The Laws of Power and Human Nature I Robert Greene at Chapman University

you can't just say whatever is on your mind you can't just think that being who you are and being natural and being your normal self is going to get you very far you have to be careful in this world you may not like it but it's the reality you have to understand some of these basic principles so that you don't go around making these painful mistakes as Rachel suggested we took some questions from different members in our group and some people that were aware that Robert was going to be here tonight so Rachel asked the first question of Robert hopefully they've they're compelling to you I know they're going to be compelling to me so maybe I'm being selfish but uh all right first question well it's a bit of a long story so if you don't mind I'll I'll try and go into it and be I'll be short as possible but basically um begins here in Los Angeles I'm not going to start from the day I was born so don't worry but um I had my I come from a very middle class background my father was a Salesman he was a Salesman for 40 years worked for the same company his whole life a very gentle man a great salesman and so we were very middle class at a very comfortable life not rich or anything but very comfortable and then I went to University and I studied perhaps the most irrelevant subject that anybody could possibly study Classics ancient Greek and Latin because that was my interest right so I emerged from University and you can imagine I'm pretty sheltered and I'm pretty naive right so I decided to enter the work world and I wanted to be a writer and I also had to make a living So I entered journalism and I kind of bring my naivete my idealism my weird ideas into the work world and I'm rather shocked it was like what's going on here people have all these egos they're politicking they're playing all sorts of office games I had this idea that all that mattered was writing great pieces was the work that you did the hours that you put in no it was about playing up to people's Egos and flattering them and on making other people feel insecure well this isn't what I expected so I decided I don't really like working for other people right I don't like all that stuff so I go and I wander around Europe working in hotels teaching English doing construction work anything where I didn't have a boss because I hated having bosses trying to write novels and I wasn't getting really very far my father got ill so I came back to Los Angeles I decided Well I'm going to try my hand at Hollywood you know still being naive thinking I could make my way in Hollywood and I like to sort of say that environments have a kind of Sharky factor a sharkiness so if journalism on a scale of one to ten I would rate is kind of six on the Sharky scale Hollywood was like eight right it's kind of getting up there it was much worse people had these enormous egos and I saw all kinds of manipulative games Machiavellian Maneuvers by people you would never suspect and I'm not going to name names I work for several directors they would appear to be so liberals so warm so understanding but behind the scenes they were as mean as hell and they knew how to get things done and they could be very damn manipulative okay so I'm not doing very well in Hollywood because I'm making all kinds of mistakes and I don't really like playing that game so then I get invited to Italy for another job my friend from University was involved in the starting of this new school that was going to be a media school and it was going to change revolutionize the world and the new media and computers and all that so sure I'll go there Italy you know who wouldn't turn a job down in Italy and once again it's this is the land of Machiavelli mind you it was the most incredible environment nothing ever got done everybody was just sitting around drinking espresso playing all these kind of backstabbing games etc etc and so one day there was a man there named yoastelfers basically the man who saved my life because a little backstory I'm 37 years old at this point 38 years old I've never held one job for more than 11 months and my parents are starting to get a little bit worried about me they're looking at you know maybe Robert's kind of a loser you know he started off so great and promising in college but he's really not adding up to anything so I'm kind of just you know I'm kind of depressed Etc and I'm in Venice Italy one of the most beautiful cities in the world and this man yoast elfers he's a book producer a Dutchman and he asked me if I had any ideas for a book for a book and suddenly spews out of me all of the stuff I had been through all the power games all the suffering all the mistakes all the jobs I got fired from and I said look power is this Timeless phenomenon people don't wear like Renaissance outfits and they don't carry little daggers under their clothes to stab people but they're still playing with the same kind of political games as they played in the ear of cesari Borgia it's less bloody you don't get killed you get fired instead of getting killed but it's this Timeless game and I told him a few stories of History he got so excited he said all right I'll pay you to write this book and then we'll sell it okay now I'm starting I'm going to write this book and I'm kind of a little bit intimidated because first of all I'm just this mid-level guy who's never had any success in life really I've had a lot of I've had 60 different jobs my wife and I once counted I've had 60 different jobs in my life and who am I to write a book on power you know what arrogance how could I be the person to write a book about power it's ridiculous right so I'm a little bit intimidated and the other thing is I'm not one for reading many self-help books so I sort of checked out the self-help genre and I was a little bit surprised that none of them described the reality of the Work World none of them went into the office Politics the kind of dilbert-like world that people live in when you go into offices none of them talked about it it was this Rosy wonderful world of people cooperating and doing all sorts of wonderful things Dan that wasn't my experience I don't want to write a book like that because that's not real so my idea is I'm going to do all this incredible research I'm going to read about what went on in ancient China and modern America I'm going to cover every ethnicity every group every possible culture and time period I'm going to find these Timeless laws so I write the book and as far as I know this book could be a flop could be a terrible failure because it's a weird book if you've read it it's very weird it's very different I have no idea okay so it's up to the public basically to decide and then the book comes out and I remember I was in Washington DC for the first book tour and you can imagine it's kind of a weird thing for me I'm 39 at that point never had any success and suddenly I'm being interviewed on shows I'm on The O'Reilly Factor blah blah USA Today back in the day when those things meant something it's like it's kind of like a drug trip it was pretty amazing and these people were coming up to me I was at the voice of American Washington this woman comes up to me she goes he's Whispering she was Robert described exactly the world of Washington DC and all the politics right it's just like the world would go through and then I had the experience again and again and again somebody coming from to be from the non-profit World somebody in in television people in entertainment athletes in the NBA were telling me this and then you know I did a big book with 50 Cent my book became very popular with hip-hop artists he said the music industry which on that Sharky scale is about nine and a half he was saying Robert you described exactly the world that I'm having to go through so then I realized that I kind of maybe gotten it right in my own weird way my own kind of fumbling bumbling way I got that book right and so it left me with the confidence to keep on doing the kind of books that I do so that's my long-winded answer to your question it's a great answer anytime you can include 50 Cent In Your Story makes it a great I've got a lot more 50 stories I think I know the answer to this question but it says your book has had a significant impact on readers in various Fields how do you feel about the fact that your work is often used by both those seeking to gain power and those seeking to protect themselves from manipulation well a book kind of reflects the person who wrote it you know and so being somebody who was more the underdog in life I was never the CEO the powerful person in the Executive Suite I was always the one in in you know in the little cubby hole or wherever so the book kind of in some way reflects my Underdog spirit and 95 of the laws have to do with protecting yourself from mistakes quite honestly the kinds of mistakes that I happen to have made personally law number One never outshine the master I can tell you three times I violated the law before I wrote the book right I go into a job and this was in television I'm thinking I'm a researcher I'm going to be the I'm going to get all the stories here I'm going to be the best researcher they ever had and they ended up firing me because I was basically making the boss insecure I was doing the job better than she was doing it so you violate these laws you don't know why you did it you don't know why you're fired you don't know why you you always say less than this or you talk too much and you said stupid things and it got you in trouble what's going on here so most of the laws are about defense but how to protect yourself about how to not do basic stupid things kind of centered on human psychology realizing the number one principle everybody you deal with in the work world has an ego right you don't think when you enter the work world that your boss has an ego he or she is very powerful they obviously are very confident why would they be insecure but the boss is the most insecure person of them all right they don't they don't really know people are always saying how wonderful they are but they don't really they don't feel secure and so a lot of the problems you have or you don't understand that people have egos so the book is basically a guide on how to not make mistakes and I've it's been out now for 25 years over the course of those 25 years I've received about tens of thousands of emails occasionally I hear stories of one of those Sharky type people who've used my book and I feel a little bit sad about my contribution to somebody's pain I don't feel good about that but I can honestly say that 99 of the stories erupt people like myself who I kind of save them for making all kinds of stupid mistakes I also help them kind of underst understand some of the basic principles of how to play the power game you know how to interaction with boldness and be bold when you decide to start a company how to plan all the way to the end so the manipulative laws I have this belief that people who are really really great manipulators and we all know those people we've all had to deal with them they don't really need a book you know it's kind of in their blood and so I think the book mostly resonates with those people who are on the lower end of the totem pole like I was myself fabulous answer number three to all right all right question number four in your book you draw lessons from historical figures to illustrate The Laws of Power are there any modern day examples of leaders or people who embody some of these laws well um I mean yes um obviously but the problem is I read a lot of history you know I spend most of my time with dead people I'm afraid right people who live hundreds of thousands of years ago and over the course of a thousand years you can kind of Judge whether someone was good at what they did because so much time has passed you know over the course of a hundred years yeah okay FDR he was pretty effective president but when you get up to modern times it's really difficult and very confusing first of all you have no perspective second of all you bring your own kind of prejudice and preconceptions to the affair you know so it's very hard to judge in the actual moment so I was brought onto the board of directors of a publicly traded company about 15 years ago yeah about 15 16 years ago American Apparel I don't know if you remember the 2000s and the golden ear of the 2000s in American Peril that go getting things it's 80s shorts and all that I was good friends with the CEO the 48 Laws of Power was his Bible right okay he was a guy with some problems obviously as we know now he brings me onto the board of directors and when you look at him he's very powerful very charismatic he created this incredible Factory in Los Angeles that employed thousands of people it was a it was a thing of beauty to see an actual somebody making a factory to make clothes here in America a great story so at first glance yeah Dove Charney he's using the 48 Laws of Power but then as I got closer and I watched him and I observed him day by day this guy doesn't know what the hell he's doing he's violating all of the laws he doesn't know how to recreate himself he doesn't know law number 46 or 47 was the most important in Victory know when to stop he never knew when to stop and you know he was obviously he had issues with women he had a lot of sexual harassment cases you know and so with some perspective and watching him up close I could see that he had feet of clay to use the expression that he wasn't really what he appeared to be and so you know if I were to look at Elon Musk and go there I bought actually Elon Musk reminds me of Doug Charney in some ways kind of a raging narcissist who's very brilliant who's a great entrepreneur in starting up companies but is actually a terrible manager of people if I saw him up close I'd probably have a similar impression Dove Charney would sleep and shower in the factory because he worked day and night he couldn't delegate which is a terrible quality and a leader to not be able to delegate he had to do everything himself well that's what Elon Musk is doing you know he's sleeping at Twitter he's taking showers an ex excuse me you know so it's hard to have a perspective on some of these I interviewed some people from my book Mastery people who I felt had mastered their subject and I met a man named Paul Graham I don't know if you've heard of him a very very brilliant Tech entrepreneur I would say he uses the laws of power he's a definite Master he's very clever and he's brilliant and so I've met some people who I think would stand the test of time but I don't know because I don't know them up close you have to observe them day by day by day you know there's an expression no man is a hero to his valid to his servant so when people see you every day if you saw me every day you would suddenly see that I don't have the luster that I seem to have people show their weaknesses and their flaws so I think you need fifty a hundred a thousand years before you can really judge that I learned more about history in your books than I did in school so thank you for that in a world that values authenticity and transparency how do you see the relevance of your work on power dynamics and manipulation in today's society well you know when I think of transparency and authenticity it kind of makes me laugh a little bit because that might be the value but I don't really see that actually in the reality because we live in the era of social media where people wear these incredible masks they can be like all aggressive and troll-like and say all kinds of nasty things and then you meet them in person that this kind of shy person who's you know not not at all you know you can play the social justice Warrior you can do all your virtual signaling on the internet etc etc you can play these incredible roles so where is this authenticity you know I see a lot of people playing different roles play they're like actors pretending to be something that they're not on the on social media so you know authenticity is a great thing when you see it in a leader right somebody who's who kind of you know you you feel it in their in their body language that they actually embody what they say it's almost a non-verbal thing to see in a leader and in my book The Art of Seduction I talk about people who have Charisma and we kind of feel their Charisma and a lot of charismatic people have that kind of authenticity to them but they're not very many of them and then when it comes to transparency I don't know I guess you know you're gonna all come away and think Robert Greene is one hell of a cynic okay that's probably true but I don't see a lot of transparency I'm sorry so my experience on the on the board of directors at American peril it was all about playing to Wall Street the quarterly report massaging the numbers making it good like you the last quarter was you had growth etc etc etc but there was no sense of where it was going of what was really behind the numbers people were really good at massaging it and creating the appearance I think transparency within the company could be interesting and is a valuable thing where you make it clear to the people who who work for you that this is what's going on and I'm a big believer when I talk about leadership I think one of the most important things to have is to have a high level a lot of communication so that things that are happening on the street level on the ground level the foot soldiers so to speak are giving you real-time information on what's Happening you know on the in the battlefield to the leader so that you're not isolated that's the kind of transparency I can see is very valuable but a lot of times these values are are what people trumpet but but they're not really out there in the public and they're not the reality and in my book the laws of human nature the book the last book I wrote I kind of talk about the shadow side of human nature the Dark Side of people and I kind of explain how people who kind of try to show particular value we try to show and make a display of it and are really good at it they're incredibly masculine they're incredibly aggressive they're incredibly virtuous they have something to hide they're often hiding the opposite qualities because that's human nature so I'm afraid that's my point of view on that but you can take me apart on that you know well said we'll go with it okay [Music] how do you suggest balancing the pursuit of power for that sense of moral responsibility well it's important to be more to be good and ethical as I said my father was a very decent man and he appreciated the 48 Laws of Power when he came out he passed away a few years afterwards it was like kind of going whoa Robert what did you write here but he was proud of his son so um so you know that's very good I think to have these values I'm not going to knock them at all but as a student of Classics the ancient Greeks had a belief that I have adhered to very strongly and they believed that what was worse than being bad or evil was being stupid ity caused more problems in the world than anybody who was dark or evil because when people are evil you see it and you can confront it and you can fight against it and it raises your anger and you can organize Etc but when people are stupid and incompetent you don't see what's coming they pretend to be something there else and they cause a lot more problems so I'm more of the per of the of the sign where I don't want I was going to write a book actually on the history of stupidity and I ended up because there's a lot of material I'm sorry but I ended up writing a book on warfare which I covered a lot of those subjects but my idea is so to me one of the greatest American presidents that have ever lived and everybody has their personal favorite I'm certainly Abraham Lincoln's up there but my personal favorite is FDR now FDR was I think a very decent man but he was incredibly Machiavellian and the Wonder people who wrote probably the best biography of FDR I was a guy named McGregor burns the title of his book was the fox and the lion which is a phrase from Machiavelli that sometimes you need to be the fox and sometimes you need to be the lion you need to be clever and crafty and you need to Roar and chew people up you'd be able to be both that was FDR he was so clever he knew how to create drama how to create spectacles he had a henchman I forget the guy's name I'm sorry I think it's Harry Hopkins who would do all the dirty work for him so he never appeared to be doing anything dirty he was very very clever I think he had high morals I think he had good values and he did great things he led us through a depression he led us through World War II he created their social security system he was a great president but he was also very he knew the hard game of power I contrast that with somebody like Jimmy Carter now I know we all have our own personal beliefs here but I growing up in the air of Jimmy Carter I thought the guy was rather incompetent I thought he wasn't a very good president he was moral you would never find a more moral guy a more decent human being he was a wonderful person I would have a beer with him I would be his best friend but I don't think he played the power game very effectively and so sometimes the moral people aren't really necessarily though those who know how to play the tough side of the power game and sometimes people who have a little bit of a Machiavellian streak but who have decent values like an FDR I think they could be much more effective in those kind of roles so that's sort of more my icon because honestly this is a tough world out there it's a competitive world people can be difficult you have to have a little bit of iron in your soul you have to be willing to sometimes fire somebody and firing people can be difficult and sometimes you have to be a little tough in who you hire you have to see through the charlatans you have to see through the narcissists Etc have to be a little bit tough in this world I know that's not everything I know you also have to be gentle and empathetic and I agree completely but I think sometimes people who are too good often don't make the best leaders I'm sorry to say that if you're listening to him tonight I mean really listening especially some of the younger audience he will save you years of misery in the corporate environment I work there so everything you're saying there's a lot of Truth to that and I'm sure Rachel saw that when she was at the big big corporate company [Music] when you're coming from a defensive position yeah the other day my daughter Elizabeth and I were going through it and she's doing the Dynamics of middle school and we were seeing how we could apply some of the laws defensively oh that's a little early to start with the laws of power I guess so why not she's a really bright kid okay I don't know about that but all right so we we've had an emphasis on the 48 Laws of Power book and and we do have a fair amount of young adults in the room so I want to shift gears a little bit sure and uh let's have a little bit of an emphasis uh for students and young adults and so the first question is many young readers of the 48 Laws of Power maybe not that young might be navigating their formative years and trying to find their place in the world how can understanding power dynamics benefit them in building strong relationships and making wise decisions during this critical stage in their life well um yeah there are two things I mean I wrote two books that are relevant I mean I wrote a book called Mastery which is really the book for people when you're leaving the university because it's a book that's going that's trying to tell you how to navigate your 20s in the best possible way so I don't really do that in the 48 Laws of Power but in the 48 Laws of Power a lot of things in life a lot of the good things in life are what you don't do the mistakes you don't make the bad relationships you avoid that toxic person that you were going to have be your boyfriend or girlfriend you don't get involved with them if you go through a life avoiding the bad choices you're going to have a pretty good life you're gonna you're not gonna have so much drama your emotions aren't going to be continually pulled this way in that way and making one mistake or having a bad boss that you can't get away from and I've consulted with a lot of people who've had this scenario I can't leave my job I put in 15 years but he's torturing me he's harassing me nothing I ever do is correct blah blah blah blah that kind of situation can ruin you psychologically and mentally so for young people to me it's about not making mistakes right and having a degree of self-control so it's not easy being young in this world today because you're raised on social media and it gives you some some bad I think some bad values some bad ideas and one thing it you have to be aware of is you can't just say whatever is on your mind you can't just think that being who you are and being natural and being you know your your normal self is going to get you very far you have to be careful in this world there's a question coming up about being paranoid I'm not telling you to be paranoid I'm just telling you to be self-aware that the people around you have egos that people are judging you based on the what you say about how you dress about your style about how you look about the friends you associate with you may not like it but it's the reality you have to understand some of these basic principles so that you don't go around making these painful mistakes so law number One never outshine the master the idea is very simple your boss who you work for and wherever you are you're going to have a boss even if it's only a company of two people that person has an ego has insecurities and if you try too hard to impress him or her if you show off too much you that probably are going to inadvertently trigger their insecurities and they're gonna they're gonna do weird things to you they're not going to say you made me feel insecure you you know you you made me think that maybe you're after my job they're instead they're going to fire you or they're going to put you in a bad position they're never going to tell you what exactly the reality is and even a person as powerful as 50 Cent you like my 50 Cent citations he told me that um the person who saved his life basically because and I know the story very well because I wrote a book with him was Eminem he was just basically a guy doing mixtapes on the streets of South Side Queens Eminem heard one of his mixtapes and goes this guy's amazing I'm going to sign into a record deal 50 realized that Eminem was his master and I better not make I better like make this guy feel good about himself I'm never going to like he's always going to be number one to me I'm always going to respect him I'm never going to inadvertently make him feel insecure even somebody as powerful as 50 Cent who at that moment was on the cusp of greatness he understood that you have to be careful with people that they have egos so I'm saying look at the book and look at don't look at all the chapters don't re-crush your enemy totally please okay don't read poses a friend and work as a spy skip over those chapters I beg you but read the ones that kind of appeal that show you wow always say listen necessary yeah man I'm kind of I talk too much or guard your reputation at all cause yeah I've done some things I've posted some things on Instagram that are going to make me look horrible when I go for a job interview my reputation is going to suffer maybe I can't be so stupid like that so that's my answer to your questions it's a great start for our young adults by the way as a consultant I had a client earlier this year they hire me to consult and help I outshone the master job lasted one month I went home I said Sam I don't think I should have gave him everything it was too much for him so it applies your whole life thank you for that okay of all the books that you've written so far if someone has should they read them in a particular order does anyone ever ask you that yeah they asked me that well right now I have seven books and I really wouldn't advise reading all seven of them because it'll give you a headache but um I would maybe it depends on your situation so if you're in your 20s and you don't know really where you want to go in life you're a little bit confused about your career about your future I would highly recommend reading Mastery a lot of young people have really really benefited by that book because it teaches you how to find what I call your life's tasks what you were meant to accomplish in life how to go through an apprenticeship phase how to find a good Mentor in life how to be um and how to become creative and a master in your field if you're dealing with a lot of office politics and you're in one of those Sharky environments the 48 Laws of Power if you're a Salesman or you're in marketing or you're having relationship problems with with finding the right man or woman in your life The Art of Seduction by all means start with that book um the 33 strategies of war is a good introduction to the idea of strategy itself and when I was talking before about stupidity versus morality strategy a good strategist is are the kind of people who get things done they're the people who understand the laws of power they're the people who are competent and so in 33 Strategies I talk about I try to apply lessons from Warfare quite honestly to daily life and although it you know my wife who doesn't like anything about Warfare she said it was the book that helped her the most because she works in Hollywood and she's a film director and being a film director is like Warfare it's like a battle you know it's like bullets flying everywhere okay he said it really helped her so it depends but the 50 Cent book is basically about if you're dealing with a lot of fear in life I try to say um you know as I said I did I do a lot of books about dead people and finally I got a chance with 50 Cent to actually write a book about somebody on the live and my idea was what is the source of 50 cents power you know like I did with Napoleon I decided 50 is fearless and it's not a fearlessness where he's aggressive and he's going out there and taking bullets Etc it's the fact that he doesn't really um in any kind of situation he's not afraid to make decisions he's not afraid to do the tough things he's not afraid to to offend people sometimes he's not afraid of battle he's not afraid of death he's not afraid of public in his audience and it gives him tremendous power so if you're dealing with a lot of fear finally I will get to the laws of human nature which is my last book and it's kind of my favorite I'm sorry to say that it's the longest one it's 560 pages um but it's the accumulation of everything I have learned in 25 years of Consulting of dealing with all kinds of people and I'm getting at the root of what makes people so difficult and what makes your life so difficult and I'm trying to explain that you need to be aware of human psychology and human nature and so it's kind of like the ultimate I would almost begin there if you could stand 560 pages so it just depends on where you are in life that one book is bigger than my whole stack of books over there sorry I'm honored to be in the same room as you I I often say I've paid the dummy tax so you don't have to in business that's why I'm a coach and David taught me that but you know I had a question that came to mind here from one of the young adults is young readers more be more maybe more idealistic and optimistic about the world how can the books teachings on Power and human behavior be balanced with the importance of empathy compassion cooperation in their relationships well I agree with 100 and um you know I know I come across as being cynical but the reason I come across as being cynical is I'm essentially the exact opposite I'm a very idealistic and optimistic person and it's what allows me to write the books that I do and it's what allows me to get up in the morning so when I say that people who have a certain exterior like aggressive or masculine they're hiding the opposite my cynicism is hiding a core of actually being quite the opposite and so I believe empathy is an incredibly important quality in life and in the laws of human nature I have a chapter on empathy and I go into it deeply and it's a subject that I'm dealing with in my new book that I'm currently writing right now so I don't want people to think that life is just about playing games and manipulation and being good at Power and bullshitting your way through life I know I've been giving you that impression and I'm very sorry if I have because there is a whole other side to life and my new book that I'm writing five five years yes five years ago almost to a day I came this close to dying I had a stroke I was driving my car in Los Angeles and basically my wife saved my life so I know you know how it can it can go it can you can leave you at any moment so I'm writing a book kind of based on that and based upon how insane it is to actually be alive and how wonderful it is to be alive and how I don't want young people to have this idea and it's hard now with global warming and so much incompetence and so many Boomers there were just absolutely the worst politicians I understand why you could be very bitter about things believe me I understand so it's hard but the book is basically about writing a book on what I call the sublime and it's basically how insane wonderful it is to actually be alive because believe me I know it was very nearly taken away from me so I'm not saying this to make you cry or or get you to tear up or anything it's just that there is another side and I think it's very important for people to have ideals and to be optimistic and to enter the Work World going damn it I think I could be a great writer or I'm going to be an artist or I'm going to be an entrepreneur and to have excitement and energy because if you don't have energy and excitement you're never going to get anywhere right because life is really tough there's so many obstacles in your path there's so many people out there who don't want to help you and your energy and your enthusiasm what's going to carry you over the hill your love for what you do is what's going to carry you over the hill and so you need to have that in the beginning so please don't get the impression that it's all about these power games or anything like that you know it's it's every time I write a book um I have to get myself really excited about the subject I have to feel it I have to make it come alive because if I don't feel it the reader won't feel it and so you need to be that about your work and about the businesses that you were starting up so I don't know if I'm answering your question or not I kind of forgot I kind of went off you answered it and then some and that was my final question I just wanted to thank you because I feel like I'm a smarter person a more educated person a well a more well-informed person and I did better in business because of your work of art so I want to thank you for that and your continued work and and all the things that you're doing and Rachel I don't know if that was your last question you got more but okay well um can you open this phone um it's a little bit pricey I'm afraid to say but this is the 25th anniversary of the 48 Laws of Power and we've come out with a 25th anniversary version of it it's leather bound it's got this cool logo and if you flip the sides of the pages you see a picture of me and you see a picture of Machiavelli One Direction Machiavelli the other picture me um when it comes out when in November and it's a little bit Blasphemous because it looks like the Bible I'm sorry to say but uh but that man I mentioned in in Italy who's a great designer who designed these books he designed this and he's really brilliant so as I said it's a hundred dollars but if you if you want a collector's item because it's a limited edition we're not going to be printing as we normally do so that's better they asking any questions [Music] [Music] well um it's kind of a weird story because um he's you know he uh read the 48 Laws of Power early on and it helped melody was a huge fan and he wanted to meet me and you know I'm this kind of nerdy white guy from the middle class in L.A I was a little bit intimid I was a little bit worried about it you know 50 Cent and I fly to New York to meet him and it's in the back room of the steakhouse it's like something from The Godfather and and he's got his whole like Posse his whole team of people that he works with and I'm just by myself and I sit next to him and all I could do was stare at his bling he had a bracelet a diamond bracelet that I don't know must have been worth hundreds of thousands of dollars it was insane it was so beautiful I was just staring at that and staring at his hundred thousand dollar watch and his son Marquis was there who also had incredible blame anyway he was the nicest sweetest gentlest man he was so smart and intelligent and sweet I didn't you know I didn't I was totally caught off guard and he he was expecting this Gruff older Henry Kissinger guy he was a little bit worried about meeting me and here he meets me and he sees that I'm not at all like that so we're both caught off guard and we had this kind of nice Rapport he was going through a lot of beefs at the time one with game and I just written my War book we were discussing strategy he was really good at strategy and I go damn it Robert you spend your life with dead people you know and you like I like hip-hop and I love the story of somebody who comes from the worst circumstances in America and who Rises to his power what a lesson how incredible if I could write how 50 did it together collaborating to bring two Opposite Worlds together the middle-aged nerdy guy from LA and the crack dealer from the street of South Side Queens what a story so I got excited and he loved the idea and we worked together and for six months I hung out with him I was attached to his side I went with him to the VMA Awards in Vegas got to see him and Kanye duke it out I went to parties with Floyd Mayweather Jr I went to his house his Mike Tyson house in Connecticut I saw him in action it was like a drug trip it was amazing I had a great time and we wrote the book together and we're still friends we want to collaborate on uh a television version of the 48 Laws of Power we've been working on that so I still talk to him every few months or so he's he's amazing I really I really admire him and he's got he's he's so much not what you think he is he's a really smart guy let's do one more question then we'll break this thing up anybody else out there has a question for Robert [Music] Define what Charisma charisma intelligence okay wow easy questions well in in the artist deduction I discuss Charisma and I go into it in quite great depths and I talk about people like Marilyn Monroe and Malcolm X and John F Kennedy people I thought had tremendous charisma and what I decided is charisma is like an inner light that somebody has they feel such a charge such conviction they have deep emotional resonance they're so excited about something and that inner light animates their gestures it animates their speaking it animates they're all their nonverbal communication it makes them come to life in their nonverbal communication it's very powerful right so when Malcolm X spoke he was one of the most charismatic leaders he had been spent so many years in prison he had suffered so greatly he felt so deeply about the fate of African Americans in the United States that when he spoke it's just his whole body was alive and when we see people like that it catches us up we want to be around them 50 Cent had incredible Charisma and what 50 cents Charisma came from was the fact that he was shot nine times at this range bullets passing through his face he came even closer to death than I did you know he suffered a lot more and when you come that close to death nothing else matters in life and that kind of fearless quality that I mentioned it just lit him up and when you're around charismatic people it's usually a confidence it makes you feel confident it gives you energy and he had that effect on me so that's kind of how I Define charisma an intelligence you know my old age that intelligence is more of an emotional quality than an intellectual quality because I don't know Democratic method was I know that I don't know was what Socrates taught the ability to say I don't have all the answers I'm still learning a degree of humility that's an emotional quality a flexibility that I think make can make somebody intelligent it allows you to learn from your mistakes that allows to to learn from your failures there are people out there who have got degrees from MIT and Harvard they could wipe me off the planet they're so much smarter they've got incredible IQs but they lack that emotional quality they face one failure in life their their startup fails and they just melt like toilet paper or something they just they're gone right they have no they have no toughness inside intelligence is an emotional quality it's the ability to admit you're wrong it's ability to learn from mistakes that's the ability to be flexible in life and say what worked yesterday won't necessarily work tomorrow so that's my quick way of answering a very complicated question Let's uh give them round Applause

Channel: Robert Greene

Views: 124,751

Keywords: robert greene, laws of human nature, self help, robert greene laws of human nature, the 48 laws of power, 48 laws of power, the laws of human nature, human nature, robert greene books, youtube shorts, human behavior, shorts videos, the laws of human nature robert greene, laws of human nature robert greene, laws of power, self development, chapman university

Id: zOksAgrwdZE

Length: 48min 59sec (2939 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 15 2023