yeah they're basically five forms of intelligence you have one of those forms of intelligence inevitably it could be kinetic which is moving with the body which is a form of intelligence it could be verbal it could be patterns and Mathematics it could be dealing with people what is the form of intelligence that's natural to you what were you inclined to when you were a child what was it that you loved to do I know when I was young I was entranced with words I can remember in the sixth no in the fourth grade the teacher did this activity where she put up the word Carpenter and she asked us to come up with as many words that we could spell out of the word Carpenter like you know ant you know different words you could pull out of an yeah thank you I got one pen yeah I should be a writer too yeah and I thought wow I love that it's insane you mean you could take Words letters and combine them into words what an exciting I was entranced with words from a very early age so you've got to know that and you've got to know what you don't like I remember when I was 23 or 24 I'm sorry I keep talking about it I thought I told you I was a narcissist um uh when I was about 24 I was a journalist living in New York and and I had written this article about traveling through Italy I thought it was a great article and the editor wanted to have lunch with me I thought oh great he going to praise this article he brought me in he started drinking like on his third Scotch he started telling me Robert you're never going to be a writer you need to find some other career in your life you need to you know go to law school just forget it you don't have the tools your writing is all over the place Etc and instead of my reaction of course initially I was a little bit upset but eventually I said no that's not true what is true is that I'm not made for journalism journalism is ugly it's stupid it's not well no I mean I'm sorry I'm sorry I don't mean to generalize for me for me it's not a good fit you know so um I know what I don't like I don't like journalism I don't like working in large corporations I don't like the politics that is involved with 20 or 30 people I need to work for myself so that's another step in the process and you need to go through life when you're younger knowing having a general frame a general direction for me it was writing and explore and have some fun and some Adventures try yourself at this try yourself at that with all within a general parameter and then at some point when you reach 30 which I maintain is our most creative period is in our 30s I mean I'm in my 50s so that doesn't say much but um you know that's when I wrote the 48 Laws of Power which was a book that just spilled out of me in a way I could never do now you'll be ready you'll be ready for something great and something creative because you've accumulated all these skills so um and that was sort of the path that I took I had 80 different jobs in my 20s I worked in construction I worked in a detective agency that was one of the most interesting jobs I've ever had very depressing um You probably learned a little bit about human nature there though I learned a lot about human nature I was a skip Tracer which basically means over the telephone I'm trying to find people who've disappeared who've not paid up their bills Etc and it's all about how you can learn how to lie on the telephone you know you call up and you say I'm a great friend of your son blah blah blah we went to school together you know and yeah you know we did we were interested in we went to the same church I need to get in touch with him again where is he yeah and you have to emote and you have to get you have to act like you're a certain person all to lie and all to get money it was the most soul sucking job I've ever had but it taught me so much about how to deceive and manipulate people and about what you know a lot of went into the 48 loss of power sure you know I worked in Hollywood which was also another soul sucking I'm I love Holly but don't get me wrong um I had all these jobs so I had all of these experiences I had fun and then when somebody came to me with an idea for a book asked me for an idea of a book and I spilled out my guts about the 48 Laws of Power he loved it I was ready to write that book which I wouldn't have been before I don't know if this is very practical advice or not no I think so so it's it's try lots of things figure out what you don't like um figure what you like have a basic frame of reference no and know thyself right yeah really really get in touch with yourself I I talk a lot about Paul Graham sort of the icon for that man who founded why combinator he was into computers and artificial intelligence and hacking he got kind of sick of that he decided to go to art school and he became an artist you know living in a Soho L the cliche of the artist and then finally he heard an ad on tele on radio for Netscape how Netscape was going to be this new frontier and he thought here's the chance for me to combine everything I've learned about computers and Art and Design and so his wandering around trying different jobs it all LED in this serendipitous fashion a lot of it is luck in life I'm incredibly lucky person if I hadn't met yast elfers I'd either I could have been committed suicide I could be homeless I I agree luck is an important aspect of life but when you all will have luck you will meet somebody that Serendipity will happen to you but you don't recognize it you're not prepared you Let It Go by you and you missed your opportunity I recognized my opportunity and I seized it

Channel: Robert Greene

Views: 84,088

Keywords: robert greene, ryan holiday, 48 laws of power, ryan holiday interview, laws of human nature, robert greene interview, daily stoic, ryan holiday stoic, the obstacle is the way, ryan holiday stoicism, ryan holiday daily stoic, marcus aurelius, 48 laws, robert greene books, the 48 laws of power, memento mori, amor fati, self help, human nature, the 50th law, robert greene ryan holiday, self development, robert greene podcast

Id: c1tGC401j78

Length: 47min 47sec (2867 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 20 2024