Latest / INSPIRE STORY / #0101_ STORY INSPIRE: How to Seduce Anyone, Build Confidence & Become Powerful — The Psychology of Influence

Transcript

#0101_ STORY INSPIRE: How to Seduce Anyone, Build Confidence & Become Powerful — The Psychology of Influence · INSPIRE STORY

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Some of the greatest seducers were not good looking at all.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: What are the qualities of a great seducer?
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I'm revealing stuff I shouldn't be revealing.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Robert Greene is one of the best-selling authors in history.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: An internationally renowned expert on power strategies.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Been referenced in songs by Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Drake.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Written six international bestsellers that have become legendary.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Why did you write a book about seduction?
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Seduction is a high form of power. People will do
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: what you want without ever even realizing it. Seduction is
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: a mating ritual. You can't just swipe and get it.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: But because of all the dating apps, if you are
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: able to understand the language of seduction, you're going to
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: have so much more power and success than anybody else.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: One thing about words is people can lie. But body language,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: it doesn't lie. You master that language, you can start
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: deciphering all people are giving you. It's about psychology and
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: it's about how you carry yourself. If you feel confident,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: it will naturally radiate through your gestures.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: But what is real confidence and how does one build it?
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: The confidence comes from.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: We've talked about the topic of powers. But in 2018,
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: you had a stroke. In that moment, it sounds like
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: your power had been taken from you.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: The left side of my body is paralyzed and that
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: was not easy. I've got to find a strategy to
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: deal with all this... Please understand that the ability that
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: you have now to run, to walk, to type, it
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: can be taken away from you. It's miserable. Please don't
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: take it for granted.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Before we get into this episode, just wanted to say
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: thank you first and foremost for being part of this community.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: The team here at the Diver CEO is now almost
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: 30 people. And that's literally because you watch and you
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: subscribe and you leave comments and you like the videos
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: that this show has been able to grow. And it's
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: the greatest honor of my life to sit here with
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: these incredible people and just selfishly ask them questions that
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: I'm pondering over or worrying about in my life. But
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: this is just the beginning for the Diary of a CEO.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: We've got big, big plans to scale this show to
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: every corner of the world and to diversify our guest selection.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: And that's enabled by you, by a simple thing that
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: you guys do, which is to watch. So if there's
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: one thing you could do to help this show and
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: to help us continue to do what we do, it's
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: just to hit the subscribe button. If you like this show,
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: if you like what we do here, if you watch
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: these episodes, please just hit that subscribe button. It means
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: the world. Let's get on with it. What do I
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: need to know about you and your earliest years to
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: understand the life that you went on, that journey you
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: went on and the person you came to be?
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Well, I grew up here in Los Angeles, not far
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: from where we are. in a neighborhood called Baldwin Hills,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: and then we moved to another neighborhood. I had a
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: very nice childhood, very middle-class family. My father was a
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: salesman his whole life, worked for the same company for
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: 40 years, just sold chemical supplies. And, you know, my
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: parents kind of left me alone a lot. I was basically,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: my sister almost kind of raised me in a way. And,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: you know, I had a very nice childhood, kind of
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: left alone. Sort of an introvert. Books kind of shaped me.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: I became an avid reader in early age. Knew I
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: wanted to be a writer. Got heavily into drugs, I'm afraid,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: in high school because that was the time where I
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: went to school and in college. Had some great experiences.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: I look very fondly back even on my drug experiences,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: even though they got kind of depressing after a while.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: But it kind of shaped me in some ways. And,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: you know, that was me growing up, you know, and
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: I had an attitude or a lens in which I
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: looked at people from a distance, like I was always
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: sort of obsessed with, people wore masks the way I
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: looked at it, even when I looked at my parents
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: and their friends and I said, what is really going
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: on behind the masks that they wear and all the
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: social niceties going on? What is behind, what is really
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: the human animal like? And so, These are kind of
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: the themes that were a big part of me growing up.
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  Speaker 2: From what I read, you had a lot of different
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: jobs in a lot of different industries up until the
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  Speaker 2: point when you wrote the first of your many books
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: called The 48 Laws of Power back in 1998. And
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: I was looking at all of these different jobs you'd had,
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: and they all seemed to be completely different from one another.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: So then trying to understand how you arrived at a
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: moment where you then wrote a book on the topic
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: and subject matter of power. Having not been a psychology
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: graduate or seemingly worked in any industry related to human
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: psychology seemed to be really peculiar to me.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. And also, I never really had a lot of
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: power up until that point. So it wasn't like I
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: knew everything about being a leader or anything. A lot
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: of things that happen in life are kind of by
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: coincidence or serendipitous. You don't necessarily plan on it. which
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: is sort of, when you look back on it, you
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: can see a kind of an odd plan going on,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: like a destiny or fate. But in the moment, I
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: didn't feel that. I had all of these different jobs,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: as you mentioned, some of them completely unrelated. You know,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: I worked in construction. I had a construction job. I
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: worked in the detective agency. I was a tour guide.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: I helped write an encyclopedia. I taught English in Spain,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: you know, on and on and on and on and on.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: But I was searching for I wanted to be a
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: writer and a writer needs experiences. I just was hungry
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: for weird experiences. You know, I never really stuck at
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: any one job. And by the time you're 37, 38,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: you know, my parents are starting to worry about me.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: I'm starting to worry about me. I'm getting a little
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: bit depressed, even have moments where suicidal thoughts are floating
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: in my brain. Like I'm very ambitious. I know I
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: could do something well, but it's never come together. And
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: so here's the serendipity part. I'm in Italy for a job,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: one of my 80 different jobs. And I meet a
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: man who's a book packager there on this particular job
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: we're on. And he's a Dutchman. I'm not going to
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: imitate him. But he asked me if I had any
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: ideas for a book. And suddenly, all of the painful
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: experiences in my life working in Hollywood, all the assholes
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  Speaker 1: I've worked for, all these weird politicking, all the manipulative
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  Speaker 1: games that all the crap that I had seen, it
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: just came like almost vomiting out of me. And I said,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: you know, here we are 20, well, this was 1990s,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: 20th century back then. Here we are in the late
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: 20th century. And people don't dress like they did in
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: the days of Machiavelli, right? They don't wear wigs and stuff,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: but it's the same damn thing. It's the same bloody
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: battles going on, the same manipulations, the same kind of,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: you know, people don't reveal who they are. And It's
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: a timeless game of power, just the same as Louis
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: XIV or Cesare Borgia or the people, the CEOs in
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: the late 20th century. It's this timeless thing. And as
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: I'm telling him this, his eyes are like, wow, this
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: could really be a book. And, you know, he said, look, Robert,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: I'll pay you to live while you write half the
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: book and then we'll sell it. And as I told
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: you before, I was desperate. It was my get rich
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: or die trying moment. I went back to Los Angeles.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: I borrowed money from my parents because I was that poor.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: And I wrote a treatment and he loved it. And
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: the rest is history. That's sort of my long-winded answer
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: to your question.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: That's so interesting. It's crazy how in life things can
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: just take such a turn out of nothing. And you
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: never know what that thing is going to be. And
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, you say the rest is history there. Give
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: me an idea. of the success of that book, The
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: 48 Laws of Power, because I mean, I've seen it
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: everywhere for as long as I've been looking at books.
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  Speaker 2: So what's the, give me some, quantify the global success
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: of that book.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Quantify? Yeah. Well, here in the US, it's sold quite
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: a bit over 2 million copies, which is great. The
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: weird thing is it's selling now more than it ever
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: has sold before. In other words, the percentage of books
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: that we're selling here in 2023 is is greater than
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: any period before. So it's accelerating, which is insane, you know,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: and even my English publisher is having the same, is
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: telling me the same stuff. So it's kind of accumulated.
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  Speaker 1: It started off a little bit slowly. I mean, we
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  Speaker 1: got press, but it became this kind of cult thing.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: I've had very little publicity in mainstream media, which was
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: big back then. It's not big anymore, thank God. But
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: it was word of mouth. It's like, have you heard
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: about this book? It's kind of dark, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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  Speaker 1: It got on a few television shows. There was this show,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: a reality show with boxers, I think it was called
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: The Contender, in which the finalist held up a copy
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: of the book and said, this book helped me get
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: to where I am now. And it sold like crazy.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: It got into the hip hop stream. Jay-Z was the
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: first person I ever saw quoting the book in print
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: and in Playboy interview. And then, you know, 50 Cent
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: and all that and Drake and all these people, that
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  Speaker 1: really kind of set it into the stratosphere. So it's
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: slowly become a bigger and bigger thing. And I had
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: no idea, you know, I thought it was a weird
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: book and it could be successful, but I had no
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: idea the journey I was about to begin. It's weird.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: That journey of writing this book, have your feelings towards
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: the book evolved or changed over time? Because Society moves on,
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: you move on as an individual, as a human, you
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: learn new things, you mature. And then the book is
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: kind of held in time.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Not really. My philosophy in life is never look back,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: regret nothing. You know, it's there, I did it. It
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: came in a particular moment in my life and in
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: the zeitgeist, and things have changed a little bit. But
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: it was a very serious effort to try and get
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: at something timeless. Now, yes, there's a dark side to it,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: and maybe I've moved on from that. And honestly, when
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: I wrote my fourth book, Mastery, I was a little
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: bit concerned that young people were thinking that the whole
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: game of life is about politics manipulation. So I wrote
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: a book to kind of counter that. But I think
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: the book is true and it's held up. I think
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: if I look at business, what's going on in the
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: business world, I kind of got, I think I hit
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: it on the nail about what goes on and the
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: dynamics and the power game. You know, I wrote a
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: book on human nature and the idea is we were
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: formed hundreds of thousands of years ago in particular circumstances.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Our brains are wired a certain way. Yes, we're very sophisticated. Yes,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: we have the internet. Yes, I'm here being interviewed by
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: you on a podcast. It's pretty insane. But we haven't
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: fundamentally changed. The same raw emotions of envy, of aggression, of,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: you know, worrying about our status, about having to disguise
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: ourselves and appear like we're saintly and loving that we
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: don't have a shadow, which we all have. None of
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: that has changed. So, Yeah, I wouldn't write that book
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: now because I'm at a different place in life. And
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I understand that. But I'm not ashamed of it in
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: any way. I stand by it and I think I
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: hit at something real.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: What is, in your definition, what is power? You know,
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: I was really compelled when you're talking about the evolutionary
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: roots of power. But like, at its essence, what is power?
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: It's not what you think it is. It's not, you know,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin or presidents or Biden or all these political
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: figures and these big games, power is a feeling. It's
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: an essence. It's an emotion. It's a human need and desire.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: And really what power is, is a sense of understanding
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: yourself and being able to control yourself. So the way
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: I look at it, I like to look at it
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: not through the lens of great power politics, but as
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: an average everyday human being here in the United States
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: or in England. The feeling that you have with your children,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: with your spouse, with your colleagues, the people who work
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: for you, the sense that you have no control, that
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: you can't influence them with your ideas, that you can't
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: get them to maybe soften some of their ugly behavior
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: if they have that, that you can't get them interested
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: in helping you with a project or whatever, is the
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: most miserable feeling a human being can have. Malcolm X
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: had a quote that I love, which is, absolute power corrupts,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: but absolute powerless corrupts even more. I'm butchering it, but
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: that was the gist of it. The feeling of powerlessness
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: is actually more corrupting than the feeling of having a
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: lot of power. It turns people into being passive aggressive,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: into playing all kinds of weird games, negative games to
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: get power. You want to feel that you have a
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: degree of control over events in your life, over people,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: over your future. And that to me is what the
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: power is, right? And so some of that involves these
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: games that I mentioned in there. And some of it
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: goes beyond the 48 laws of power, which I've tried
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: to indicate in my other books. But it's the sense
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: that I'm not helpless in this world. I remember when
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: I first entered the work world as a very naive
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: college graduate with all these ideals and things I'd read,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: because I studied literature and languages. I'm going, man, this
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: is weird. People are playing all these kind of games.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: I'm in over my head. I made mistakes. I got
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: fired for being too brash for outshine the master. It
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: was painful, right? And so Learning, you don't have to
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: abuse the loss of power. I don't advocate crushing your
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: enemy totally. I hope I don't have any enemies ever
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: that I need to crush ever. You just need to
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: know these things so that when you enter the work world,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: you're not naive. You're not stupid. You don't make the
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: same kind of mistakes that I made. You spare yourself
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: the pain. You understand the most fundamental thing about human nature.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: People have egos. Even your boss has an ego. You
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: think he or she doesn't because they're powerful. They're even
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: more insecure than other people. You need to be aware
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: of these things so that you don't inadvertently make them
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: feel insecure and suffer the consequences. So that's, I don't know,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: that's sort of my idea of power that I was
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: trying to describe there.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: The way you describe it is more of a sort
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: of intrinsic force perception of yourself. When people think of power,
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: they think of having control over others. or their influence
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: over others, but you've kind of made it more of
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: a internal force. Yeah.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Well, if you can't control yourself, then you're in a
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: lot of trouble in this world, right? Because when you
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: just naturally are yourself doing things, you're going to offend people.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: You learn early on we're social animals. I have to
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: tailor my behavior. You know, if you go on babbling
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: about all about how you feel and think, et cetera,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: and you just say, what's the first thing on your mind,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: you're going to end up having a very, very short career.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: You're going to be saying things that are going to
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: offend people. You're going to be making a fool of yourself.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: You're going to be saying things that you end up regretting, right?
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: You have no self-control. And if you see somebody who
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: has no self-control, it makes you look like you're not powerful.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: If you can't control yourself, how can you control anything
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: in your environment? How can you be a leader, right?
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: So you have to learn that. certain things about your nature,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: about who you are, and not just be anybody. You
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: have to kind of tailor your appearances as well. Because
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: for good or for bad, I'm a believer in looking
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: at the human animal without shame and embarrassment, just as
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: we are, right? And appearances matter. It's the animal part
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: of our nature. We judge people by how they appear.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: how they dress, their tone of voice, their body language, etc., etc.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: It would be, in an ideal world, we wouldn't judge
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: people by appearances. We would just judge them by what's
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: inside of them. Yes, I agree with that, but that
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: we're not ideal. We're not descended from angels. We're descended
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: from primates. So you have to understand that appearances matter,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: and this is part of the game. And so You
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: have to control your appearances a little bit. You have
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: to tailor it. You have to be a bit of
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: actor in this world, on and on and on. You know,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: these are things that people don't like to admit about ourselves.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: We like to think that we're much more idealistic, that
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: these things really don't matter in the end. And I
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: wish it were that way, but it's not. And so
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: I'm a bit more of a realist when it comes
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: to things like that. But yeah.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: As you were talking about this need to keep up
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: appearances to some degree in order to survive and to
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: fit into the tribes that we form in our lives.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: It made me think about how many guests I've had
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: on this podcast who work in maybe the entertainment industry
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: or other industries, you know, they're famous, whatever. And they
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: report that keeping up appearances had a really detrimental impact
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: on their happiness and their fulfillment in life. Because in
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: some cases they, you know, it meant that they were
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: doing a job as a when inside they didn't feel that.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: And maybe the contrast of reality and perception caused them
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: a lot of harm, or they've built a life around
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: things that they're not interested in. I think you touched
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: on some of that in mastery. That's the question I have,
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: which is keeping up appearances and the impact that that
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: has on your happiness. Are you wearing a mask and happiness?
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: What's the relationship?
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: I talk about it in the 48 Laws of Power,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: where You have to play this game in life. To me,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: it's a form of wisdom, which is, it's a wisdom
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: that used to exist like in the 18th century. I
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: read a book that had a big impact on me
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: many years ago called The Fall of Public Man by
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Richard Sennett, in which he described like cafe life in
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: London in the 18th century or France. And he was
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: saying back then when you entered the public arena or
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: your cafe, You knew you were an actor. You left
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: the house, you put on the mask, and you had fun.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: You knew it was like fun. It was play. When
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: you're a child, you like playing games. You like putting
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: on costumes. You like playing your parents or some character
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: you saw on TV. It's part of human nature. We
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: like to play these games. We're role players. We're actors.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: And he was saying in the 18th century, that was
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: just a given in life, that when you entered the
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: public realm, you knew you were an actor. And then
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: when you went home to your wife, your family, or
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: your husband or wherever. You drop the mask. You breathe
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: a deep sigh of relief. go, now I can be
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: who I am, right? And it wasn't a problem. It
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: didn't create neuroses. It didn't create this like, what's wrong
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: with me? I don't know who I am anymore. So
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: people now, the problem now is we don't have distance
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: from that social realm. And so... We think that if
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: we're acting, that's who we are. But it's not. It's
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: just that's part of being a social animal, is playing
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: a role. You know, I did a book with 50 Cent,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: and he kind of exemplifies a lot of that. He
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: plays a role in life. You know, when I met him,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: I thought, uh-oh. I was kind of intimidated. I was
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: a little bit afraid. You know, the thug. This is
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: a guy, when I met him, he was, you know,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: just a few years away from being shot and all
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: this stuff. And I met him and he was the
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: nicest person in the world. He was almost kind of sweet.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: He'd hate it if I said that word, but he
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: was sweet, right? He was very down to earth. He
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: was very calm, et cetera. He's playing a role when
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: he goes out and he plays that person. He knows it.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: He knows it's like, he doesn't take it seriously. You know,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: he had this big beef with Kanye West back when
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: I was doing the book with him. And then I
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: met the two of them in Vegas when they were
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: there for the awards. They were like the best of friends.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: They were joking. It was just a game they were playing, right?
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: So what I tell people is, we all are actors.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Humans are born actors. We learn at a very early
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: age to play that kind of game. It's kind of
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: fun sometimes to do that, you know? Enjoy that part
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: of life, but don't get it confused with who you
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: are in your essence. That's sort of the dance you're
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: playing between those two things. I understand what you're saying,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: and a lot of it has to do, as you said,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: related to mastery, where people end up in a career
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: that doesn't suit them. And I think I understand what
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: you're getting at. When I look at presenters or people
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: in the news and they have to smile and be
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: so cheerful, I go, man, what a drag. I'd hate
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: to be like that. That is so false. Don't you
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: want to take a shower after you're being so cheerful
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: and chatty and all that shit? You know, yeah, I
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: understand that. But if that's the profession you chose and
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: you love it, then maybe you don't feel that way.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: I couldn't do it personally. But, you know, I think
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: it's okay to think of yourself as an actor. I
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: don't think there's anything wrong about that.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: The second very curious law in your book that I
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: uncovered was law number two. I'm talking about the 48
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: laws of power here where it says never trust friends
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: too much. Learn how to use enemies.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: Do you trust your friends?
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, everything in the book is context. So when
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: you take things out of context, it's a little harder
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: to understand. And what I'm trying to say in that,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about in the work world, when you're out
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: in the social realm. And one of the worst things
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: that people do is you have a job, and I've
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: been guilty of it myself even after I wrote the
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: damn book. You're out in the work world and you
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: need to hire somebody. you need to find a colleague,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: you need to find a partner or an employee, your
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: mind naturally gravitates towards a friend, right? Because they know you,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: you trust them, you have a relationship, you know, and
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: you feel comfortable with them. And it's a terrible mistake.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: So many of the worst things that have happened in
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: history are because of that very problem. Because friends, there's
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: all these emotions involved between people, right? And those emotions
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: confuse the issue. So what I'm talking about in that
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: law is when you need to get results, you need
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: to think when you have a job or something, you
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: have to think in practical terms, not in terms of emotions,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: not in terms of friendship, et cetera, et cetera. So
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: you want to keep your work world separate. It's not
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: everything about life is having to be friends and having
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: nice things and everybody like you. Sometimes what matters is
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: getting results done. And sometimes the best person to work
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: with isn't your friend because they don't have all this
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: other stuff that we're talking about. In fact, a very
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: powerful move is if there's an enemy out there, somebody
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: who you never got along with. If you approach them
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: and say, let's bury the hatchet. I have a job
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: and I'd really like you to work with me. I
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: know you're really smart. The turnaround of emotions is a
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: very powerful thing where they're going, wow, yeah, sure, that's great.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: I never expected that. And they're highly motivated to now
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: prove that they're worthy of your change of mind. So
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: it's not about not trusting your friends in the realm
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: of friendship in personal relationships. It's about being aware that
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: the work world is different from the realm of personal relationships.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: The other point I found really curious was point three
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: about concealing your intentions. And I find this curious because
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: I've never really known where to land on this when
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: people ask me for advice on the subject matter about
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: how much of your hand should you show, whether it's
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: in business or life or whatever. There's a group of
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: people that think you should always just keep everything you're
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: doing and your intentions totally secret because then people might
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: copy you or they'll attack you or whatever. And then
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: there's another school of thought that says, When you're building something,
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: when you're doing something, when you have a mission, you
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: need to share it with as many people as possible
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: because that will galvanize people to come along with the
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: journey with you and they'll want to support you and
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: help you. So when I read point number three about
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: concealing your intentions, I wanted to ask you about what
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: you think about that. Which side do you land on?
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Well, everything depends on circumstances. So the laws are never
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: meant to apply to every situation, right? So when it's
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: with your own team, and you're trying to inspire them,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: and you're trying to give them a vision, and you're
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: trying to get them on your side, yeah, you share
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: your vision with them. You share, this is where the
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: group is going. This is where I want things to
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: be in three years. Let's all get together. We're trying
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: to do something very positive for the world. Okay, here's
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: my plan, right? But then there are circumstances where revealing
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: everything about what you're planning to do is actually very counterproductive, right?
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: So the business world... in the 21st century, is extremely competitive.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: It's getting worse and worse by the day. As more
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: and more people now are entering the power arena, and
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: I think it's a great thing, where it used to
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: be just a realm where only older white men had power,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: and now the doors have opened to everyone. The level
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: of competition is that much more intense, particularly now even
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: with the internet. You have rivals out there. You have
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: competitors out there. Even as we talk right now, maybe
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: you're not thinking about them, but they are. They're going
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: to steal your ideas. They're looking to take your business
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: away from you, et cetera, et cetera. Just be aware
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: of that phenomenon. And just always saying what you're planning
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: on doing isn't always the wisest thing to do. Sometimes
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: if you're in a tricky situation, putting people off the
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: scent and giving them a red herring and saying, I'm
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: planning to do this one. In fact, you're planning to
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: do that. It's a very powerful technique. It's deception, but
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: all's fair in love and war and business, I'm afraid. So,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: you know, there are moments where you don't want to
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: lay all your cards out on the table, right? You
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: want to either create a little bit of mystery so
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: that people don't know what you're going to do next
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: and they're wondering what you're going to do next. And
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: as they're wondering what you're going to do next, they're
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: kind of on their heels a little bit. What's the
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: next thing that that Stephen is planning. I don't really know. Wow.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: You know, it's a very powerful approach. There are other
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: times and other experiences and moments in life where you
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: do want to reveal what you're planning to do because
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: there's a purpose behind it. I'm just saying, be aware.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Don't just act in this world. Be aware. Have a
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: strategic mindset. Sometimes concealing is what you need to do.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Sometimes not concealing is what you need to do.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: It's funny, when we have this conversation about power and
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: the darkness and the shadows that people have in them,
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of people listening, and probably it
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: seems that way because I'm the one asking the questions,
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: is if I'm questioning society that I'm not part of,
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: they'll think they don't, they might think they don't play
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: these games, right? They might, you know, so that's the
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: question I have is like, have you ever encountered anybody?
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Do you believe there's anybody out there that doesn't play
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: power games, manipulation, have shadows, have darkness in them?
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: No, I don't. So in my war book, I read
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: the biography of Mahatma Gandhi, one of the saintliest figures
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: in history, right? And I realized that Mahatma Gandhi was
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: actually a brilliant strategist. Now, I'm not saying his use
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: of nonviolence and civil disobedience didn't come from the heart.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: He didn't mean it. He didn't actually believe in the
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: peaceful method. He did. He was very sincere. but he
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: was very strategic about it. And he planned a campaign,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: several campaigns like the Salt March in the 20s, where
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: he knew, for instance, that the English public was very
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: liberal minded. They had this ideal of themselves as being
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: this very, they weren't colonialists, they weren't imperialists, they were
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: doing the best for the world. And he deliberately had
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: these marches where he knew that they would be reading
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: in their newspaper and seeing photographs of Indian people being
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: beaten up by Englishmen and their Indian officers on the
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: streets of wherever. It would have a terrible impact on
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: the public, he thought, in terms of strategy. Okay, so
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: there's Gandhi. Then there's Martin Luther King, who's somebody I
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: wrote about a lot in the laws of human nature.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Another great icon whom I admire, who actually was inspired
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: by Gandhi and had campaigns of civil disobedience. And there
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: was a campaign, I believe it was in Montgomery or Selma,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: I can't remember which one, where he was getting fed up.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: They weren't getting very far. The civil rights movement, they're
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: reaching a stalemate and he was getting very frustrated. And Somebody,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: an advisor came to him and said, look, we're going
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: to have this massive march and I can get a
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: lot of elementary school and junior high school students to
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: be on this march because they believe in you and
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: they're very fervent. And I think it would be great.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: And his advisors go, God, you can't do that. You
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: can't have put 13-year-olds at risk. And Martin Luther King
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: thought about it very deeply. He said, no, we're going
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: to go ahead and do it. Because, damn it, I
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: want the American public sitting in there all fat and
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: watching their televisions to see these brutal, you know, Bull Connor,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: the police chief then. I want to see these children
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: being water hosed and beaten, and it's going to have
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: an incredible impact. He was being strategic, and his advisors
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: were shocked by it, but it ended up proving to
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: be one of the most pivotal, important moments in the
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: civil rights movement. So here you have Gandhi and Martin
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: Luther King. And Martin Luther King was a flawed individual,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: as we know, right? He had a private life that
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: wasn't exactly the same as his public life. I don't
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: judge him for that because he was a brilliant man
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: and I admire him. I love him deeply. Reading his
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: biography made me even admire him even more, seeing that
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: he had a human flawed side to him. But these
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: are icons that we set up and they reveal what
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about in human nature. You can't escape it. Yeah,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: maybe there was some saint born in some century that
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: I've never heard of that maybe... got pretty far away
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: from everything I've talked about. But, you know, we all
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: have this idea like, in the laws of human nature,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: I write about irrationality, envy, aggression, or narcissism. Narcissism is
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: a good one. Oh, they're a narcissist. I'm not a narcissist.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: I'm not self-absorbed, but they are. Yeah, yeah. I don't
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: have any of those traits. Well, damn it. Every single
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: human being has self-absorption traits. We can't help it. we
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: naturally think of ourselves first. Yes, there are people who
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: are much deeper narcissists in life, no doubt, and there
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: are toxic narcissists, but we all have a touch of it.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: I want you to be a little more humble in
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: this world and not be so arrogant and not think
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: that you are somehow exempt from having a dark side,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: that somehow you were born with a halo over your head,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: that you were born different, you don't have human nature,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: that you're a saintly person, you're much better, Get rid
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: of your moral superiority because I find that deeply offensive.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: We are all cut from the same cloth. We all
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: have the same flaws. And when you look at yourself,
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: and when I wrote The Laws of Human Nature, I'm going,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: damn it, Robert. You have a dark side. You're a narcissist.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: You know, I had to come to terms with my irrationality,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: my grandiosity, my aggressive instincts. But it's the only way
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: to change yourself is to be aware that you have
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: these issues. i have the narcissistic tendencies now i see
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: it all right now when they pop up pop up
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: i can control it better i can say damn robert
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: you're being too self-absorbed to think more about the other
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: person but if you go around in life thinking i
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: don't have any of these problems i'm not a narcissist
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: you're never going to have the awareness to stop the
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: fact that you are actually one.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: Being a narcissist is that objectively a good or a
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: bad thing because when you when you was obviously i
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: know people are having it's a bad thing is it
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: Narcissists cause a lot of harm, and that's very true.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: But in the context of the human animal and why
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: the human animal develops certain attributes and qualities to maybe
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: further its survival or its ability to stay within the
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: social pact, is it just a consequence of being a
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: human to have these shadow traits and to be coercive
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: and manipulative? Is it good or is it bad? Or
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: is it neither?
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: It's neither.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: Neither.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Because it just is. Right. So with narcissism, for instance,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: there's a reason why we're narcissists. So I explain in
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: the book, it's not my own theory, it comes from
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: some great psychologists like Kohut, the origins of narcissism, right?
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: So when your parents have to kind of not abandon you,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: but have to not give you as much attention as
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: you used to have, and you're three years old or
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: four years old, You don't remember it, but it was
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: very painful. Like, oh, they don't love me as much.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: What's wrong with me, right? You know, I have to
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: get that love and attention, not just naturally, I have
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: to do things to earn it, et cetera, et cetera.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: And what happens with a lot of people in that
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: situation when you're a child is, I have to develop
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: my own, I have to be my own mother or father.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: I have to find a way of loving myself. When
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: something bad happens, I have to retreat inward and go,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: I'm really not so bad at all. I'm actually a
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: decent person. I like my own tastes. I like the
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: clothes that I wear, et cetera, et cetera. You're developing
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: the shreds of self-esteem, right? And people who never developed
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: that because they were abused or they were abandoned or
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: even if they were suffocated, never developed that self-esteem. And
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: so what happens in life is If you don't develop
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: that and you get older and people attack you and
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: yell at you or criticize you, you can't retreat inward
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: to that self-esteem, that love you have. The only thing
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: you know is to get angry, to call it narcissistic rage,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: and to yell at people and say, God, get away
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: from me. You're evil, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, right?
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: And then the other problems evolve where the only way
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: I don't have that inner self-esteem, the only way I
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: can get people to love me is by being incredibly
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: dramatic and overly dramatic, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: and always making myself the center of attention. That's what
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: creates a deep narcissist. That's their only way of getting
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: the love that they need. So children, we all need
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: that degree of self-esteem, that anchor in our life. So narcissism,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: self-love is not a bad thing. But what happens is
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: as you get older, if you go too deep into it,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: it becomes a problem. And so what I say is
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: you need to take that self-love and that has a
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: good function and turn it outward as much as you
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: can and turn into empathy and love and consideration for
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: other people more. That's your task as you get older
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: in life. That's how I approach all of these flaws.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: You can't run away from them. You can't run away
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: from your shadow, your dark side. You can make it
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: work for you. You can make it positive and productive
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: and healthy and You can become a healthy narcissist, which
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: is a name that I use in the book. You
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: can use your dark side for positive purposes. Let's say
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: you have a lot of anger inside. And I had
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: a lot of anger when I was younger. I was
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: a very angry young man, right? Channel that into some
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: kind of cause. I have a lot of causes that
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: I believe in very deeply. And when I was younger,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: I was like that. Channel that energy into something productive
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: and helpful and put it into something that goes to
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: something that helps society. That's using your dark side for
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: positive purposes. Because the dark side of human nature has
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: a lot of creativity, has a lot of energy. An
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: artist has to have a dark side. You use your
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: dark side because all those dark emotions, all the people
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: that shat on you in your life, they inspire you.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: They create your best work. Don't run away from your shadow.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Don't run away from your narcissism. Use it in a
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: healthy way.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: And acknowledge it. I think that's the hardest thing for
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: people to do, right? So few people, I think, including myself,
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: like have really fully understood what their shadow and their
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: dark side is. I mean, doing this podcast has really
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: helped me because I learn things from other people vicariously.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: And then I look at reflect on myself or keeping
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: a diary has helped me to understand that. But that
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: first step in someone having the self-awareness to understand their
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: dark side I mean, there's even a lot of people
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: who confronting their dark side would be so, it feels
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: like it would be so impactful on their self-esteem in
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: a negative sense that they spend their life putting up
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: a wall to never go there. I mean, there's some
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: people who you even mentioned something to them and they
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: would triggers, triggers them.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: You know, we can all think of those people. Um,
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: we can all think of those people that the really
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: interesting thing there is the role that your early years
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: play on your relationship with power. Because when I think
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: about some of the nicest, I don't know if this
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: is just a general stereotype or a narrow observation I've had,
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: but some of the nicest people I've met in terms of,
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: you know, being the opposite of whatever and toxic nonsense.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: is seem to have really comfortable loving secure safe early
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: experiences and then is that is that broadly true in
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: your view.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: It's a generalization but there is is some truth to
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: it i mean There's things called attachment theories where psychologists
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: have looked at the kind of attachment you had to
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: your parents and they categorize it in four different ways.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: And there's the ideal, the best one, where you have
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: this incredibly loving mother and father. And then they're giving
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: you unconditional love, but they know also how to give
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: you your independence, etc. It's not terribly common. I don't
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: know what the percentage would be. Then there's levels and levels,
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: and as you get to the fourth level, it's like
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: the abandonment one, or abusive and abandonment, where you basically
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: leave the child alone. You don't give it any attention,
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: any love, and it's very crippling, right? But the thing is,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: children are much stronger than we think they are. They're
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: very resilient. They're very resourceful. They're going to find their love.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: They're going to find a way to compensate for it
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: in some way And with something very interesting, when I
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: was doing seduction in some of my other books, and
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: I look at people who were like very charismatic, like
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: a Malcolm X, like a Marilyn Monroe, I could go
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: on and on and on. These are people that came
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: from very, very bad families, right? They had no love.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Marilyn Monroe was an orphan, essentially, raised in an orphanage.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: Her whole life was, I got to get people to
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: love me. I need love so desperately. And her way
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: of doing it was to literally make love with the camera.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Nobody ever done that before. You could sense that she
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: needed it. And it was so powerful that you sensed it,
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: that she drew it to herself. Great charismatic individuals. John F.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Kennedy is someone who had a lot of charisma. He
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: came from a very bad childhood, right? His father was
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: very mean to him, etc., Some children, in the worst circumstances,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: it ends up bringing the best out of them. They
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: have to find their way in life. And some people
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: who have everything don't go very far because they don't
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: know how to find things for themselves. So life is weird.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: Some people who have great childhoods do well. Some people
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: who have great childhoods are spoiled and never learn how
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: to get things on their own. And some people who
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: have the shittiest childhoods learn how to be resourceful and
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: get what they need on their own.
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: You mentioned seduction there, the art of seduction. Why did
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: you write a book about the topic of seduction?
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: Seduction is a high form of power because you make
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: people feel pleasure. You make them feel excited or interested
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: in you. And then their resistance to your ideas slowly
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: lowers and you have the ability to influence them and
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: to move them in the direction that you want. If
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: you yell at them, like we were talking about your child,
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: and you tell them, do this, do that, they resent it,
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: and for good reason. But if you're subtler, if you're
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: more seductive in your approach, if you're more indirect, people
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: will do what you want or go in your direction
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: without ever even realizing it. So it was a sub-theme
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: in the 48 Laws of Power. And so I was
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: sort of interested in the psychology of that and why
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: some people are good at it and some people are
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: awkward about it. So when I finished the 48 Laws
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: of Power, I thought this would be a natural segue,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: the next book.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: What are the qualities of a great seducer?
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Well, I like to distinguish between cold seducers and warm seducers.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: A cold seducer is something you don't want to be.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: That's the typical image that we might have of a
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: male seducer, but even of a female seducer, like the
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: great courtesans, etc., where they're just after money. or the
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: men are just after sex. That's not my ideal. My
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: ideal is kind of a back and forth quality, where
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: it's not domination. It's sort of like a game that
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: you're playing. It's like a mating game. It's like a
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: courtship ritual, where both people are kind of seducing each other.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: And so what makes for a great seducer is very simple.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: I When you meet somebody for the first time or
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: you're on a date or whatever it is, you're not
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: having that internal monologue going, does she like me or
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: does he like me? Am I dressed well? Am I
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: saying stupid things? What can I do to impress them? No.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: You turn it off and you're outer directed and you're
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: listening to them and you're entering their spirit and you're
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: hearing them say things that give you idea of what
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: they're missing in life, of what they want. of what
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: their needs are, of what makes them an individual, you're
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: absorbing it, you're entering into their spirit, and then you
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: can reflect it back to them. You can give them gifts.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: You can take them to places that show that you're
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: attentive to them. Because if you look at how we
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: are in our day-to-day life, normally people never pay us attention.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: They're always so self-absorbed. They're never thinking about us. I mean,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: the times where you get the sense that that people
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: are actually interested in who you are as an individual,
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: is pretty rare. If you give that feeling to someone,
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: it's incredibly powerful because we all want to be validated.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: We all want to be recognized. So the seducer is
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: not someone who's all worried about him or herself and thinking.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: They're involved in the other person. They're absorbed like a
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: sponge inside their psychology, inside their world.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: A lot of this is very applicable to romance and dating,
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. It feels for whatever reason, not
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: necessarily something I've read much about in your work, but
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: it feels like dating and romance and relationships have become
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: much more complicated in the modern world. It's become much
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: more difficult to seduce somebody. What are the attributes of
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: someone then that is not good at seducing?
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Anti-seducer is... has many qualities. I have a whole chapter
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: on the anti-seducer. I try and define it. There are
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: several of them. I don't have them all memorized, but
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: one quality that's very anti-seductive is preaching and moralizing. It's
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: like telling people, oh, that's wrong what you just said,
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: or your politics are ugly, or you're not really good
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: at this or something or other. Having a moral superiority,
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: a sense of sanctimonious, sanctimony, in a realm which should
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: be about pleasure, which should be that kind of equality,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: that kind of back and forth dynamic, where you're asserting
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: your moral superiority is deeply, deeply anti-seductive, the element of
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: preaching to people. Not being generous. And I mean, not
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: just with money. Money is important. But not being generous
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: with your spirit, right? You want to be open. You
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: want to give as much as you can to the
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: other person of yourself, of your time, of your money,
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: of your energy, et cetera. So being all kind of
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: crimped and I don't want to give, I don't want
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: to spend money. I want to take you to the
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: cheap place to eat. I don't want to give you
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: much time is very, very anti-seductive.
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: When you were talking a second ago about the person
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: who goes on the date and they're thinking about themselves
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: and what they, you know, what their hair looks like
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: or whatever else, that spoke to an insecure person. Is
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: insecurity a seductive quality or is it a anti-seductive quality?
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: It is anti-seductive. Now there is a part of weakness
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: that is seductive. So I would say vulnerability is seductive,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: but insecurity is anti-seductive. And there's a big difference.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: Why does vulnerability draw people to you?
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: Because the sense, so if I can define seduction in
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: simple terms, Most of the time, we are closed to
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: the influence of other people, particularly now. We have these
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: walls up because life is harsh. People are coming at
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: us with their advertisements, with their pleas, with their wanting money,
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: with this and the other. And we've all learned to
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: be very defensive, right? And seduction is an openness, is
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: the opposite of that. And you felt it when you
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: were a child towards your parents. You felt very vulnerable
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: and open. And there was an element of your parents
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: and how they treated you that was very much like
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: a seduction, right? So seduction is about being open to
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: the other person to the extent where you can even
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: fall in love. You can fall under their spell. And
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: the sense of letting go of your ego, letting go
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: of your defensiveness, and letting another person enter your world
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: is being seduced. It requires vulnerability. If you meet, the
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: typical scenario is of a man. who's not vulnerable at all.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: He's so powerful and in control and everything, has no vulnerabilities.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: It's frightening, you know, for a woman. It could be
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: very frightening. Like this, he's so strong, he's so invulnerable
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: that there's something wrong about it. You know, maybe he's
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: a serial killer. Maybe he's got skeletons in his closet.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: Something isn't right about that. What seduces you about a puppy,
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: about a child, about an animal, is their vulnerability. It
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: makes you want to hug them. It makes you want
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: to help them, right? The sense which if you came
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: upon a tiger that's there and they don't need that, well,
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: that's not seductive. I mean, on your screen it is.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: If they're there in your living room, that's not seductive.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: But that puppy is, right? Vulnerability, the sense that somebody
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: needs protection or help, brings out qualities in us that
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: we don't normally have that I think allow for seduction.
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: So that is being vulnerable. That is, I can be
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: influenced by that other person. I am open to their spirit, right?
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: That's being vulnerable. The word vulnerable, I hate to sound
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: like a professor, so excuse me, seduction, comes from the
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: root of it means a wound, vulnus. So you have
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: a wound inside of you and you need healing. And
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: the other person naturally wants to help you, right? But
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: being insecure means I'm so self-absorbed, I'm so worried about
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: myself that I can't get out of it. And we've
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: all had that experience. When you meet somebody and you
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: can sense, you can smell their insecurity in them. I'm
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: not judging them because we all have insecurities. It makes
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: you feel insecure. It makes you feel a little bit awkward.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: Whereas if you meet someone who's not like that, who's confident,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: et cetera, it brings out that quality in you. So
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: if you're on a date and there's someone who's, you
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: smell that kind of insecurity, it makes you awkward and insecure.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: It creates a kind of a problem. So that would
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: be the difference between the two.
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: There's going to be a lot of people listening to
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: this that are single and ready to mingle. What advice
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: would you give them in terms of being great at dating?
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: You've talked about the importance of vulnerability there and how
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: that kind of forms connection between humans in a very
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: innate way. What else is great dating advice for the
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: single people out there?
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: Well, the thing is, okay, there are several things. So
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: first of all, we live in a culture where people
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: think You shouldn't have to put effort into something like
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: love and romance. You should just be who you are, man.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: I don't have to put on a role. I don't
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: have to play a game. That's manipulative, blah, blah, blah, blah. No,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Love and romance is something that is almost biological.
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: If you look at animals and mating rituals, they're incredibly elaborate.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: Seduction is a mating ritual. And so the worst thing
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: you can feel is... that this person isn't putting any
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: effort into something. Let's just say it's from the woman's
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: point of view. This man, he just shows up wearing
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: jeans and his usual sloppy outfit. He doesn't comb his hair,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. He takes me to
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: the pub for dinner on our first date. You know,
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: he's not thinking about me. He's not willing to put
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: any effort into it. If he's not willing to put
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: any effort into it, what's it going to be like
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: three months down the line? When he completely takes me
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: for granted, which is what happens in a relationship, am
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: I not important enough, right? Whereas the ability to have
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: a little bit of effort, to think of it as
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: kind of theater and drama and that there's nothing evil
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: about it. So I'm going to dress nicely. I'm going to,
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: I just have to be fancy. Just that I'm going to,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm going to put some effort into how
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: I look. I'm going to take her to a place that,
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: I'm not talking about candlelights and roses and that kind
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: of crap. You can be creative. It can be somewhere
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: that's scuzzy, that's on the wrong side of town, but
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: it's different and it's appealing and you put some thought
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: into it. There's a reason you're taking her there, right?
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: I have a friend who went on a date and
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: she came back from the date and was complaining because
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: the person that she went on that first date with
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: was using a took her to a spot where he
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: had an available valid discount code, like two to one.
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: Talk about anti-seduction. There you go.
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: Why is that anti-seductive? In that case, one might say
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: that male is being, you know, economically savvy, financially savvy.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: If you're not able to let go of your kind
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: of tightness when it comes to a woman... Something's wrong
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: with you, man. Just let go. Spend some extra money.
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: Spend the extra 10 quid that you might need to
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: spend on taking her to someplace different. But it signals
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: a kind of cheapness. And it's not about money. It's
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: about a cheapness in your spirit, right? She's not worth,
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: you know, letting go. Okay, maybe you don't have that much,
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: but my God, you have enough. It's not going to
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: like make, if you're that poor, then, you know, okay, maybe.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: but probably not. You can afford it. Show that it
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: means something to you. Seduction is a language. It's not
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: a language of words. It's a language of gestures that
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: we're paying attention to. We're paying attention to people's body language.
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: We're paying attention to their actions, to the things that
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: they never say. So when you signal that discounts are
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: so important to you that even on the first date,
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: you have to have a discount. You're signaling that it's not,
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: there's something tight about you in your nature and it's
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: not very pleasant. I, from doing this podcast and speaking
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: about topics like love and sex and dating and dating apps,
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: even one of the, um, comments I saw quite frequently
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: was from young men who are struggling to seduce a woman.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: Or vice versa. Specifically young men that, you know, and
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: then I read some stats. I think Scott Galloway came
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: on the podcast and talked about how, I'm going to
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: butcher these numbers, but a staggering amount of men haven't
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: had sex in the, young men haven't had sex in
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: the last 12 months. And then when I looked at
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: the comments section, specifically on YouTube, I saw, I kind
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: of saw that energy reflected where it looked like young
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: men in particular were struggling to, seduce a mate a
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: partner in the modern world is is that real in
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: your view is there is there something that has changed
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: in society has that always been the case um is
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: there anything we can do if we're a young man
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: that's struggling in the modern world because of the internet
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: and computers and this and dating apps and.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: Well a lot of it is i'm afraid to say
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: is internet porn where you get the idea that you know,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: sex is something that should be very easy and quick
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: and that women should have, look, have that kind of
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: body and physique, et cetera, et cetera. And that becomes
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: your norm, et cetera. That can be very damaging. But
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: the idea that things must come easy and quick is
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: very prevalent. And to win over someone like, say you're
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: a man and it's a woman who might be reluctant
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: to have sex for good reason or reluctant to have
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: a relationship, requires some effort it requires some thinking you
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: can't just hack your way you can't just swipe and
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: get it you can you can have your internet sex
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: but you're not going to get that in real life
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: it doesn't work that way it takes time it takes
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: patience you know and you're going to have to work
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: and you're going to be rejected being with people is
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: a skill being a social animal although there's a part
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: that comes naturally if you spend all of your time
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: here you're losing that skill of how to respond to
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: people's body language. You know, half of the thing is
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: you're sitting in a bar opposite, let's say it's a woman,
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: and how she crosses her legs, how she sips her drink,
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: how she looks at you, how she touches her hair.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: She's signaling things. It's a language. It's a beautiful language, right?
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: You have to learn it, and you're not going to
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: learn it here because you can't. You have to be
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: in person. It has to be skin to skin. You
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: have to get a feel for what other people are
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: thinking and feeling. And we're actually really, really good at that.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: That's what makes us human. It's called mirror neurons. I
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: can sense what's going on in your mind. I can
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: read your body language. You have to get out in
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: the world and you have to put yourself physically out
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: there and try and try and try and have rejection.
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: And I know it sounds awful, but it is a
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: skill in a way. where you're learning how to understand
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: and deal with people and understand who they are and
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: get inside their spirit, it takes time and effort and patience.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: So for young men, you have to realize that, right?
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: If you think everything has to be easy and quick,
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: it's never going to work for you. And I talk
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: about the actor, the Hollywood actor Errol Flynn, who is perhaps...
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: numerically the greatest male seducer ever because estimated that he
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: had seduced close to 3,000 women and he died when
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: he was 50. And if I did the math one day,
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: how can that possibly be? And I tried to research
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: what was his secret and it was hard to find out. Finally,
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: I found a book written by a woman whom he
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: had seduced, another actress. And she said he was so
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: relaxed and so comfortable it was like being it was
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: like an animal type thing and then when I would
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: sit with him it was almost as if I had
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: drunk two martinis just sitting next to him his comfort
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: and his security and his confidence his relaxed attitude it
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: just made me drunk so feeling relaxed Feeling confident and
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: not defensive and comfortable with yourself is a very powerful
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: seductive quality. I mean, there are many of them, but
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: that's one that I would point out.
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: Have you ever figured out what builds confidence? Earlier on,
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: you were talking about how children need to experience things firsthand.
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: You can't just tell them. You can't just tell someone,
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: for example, to be confident. Preaching doesn't seem to work.
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: What is it in your view that does build that true?
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: You also can't fake confidence.
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: No.
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: I remember, we talked about rejection a second ago. I
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: was rejected by pretty much every girl that I was
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: pursuing between the ages of 16 and I'd say 22.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Do you know what it was? I was faking confidence.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: It all changed when I actually had a sense of
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: security in myself. But in the period where I was
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: faking confidence, I was pretending I was confident, it was
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: like they just could read past it. That's almost how
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: I look back on the situation. So I came to
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: learn that you can't fake confidence. You can't pretend to
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: be it because there's so many sort of micro expressions
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: that end up reading more like insecurity than confidence. But
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: what is real confidence and how does one build it
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: in your view?
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: Well, you've kind of answered your own question there in
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: a way. So, you know, fake confidence is like bravado, right?
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: And you're putting on an act and particularly women who've
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: had to deal with this for, you know, millennia, they
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: can smell it, they can sense it. They don't have to,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: it's not in your words, it's the body language, et cetera,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: et cetera. Real confidence comes from actual actions, from your
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: actual things you've accomplished, right? So, you know, when you're 22, 21,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: it's hard to have that confidence because what is it
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: based on? You know, maybe it's based on Okay, maybe
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: you're really good looking if you happen to have that
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: good fortune and you can feel confident about that and
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: you don't have to try so hard. All right, maybe
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: that might work. Or maybe you're really good at sports.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: Or maybe you're a really good dancer. Or you're a
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: really great singer. But it's based on something real. You
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: have a skill. You have something that separates you. You
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: have something that you can do that you can accomplish.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: Because when you're 21, it's hard to have those skills.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: You know, I look back on myself when I was
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: that age, I had nothing. No wonder I got rejected,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: you know? So it comes from what you do in life, okay?
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: The finest sense of confidence is actually creating things and
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: having success and meeting goals and achieving things and having
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: a record of that, you know? And maybe what goes
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: with that is having some money, but it's not necessarily
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: because you don't have to have a lot of money.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: And you don't have to be good looking to seduce.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: That's a myth that I try to explode in the
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: art of seduction. Some of the greatest seducers, male and female,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: were not good looking at all. It's about psychology and
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: it's about how you carry yourself. But the confidence comes
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: from actually what you can do, not how you feel
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: or what you say. Well, it is how you feel,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: but the feeling is based on things that you actually
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: can do, skills that you have that separate you, that
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: make you feel really confident, you know, so body language.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I find it fascinating that, you know, there's quotes
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: and things that say 80% of our communication is nonverbal,
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. Um, body language is so interesting
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: to me because again, I think that's one of the
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: things that it's just impossibly hard to fake. I was reading,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: you know, a couple of books on, there was a
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: phase when I was, I dunno, 20, probably just after
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: being rejected all the time when I was maybe 22,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: where I started reading books from pickup artists. And they
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: would obsess on the topic of body language. And one
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: of the things they'd say is, and I was explaining
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: this to my girlfriend a couple of weeks ago, that
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: when a man is lower confidence and when he's desperate,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: he does this thing called pecking in a nightclub where
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: he'll like lean in and like shout in your ear.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: And when he's higher confidence, he kind of leans out
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: and he'll wait for you to lean in. Small things
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: like that, subtleties like that, that intuitively we're reading and
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: understanding and communicating and etc., but someone that doesn't have
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: the confidence probably isn't even aware that they do. So
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: when I reflect on my rejection phase, I think, gosh,
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: my body language must have been exuding desperation and low
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: status and low value, low self-esteem. What's your thoughts on
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: body language?
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: Well, in my last book, Human Nature, I wrote a
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: whole chapter on it. I quoted the figure 95%, but
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: who knows what it really is. The thing it is,
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: that we evolved for hundreds of thousands of years before
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: language existed, right? And our earliest ancestors depended on the
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: group for their survival and getting along. And their powers
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: came from observing other people and their body language. You
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: could read it. So it's a skill that's wired into us,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: wired into our brains. It's a very unique skill that
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: we humans have. It's just that you don't learn that.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: When you're a child, when you're two years old, you
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: have it because your life depends on it. You have
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: to see if your mother is loving you or your
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: father is kind to you. Because if not, you could
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: be abandoned. Your life depends on it. You're great at
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: reading that. And children are incredibly adept at picking up
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: body language. So if someone is fake, if someone's an imposter,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: they hate being around children because children see through you
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: like radar, right? Because they're so attuned to it. You
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: had that skill when you were very young, but you
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: lost it. Because you became so oriented with words and
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: you became so self-absorbed that you're not paying attention. But
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: it's extremely important, right? So the whole body is involved
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: in it. So you've got to first stop thinking about
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: people's words so much. Because the one thing about words, unfortunately,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: is people can lie. They can say whatever they want.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: They can say, I love your screenplay. That was fantastic.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: You were great in that movie. I thought you were great,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. They can say anything to please,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: to flatter, to cajole you. But body language, man, it
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: doesn't lie, right? So I talk in that book about
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: the eyes and the fake smile. The fake smile is
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: something you see every single day, but you're not paying attention.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: It's like, it's kind of tight, right? It's like, yeah, right?
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: But a real smile, the whole face gets animated and
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: there's a little crinkly thing here as your face, as
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: it lights up and your eyes light up. It's hard
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: to even put into words, but it's there. You can
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: see it. It's real. It's not faked. Knowing the difference
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: between a fake and a real smile is really important
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: in seduction, in business or whatever. To know if someone
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: is like, yeah, I like that idea. No, they don't really.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: They're saying that to please you. They actually hate your idea.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: You master that language, you can start deciphering all this
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: bullshit people are giving you. The face, you can disguise
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: it a little bit. Actors know that. But you know
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: what you can't fake? It's your voice. If you're nervous,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: not even the finest actors in the world can fake that.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: Your voice betrays so many things about you. It betrays
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: your weakness. It betrays your lack of confidence. Or it
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: betrays the other quality, etc.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: So, Pay really attention to the tone of people's voices,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: to how fast they talk. People who talk fast are
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: very nervous. Someone who's talked, I know I'm probably talking
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: a little too fast here, sorry. My mind races, so
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: I do that. Normally, I don't talk so fast. But,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: you know, you talk slowly, you have a certain tone,
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: you have a certain intonation that kind of reveals confidence, okay?
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: Body language, posture. You were talking about pecking, right? When
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: you go and look at a meeting of people in
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: a business meeting, you'll see all the employees kind of
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: leaning forward, nervous, and you'll see the boss kind of
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: leaning back, arms like this, you know. I'm the powerful one.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: You come to me. I'm the leader. I'm the top
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: dog or she. It's a woman. I don't need to
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: be like this. I'm like this. Body language reveals a
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: lot about leadership qualities, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: You know, if you go, you're at a party and
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: you come up to someone that you're meeting for the
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: first time and they're talking to you and you notice
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: that their feet are angling away from you, that means
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: that they're not really interested. They're looking for any moment
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: to try and walk away and escape. They're not really
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: into you because their feet are facing you. They're engaged.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: They want to talk to you, right? this is a
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: whole art you can learn. You can sit there and
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: you can read it. And I talk about, I give
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: the story in Laws of Human Nature of a man
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: named Milton Erickson, the founder of NLP and hypnotherapy, probably
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: one of the most brilliant psychologists who ever lived. When
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: Milton Erickson was 19 years old or so, he had polio.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: He nearly died. His entire body was paralyzed. The only
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: thing he could move, the only muscle he could move
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: were his eyeballs. Now imagine that. He was a young
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: man with a very active mind. He can't talk. He
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: can't do anything. All he can do is move his
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: eyeballs a little bit. He was so bored. Can you
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: imagine how bored you'd be like that? You can't read.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: You can't do anything. People would come in to visit him.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: All he could do was look at them and study them.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: He became the greatest reader of body language ever in
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: the history of mankind. People said he almost had ESP.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: He could read everything about who they were just by looking.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: Because he ended up recovering, he became a psychologist. Because
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: his life depended on developing this skill, he was going
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: to just die from sheer boredom if he didn't learn
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: how to read body language. He mastered that language much
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: like somebody could master French And it's an incredibly powerful
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: language that I can't emphasize enough.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: You know, we can go about learning the language of
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: body language and I'm sure that will help, but it's
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: such a complex, um, like VAR, there's like a thousand
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: things with my body language at all times, like how
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: I'm speaking, my eyeballs, my, where I'm looking, my posture,
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: my arms, like, am I crossing my arms? Am I
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: crossing my legs? All of these things. So the, the
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: challenge of mastering all of that feels a little bit overwhelming.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: Am I right in assuming the easiest, the easier challenge
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: to master is in fact, just like my sense of self?
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: Very well put. Because, you know, if you feel confident,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: if you feel secure, if you're not all inward and
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: insecure and worried about yourself, it will naturally radiate through
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: your gestures. Yeah. You don't have to sit there and
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: pay attention to your fingers, your arm, your ears, your eyes.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: It's just there. It's natural. So yeah, that is the solution.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: So the two parts of the game, it's your own
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: body language. Be aware that people are judging you for that, right?
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: And you can't, as you say, be monitoring everything or
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: you'll drive yourself crazy and you'll look very weird, right?
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: So the best solution is to feel these certain things
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: that are going to radiate and to not give the
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: fake smile, but when you're really happy to just show
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: it and show your emotion that way. And the other side,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: which I think is really important, is learning other people's
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: body language. And that can come from study and is
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: much more a logical thing than constantly thinking about everything
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: that you do.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: Your next book that I have here, Mastery. Why did
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: you write a book called Mastery?
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: Well, to be honest with you, the idea for it
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: was around the year 2010, 2009. I was getting a
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: little worried that people who were reading my books, particularly
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: young men who were reading Power and Seduction, they were thinking,
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: that's all I need in life, man. I just need
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: to be a manipulator. I just need to play political games.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: That's what success is all about. And I was worried that,
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: you know, if you don't understand how to make something,
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: what's going to be the future of mankind? Our bridge
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: is just going to fall down. Our hotel is going
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: to collapse. People don't know how to make things anymore.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: We don't know how to use our hands anymore, right?
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: So being able to be good with people is extremely
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: important as a social animal. But perhaps higher up in
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: the hierarchy is being able to do things to be
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: able to have great skill and to be able to
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: create something and know how to master a subject and
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: to build something that can last. That's really important. And
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: I'm feeling like because young people, this is back in 2010,
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: imagine now, have this idea that everything comes quick and
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: easy because you can click, click, click, and things come
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: to you. That everything in life should be that way.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: That we're becoming alienated from the human brain and how
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: the human brain operates because the human brain requires time.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: If you know how the human brain operates, we have
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: what are called neural pathways. And every time you repeat something,
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: A neural pathway is created and strengthened and strengthened and strengthened.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: It's why we get addicted to things, but it's also
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: why we develop skill. So if I'm sitting there shooting
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: free throws day in and day out and day out,
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: my brain is wiring it. It's learning it. It's learning
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: that motor skill, that hand, mind thing, and it's getting
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: better and better and better at it. It takes time.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: It takes repetition to build those pathways. And I explain
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: in Mastery, that you reach the proverbial 10,000 hours, which
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: some people dispute nowadays. So it's just a number. It's
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: not a fact. You've spent so long learning something that
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: there's so many pathways. It's like this amazing inner landscape
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: with all these connections going on in your brain. And
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: now you can be creative. Now you can come up
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: with things that nobody's ever thought of. You can play
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: chess on a higher level. You can be Pele on
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: soccer or Lionel Messi. making passes that no one had
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: ever seen before, because you're not having to think, right?
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: You don't have to think anymore. Your body just does
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: what it wants. Imagine 20,000 hours, which is possible, which
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: people sometimes attain in certain fields. You're almost like a genius.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: You're almost like superhuman, right? If you're someone who's so
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: locked into the internet, to getting things instantly, you can't
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: get past 100 hours, let alone 10,000. You're never going
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: to develop skills. And you're going to find life really,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: really difficult for you. So I wrote the book because
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: I was actually deeply worried that we were losing a
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: part of how the human brain operates, something elemental part
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: of our wisdom.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: The interesting through line between that and the subject matter
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: we've discussed in power and seduction is that by learning
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: to master something, you build that sense of self-esteem and
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: confidence that we're looking for to be good at the
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 2: former topics mentioned. But On the topic of mastery, the
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 2: first chapter in this book and really the first question
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: a lot of people ask is this question about finding
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: your passion. And I've always had a difficult relationship with
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 2: this question because it sometimes assumes that there's one of
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: them and that you have to go in search of
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: it somewhere. In the first chapter of your book, you
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: talk about discovering your life task. Why is it important?
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: Is it the same thing? Is finding your passion and
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: finding your life task the same thing?
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: No, I just recorded this yesterday on my own podcast.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: I went on a rant about how it's not about passion.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: It's not about finding your passion. I actually don't like
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: that word passion. It kind of makes me cringe. Because
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: if you think about it, passion, to succeed at anything
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: requires time and effort and boredom and tedium. So let's
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: just use a simple example. You're learning to play the piano.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: When you first sit down at the piano, you're learning
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: to play the piano. You have to play these really
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: insipid tunes. It's so boring. You have to learn, you know,
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: what they call it, finger exercises and scales. On any instrument,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: you have to learn scales, et cetera. It's tedious, man.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: If you think it's got to be passion, forget it.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: You're never going to get far. The thrill comes after
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: a year of playing the piano, and you get better
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: at it, better and better, and now it starts coming fun.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: Then 10 years, it's more fun. Then 20 years, it's fantastic.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm not trying to name drop here, but
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: the other night I had dinner with Stevie Wonder. It
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. He's absolutely,
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: I wish I had interviewed him for my book. Speaking
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: of genius, you know, and he's blind, obviously. Everybody knows.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: But I was watching him. He performed for us. We
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: were there with a group of friends at his recording studio.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: I was watching him play the piano, and he's blind, right?
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: And he's improvising. And it's just absolutely brilliant and amazing.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: And as I'm seeing this, I'm thinking, I could see
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: the thousands of hours he's been putting in just touching
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: these keyboards and knowing where the keys are. You know,
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: it was just mind-blowing how amazing it was. That is
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: the power that the human brain naturally has through hours
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: and hours and hours of effort. That's how it works. So,
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: you know, he didn't get there because it was passion.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: He got there because he was a child prodigy at
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: age of 11. He was signed to a contract with
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: Motown records, right? He was playing that as he was
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: a kid, hour after hour, after hour, after hour, he
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: had a love for the piano, but it wasn't like
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: every time he sat down, it had to be passionate
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: about it. He had the patience to put up with
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: all of the boring stuff. Okay. So he, You want
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: to discover what you were meant to, what you have
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: a connection to, what you have a love for, right?
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: When you're a child, hopefully, or when you're 18 or
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: 19 or 20, that's the best time to discover it.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: All right? You decide, and it doesn't have to be
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: something highfalutin or worth, you know, like intellectual. You could
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: be great with your hands. You could be great with
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: your body. You could be great with images and visuals.
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: be great with words, you can be great in many
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: different areas, okay? They're all equal, they're all great. You
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: as a child are naturally, so there's a book I
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: always recommend for people called The Five Frames of Mind
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: by Howard Gardner, in which he talks about the five
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: forms of intelligence that humans have. Each brain biogenetically is
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: wired in one direction or the other. You want to
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: know that you want to feel it inside of you.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: It's like a feeling. It's not an intellectual thing. You
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: feel when you're doing sports that it's good. It's a
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: natural thing. It's what I'm meant for. When you're involved
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: with words like I was when I was eight years old,
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: it felt right. It felt like a natural fit. I
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: have to follow this path. When you're three or four
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: years old, And it's music like Stevie Wonder and you're
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: hearing this in your head. Wow, that's it for me, right? Okay,
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: you feel it. You feel this connection. All right, now
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: you fast forward to when you're 18 or 19 years
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: old and you're having to make a career choice. Okay,
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: so I call that your 20s, the most important phase
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: of your life that's going to make or break you
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: in some way. If you spend your 20s trying to
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: learn skills, in something that connects to you deeply, right?
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: Then things are going to happen to you by the
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: time you reach 30. You've discovered your life's task. It
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: may not be something so specific. For me, it was
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: writing and words, but I didn't know what to write.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: I tried novels. I tried journalism. I tried theater. I
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: tried screenwriting. But you know what? It gives you a
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: direction and you try and you try and try. And
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: you know, that's what you were meant for. That's what
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: you were destined for. You feel connected to it. You
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: feel a love for it. And so when it comes
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: time to do the tedious stuff, you're able to do
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: it because you know in the end it'll pay rewards.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: You'll get better and better at it. And the connection
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: is so deep that to not do it would be miserable.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: So you can't think of everything in life having to
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: be pleasurable and having to be passionate. There's going to
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: be boredom. There's going to be tedium. How do I
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: deal with it? You have to feel a greater love
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: than just mere pleasure or passion. It's gotta be something
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: so deep within you that to not do it will
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: make you deeply unhappy. For me not to write or
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: be a writer, I don't think I'd be alive right now.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: I would've been so miserable. I would've been so alienated
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: from who I am. So that's what'll get you through.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: That's what a life's task is.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 2: When you think about that in the book, you talk
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 2: about the first phase, which is, you know, your apprenticeship
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 2: on your journey to mastery. When you're in that apprenticeship phase,
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: when you're maybe early in your career, you're early on
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 2: your journey to becoming the pianist, the violinist, the podcaster,
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 2: the entrepreneur, whatever, what are the most important things to
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: be selecting for as it relates to the job you take,
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 2: the people you're around, that kind of thing? Like if
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 2: there's a 23-year-old listening to this that is an apprentice
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 2: at a floristry shop making bouquets of flower and they're
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 2: being offered five different jobs in the industry of floristry,
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 2: which one should they be looking at if they're in
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 2: the early steps of their apprenticeship?
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: Very easy question to answer. Thank you. You want to
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: look for the job that offers you the most possibilities
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: of learning. So if you're going to go to a
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: florist shop where there's only one other person there, it's
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: like an entrepreneur who started it. And you're going to
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: be like their right-hand man or woman. And you're going
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: to learn. And the pay is half of what you
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: could get at this very fancy. You could be working
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: at the shop at some department store where they'd pay
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: you triple, take the job that pays one third, where
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: you're going to learn the most, you're going to learn
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: about the business, you're going to learn from the ground up. And,
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: you know, there's going to be a level of excitement where,
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: you know, we might not survive another few months, we've
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: got to work hard, we've got to be motivated, we're
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: all on the same page here. A lot of people
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: when they're 23, they grab the job with the biggest paycheck.
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: And that's a mistake. Because if you go to like
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: a large, large firm, You're kind of lost. You don't
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: have as much responsibility. You suddenly have to deal with
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: all the political games, the 48 laws of power. You're
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: not paying attention. You're not developing skills as much. You
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: don't have as much responsibility. Take the job that has
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: one half, the salary, but you're responsible. You're going to
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: be learning and it's up to you. That's the most
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: important thing you can do when you're at that point
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: in your life.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 2: You say there's three steps in that apprenticeship. Deep observation.
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 2: Is that what you mean when you say deep observation?
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: You mean like being able to observe the job happening
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 2: or do you mean something else?
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: Well, it means that. It also means, so most people
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: when they start a job, their first impulse is I've
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: got to impress people. I've got to make them like me.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: That's that inward direction that's so deadly in seduction and
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: it's deadly in life. You want to be outer directed.
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: You want to observe the codes and conventions of your field.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: the social codes, you know, what's acceptable behavior, what's not
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: acceptable behavior, the skills involved, the various heuristics, the various
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: things that you have to learn that create skill. You
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: want to be a sponge absorbing what's going on around you.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: What are the things you need to learn? What are
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: the valuable skills? What are the things that aren't valuable?
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: Who are the people you need to avoid? Who are
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: the people you need to emulate? You're a a laser
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: you're just observing everything around you and not worried about
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: yourself that's the proper that's deep observation you.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: Talked about skill there it's all well and good seeing
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: skills and knowing which skills are important but acquiring those
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 2: skills is point number two when you're in that apprenticeship
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 2: phase in life skills acquisition and this kind of goes
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 2: to what you're saying with the working in a florist
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 2: shop next to the entrepreneur you're going to be hands-on
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 2: you're going to be doing which is also goes to
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: what you said earlier about parents and children like putting
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 2: them in situations where they get to do stuff. A
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 2: lot of jobs don't offer that. A lot of jobs
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 2: don't offer the difficulty, the challenge, right? How important is that?
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: Well, we call it learning by doing. And you see
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: some things play into how the human brain operates. That's
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: what you want. I give the image in the introduction
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: to mastery, the part in the alliteration here, but the
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: brain has a grain to it. You want to work
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: with that grain. You don't want to work against the
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: grain because it's counterproductive. And one of the grains of
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: the brain, sorry, is learning by doing. When, you know,
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: flashback 300,000 years ago, and we're sitting there, we're making
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: tools out of bones, out of wood, etc. The way
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: the skill was passed on to other people, it didn't
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: die with one generation, was you watch this person making
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: the tool, and then you watch them and you learn
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: and you imitated them. Flash forward to the medieval period
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: in Europe, where they had apprenticeships, apprenticeship schools. Seven years,
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: you're learning masonry, you're learning carpentry, you're learning whatever. For
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: seven years, you're sitting there watching somebody make things and
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: you're doing it. That's how the brain operates. You learn
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: by doing, not by thinking, not by thinking, oh, this
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: is how things are fitted in mortar, you know, with mortars,
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. No, I'm doing it with my hands.
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: The human, the brain and the hand have the most
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: connection of any part of our body because so much
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: of our power as a species depended on our hands.
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: We don't have much of that anymore. But learning by
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: doing things with your hands or making things is how
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: the brain is wired. So you want to go with
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: that grain. So you want to do things. You want
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: to make things. You want to be learning through action,
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: not through just a lot of talk and, you.
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 2: Know, As you might know, the show's now sponsored by Airbnb.
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 2: I can't count how many times Airbnbs have saved me
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 2: when I'm traveling around the world, whether it's recently when
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 2: I went to the jungle in Bali or whether it's
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 2: when I'm staying here in the UK or going to
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 2: business in America. But I can also think of so
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 2: many times where I've stayed in a host's place on
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: Airbnb and I've been sat there wondering, could my place
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 2: be an Airbnb as well? And if it could be,
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 2: how much could I earn? It turns out You could
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 2: be sitting on an Airbnb gold mine without even knowing
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 2: about it. Maybe you have a spare room in your
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 2: house that friends stay from time to time. You could
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 2: Airbnb that space and make a significant amount of money
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 2: instead of letting it stay empty. That in-law, that guest house,
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 2: that annex where your parents sometimes stay, you could Airbnb
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 2: that and make some extra income for yourself. Whether you
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 2: could just use some extra money to cover some bills or...
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 2: for something a little bit more fun, your home might
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 2: be worth a little bit more than you think. And
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 2: you can find out the answer to that question by
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 2: going to airbnb.co.uk slash host. One of the things that
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 2: you referenced at the start of this conversation, I think
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 2: maybe even off camera, was in 2018 you had a
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 2: stroke and that changed your life in a very fundamental way.
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 2: Can you tell me what happened and how it changed you?
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: Well, it was a Terrifying experience. You know, I was
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: in a coma. I emerged from it. And suddenly, I'm
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: somebody who's very physical. Sports was a huge part of
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: my life. I would swim very long distances. I love
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: mountain biking. I was doing all kinds of hiking. It
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: was extremely important to me. Every single day, I did
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: something physical to take my mind off things. Suddenly, it's
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: taken away from me. The left side of my body
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: is basically paralyzed. I have no control over it. To
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: this day, I still have problems with it. Can't swim.
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: Can't mountain bike. Can't hike, right? I can't take my mind.
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: I can't think while I'm taking a hike. I can't type.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: For a writer, that's not much fun. I had to
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: deal with crap that I've never had to deal with
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: in my life. I had a pretty easy time compared
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: to this. I had to learn new life skills. when
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: I'm already 62 years old. That isn't easy stuff. I
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: don't want to whine or complain because people deal with
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: worse stuff all the time. A lot of people get cancer, etc.
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: But anybody who's had a stroke knows what I'm talking about.
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: It's very hard because You can practice and practice and
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: practice and practice hours and hours of therapy. I do
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: over an hour of therapy every day. And you hardly
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: notice any results. The frustration takes you 10 minutes to
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: tie your shoes. You can't button your thing. You have
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: to get other people to do that. It's hard to
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: cut food. You have to be patient. You have to
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: accept this. You have to find another way of loving
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: your life. of accepting these things that you took for
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: granted before. And I tell people, I look out my
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: window now where I'm riding and I see people walking
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: their dog and I put myself in their shoes and
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: I go, God, that must be so great just to
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: walk your dog down the street. What a pleasurable thing.
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: They don't realize it. You take it for granted now,
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: please don't take it for granted. Understand that the ability
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: that you have now to run, to walk your dog,
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: to swim, to type, it can be taken away from
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: you and just appreciate your life for what you have
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: because the things that I love were taken away from
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: me and I wish they hadn't been. So I've had
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: to adjust myself.
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 2: You know, when something like that happens in life, when you,
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 2: when you are the victim of an, of a tragedy
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 2: or instance or circumstance or something that happens, there's often
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 2: a degree of unfairness surrounding it. And when I, when
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 2: I read about that incident in 2018, I read that
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 2: it was a bee sting that caused a clot that
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 2: caused the stroke.
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. It's actually, I think a wasp, but
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: if that wasp had been like moving, the wind had
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: been a little different and had moved this way instead
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: of this way, may not have had a stroke, you know,
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: but I can tell you this. So, um, in May
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: of that year, the, the stroke was in August in May.
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: I'd finished The Laws of Human Nature, which took me
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: five years. And when I finished that book, I felt
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: like I was near death. I was so exhausted. I
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: was so drained. You know, my wife was really worried
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: about me because I just looked really haggard. Slowly, I
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: kind of recovered. But then in July, I went to
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: New York and I forgot my blood pressure medication that
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: I take. So my blood pressure was starting to rise.
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: And then I came back to LA and I walked
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: in this park and the bee The wasp stung me
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: here and my whole chest turned red and it was
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: like the most unbearable feeling. So I went to the hospital.
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: They gave me this drug called prednisone to relieve the itching.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: Prednisone increases your blood pressure. And so when I ended
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: up having the stroke, the blood clot, it was right
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: where the wasp sting was. So the neurologist said, probably
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: all this cholesterol was released from that drug, from that
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: wasp sting here. And that's where the blood clot occurred. Okay.
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: But there were all these other circumstances that kind of
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: led to it, kind of a perfect storm. And maybe
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: if I hadn't had that wasp sting, it would have
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: happened four months later under different circumstances and I would
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: have died. Because what happened was I was driving my
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: car when I got my stroke. My wife was in
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: the other seat. She saw something really strange going on
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: my face. I didn't notice it. She forced me to
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: pull over to the side of the road. 90% of
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: the time I'm alone. I'm swimming, I'm hiking, I'm driving.
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: Could have happened four months from then. She wouldn't be there.
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: I'd be dead right now. So I can't really think
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: in terms of, oh, if that wasp had been diverted.
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: It would be a good feeling, but it's too painful
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: for me to imagine. I like to think of, fortunately,
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: someone was there who saved my life because it could
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: have very well happened four months from then because my
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: body was worn down. And something much worse could have happened.
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 2: That journey you described of having to rebuild and relearn
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 2: and redesign your life. We've talked about the topic of
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 2: power so much in this conversation. In that moment, it
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 2: sounds like your power to some degree had been taken
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 2: from you.
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: You know, you learn like, at least for me, when
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: I look to people, I look to people differently after
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: my stroke. had more empathy for them. I'm normally an
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: empathetic person, but I was looking at people in the
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: pandemic who got long COVID, who were having strokes or
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: were having terrible circumstances. Or when I look at people
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: who are disabled, because I'm essentially disabled now, I understand them.
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: And also the other thing is when I look at
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: people who are really poor, who are struggling in life,
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: They feel really dependent and helpless. I felt that physically.
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: I don't feel that materially because I don't have that
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: problem anymore, thank God. But I have more empathy. I
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: understand it not in an intellectual way, but in a visceral,
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: physical way. That sensation of, I don't know where my
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: food's coming from. I don't know what's going to happen
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: the next day. I'm weak. I'm dependent. I'm helpless. It's miserable.
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: I kind of understood that feeling now on a different level.
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: On a level that affected me personally, it's a lot
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: different than having it affect you in an intellectual way.
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 2: The phases in that journey to where you are today,
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 2: the first phase after the incident, you wake up, you
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 2: realize that your life has changed. What's going on in
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 2: your psychology? What's going on in your mind? You talked
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 2: about helplessness and depression.
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: To be honest with you, what happened to me was
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: right afterwards, there was a level of delusion in my mind.
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: I kept thinking, well, in three months, I'll be back
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: at it. In six months, I'll be swimming. In a year,
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: I'll be hiking again. I wasn't aware of how hard
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: the process was. And then six months, eight months, a
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: year down the road, as I realized I was wrong,
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: that's when the depression set in. That's when it really
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: started hitting me. I thought I'd be back. Here I
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: am four years on. I thought I'd be back to
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: my life, but I'm not. You know, so... That's what
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: was the hardest struggle was actually a year in there
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: and going, there's a phase where you kind of plateau
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: where you're not really progressing anymore. That's the worst part
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: of it. I'm progressing now again because I have a
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: great therapist, but I had to deal with really bad
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: depression about a year, a year and a half in
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: when it started to realize, this is my life, man.
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: I'm going to always have this funny arm that's bowing in.
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be walking like this. I never expected
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: this in my life. So I've had to deal with
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: that and I've had to kind of find a way
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: to not let it get me down, to find other
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: pleasures and joys in life, et cetera, which I have.
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 2: How do you find a way to not let it
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 2: get you down? I'm thinking now about people that are
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 2: listening to this that might be struggling with their own
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 2: subjective struggles in life. They've lost their job. They have
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 2: a disability, whatever it might be. What are... What are
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 2: the successful strategies you've deployed to try and remain, keep
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 2: that peace of mind?
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: Well, I don't know how much of it is applicable
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: because I'm at a phase of life where I don't
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: have material worries, you know? And I could have had
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: a kind of stroke where my physical element would have
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: been untouched, but my brain would have been damaged, which
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: is another part. That would have been worse because I
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have been able to write another book. And I
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: have a very active mind. Um, so for me being
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: able to write another book is my salvation. So when
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: it's three o'clock in the afternoon, when I get down
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: to writing, it's the happiest moment in my life. I
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: feel at peace. I'm back to my work and I
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: love my work and I love what I'm writing about.
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: It's saved me a lot. I do meditation. I've been
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: meditating now for about 12 years. I think more, more
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: than that every morning, It's a ritual. I have to meditate.
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: If I don't, something is wrong. And I've never missed
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: a day, I can honestly say. And it just calms
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: me down. It just gives me a strength throughout the
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: whole day. So I get up, seven o'clock, you know,
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: the sun's usually shining because it's Los Angeles. And I go,
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: it's the morning. I'm greeting the morning. I'm greeting the sun.
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: It's like I'm in, like I'm a, You know, somebody 4,000
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: years ago in a tribe. Here's the sun. It's a
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: miracle that there's even something like that. The birds are chirping.
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at the ivy. The sky is blue. I
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: just calm myself down. Intrusive negative thoughts start popping into
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: my mind. You didn't do this. You have a podcast
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: today at 2 o'clock, Robert. You want to do this, that,
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: and the other. I get rid of them. I go,
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: calm down. Put that away. Ground yourself. It's helped immeasurable.
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: The other thing is always keep in mind that there
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: are people who have it worse than you. So I
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: don't want to feel sorry. I don't like the sense
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: of feeling sorry for myself. In fact, sometimes I turn
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: it around and I look at that person walking the
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: dog or jogging and I go, I actually feel sorry
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: for you because you're not aware of how precarious life is.
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: You're not aware of how this can be taken away
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: from you. You're not aware of how precious it is
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: to just be alive and just to see the sky
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: and the birds. So I feel better than you in
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: a way. I turned it around. I don't want to
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: feel sorry for myself. It thinks they're people who have
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: it worse. I read in the newspaper all the time,
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: you know, cancer, you're in Ukraine, or I was dealing
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: a lot with people in Iran right now, what they're
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: dealing with. I don't have to deal with that kind
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: of crap, like being in Iran and dealing with that
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: daily life. How horrifying, you know? These are thoughts that
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: take you out of the moment where you're feeling sorry
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: for yourself and you're kind of grateful for certain things.
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: So those are some of the strategies I've had to
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: kind of create for myself.
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 2: I find it so, I guess, powerful to hear those
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 2: strategies because we all get caught up in our narrow
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 2: perspective and our own subjective feelings that we're suffering or
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 2: that life is against us. And then that kind of
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 2: torments us in many ways. As you've post-stroke in 2018,
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 2: is there anything else that you have learned about the
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 2: nature of happiness from that incident that we that you
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 2: might not have known before that incident, that I might
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 2: not fully understand now. The things I heard you talk
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 2: about are the importance of a sense of purpose, how
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 2: perspective and gratitude are central to our feelings of happiness.
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 2: But is there any other observations you've had that, I'm
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 2: just saying this from my own selfish perspective because I
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 2: want to know.
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: Well, first of all, I don't want to give the
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: impression that I've solved everything because I'm a work in progress.
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: I have moments where where I get so frustrated and
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: it's almost like I have Tourette's syndrome. Like I can't,
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm still four years in and my arm
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: is still like this and I still can't brush my
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: teeth the way I want. I get very frustrated. So
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: I'm getting better, but it's still a work in progress.
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: So I don't want to give the impression that I've
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: somehow this, I've mastered it because it has mastered me.
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: I have a long way to go, but I'm getting
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: a lot better, a lot better at it day to day. Um,
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't know. I think I've kind of
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: touched on everything only in the sense of.
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 2: What about connection? You talked about your wife.
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: Yes. She's helped me a lot. God bless her soul.
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: She's had to take care of me, you know, and
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: I was somebody who's always prided myself for being independent.
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: I was trapped. That was another thing that was taken
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: away from me. I was traveling around the world, doing
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: book tours, going to book festivals, doing interviews, doing consulting
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: in various different countries. I could still travel, but it
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: requires a lot more. So I lost my independence. I
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: had to have somebody help me with food every single day.
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: I need things being done for me. And I feel
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: terrible that she's been put in that position, but she's
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: been very gracious about it. And she understands she has
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: a lot of empathy because she knows what I've lost.
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: So having somebody in your life. If I were alone,
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: I couldn't deal with it, man. I wouldn't have been
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: able to deal with it. It just would have been
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: too much for me. It would have been too depressing.
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: That depression that socks you after a year would have
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: leveled me. It's just, I couldn't have made it. So
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: that's an incredibly important aspect. And just appreciating the little
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: things in life that I just You know, it's a cliche,
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: and I hate saying cliches, but, you know, I have
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: that feeling almost every day where I'm looking at somebody going, man,
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: that must be, I'm like riding my bike, and I'm
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: seeing somebody just sitting in a park reading a book
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: on a bench, and I'm going, God, that is so
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: much fun just to be able to do that. I
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: can't do that anymore. But I put myself in their body.
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: The little things in life that you take for granted
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: are filled with so much happiness and joy that you're
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: not thinking about. If that person sitting on a bench
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: reading that book only realized what this person riding by thinks,
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: maybe they wouldn't take it for granted. So some of
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: those little things that you don't think about have incredible importance,
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: at least to me, having lost them. So I don't
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: know if I'm... I wish I had something better, but
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: I can only come from my own experience. I can't
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: make it up.
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 2: Your book's... tend to focus on the nature of the
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 2: human condition. How we are as humans for better or
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 2: for worse. And it was interesting because as you were
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 2: talking over several topics, when you're talking about seduction and
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 2: the 48 laws of power and mastery, there's a part
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 2: of me that's, you know, that started to feel a
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 2: little bit, I don't know, feel the darkness that is
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 2: innate within humans a bit too much maybe. That we're
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 2: a little bit too contrived and manipulative and conniving and
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 2: whatever else. And I was thinking, do I really like humans? Yeah,
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 2: I'm one of them. I'm very conscious of trying to
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 2: separate myself. I hear people doing interviews when they're talking
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 2: about society. And I always think you are society. I
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 2: am human. I'm all of the things you've described in many,
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 2: many ways. But has your journey of learning about humans
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 2: and human nature made you personally more loving towards humans,
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 2: more optimistic about the human race? Or has it made
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 2: you the opposite? Honestly.
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: Well, it's made me more loving, but it hasn't made
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: me more optimistic.
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: You know, there's so many things that seem to be
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: going awry in the world today. Now, I happen to be,
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: the form of meditation I do is Zen meditation. And
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: in Zen meditation, there's this idea of what's called the Tathagata,
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: which means, it was another name for Buddha, and it
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: means things as they are. And one thing you meditate
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: is the world isn't good or bad or ugly or
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: evil or unjust. It just is. Things just are. This
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: is just the way the world is. This is the
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: karmic chain, the wheel of dharma that's been going on
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: for thousands of years. It just is. It's just the
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: state of affairs. It's your discriminating your mind. It's your
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: mind that creates all of these things. Let go of
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: that and you can connect to the way the world
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: is without judging it. And it becomes this very beautiful place.
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: And so a part of me wants to think of
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: this is just the way things are. But a part
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: of me goes, this isn't good the way things are.
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: And I hope they're changed. So knowing human nature and
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: knowing how human nature tends to twist things, how whenever
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: we invent a new piece of technology, it could be
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: the telephone, it could be the television, it could be
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: the internet, it could be cryptocurrency, or it could be
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: you know, AI. It tends to twist and darken and
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: degrade and pervert anything that was once maybe beautiful or interesting.
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: It makes me worried about the future. So there I
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: turn pessimistic and I'm worried. But then I always think
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: that there's hope with young people. And here I'm spouting
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: another cliche. Damn, I'm going to shoot myself after this interview.
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: But I feel like when I was young, I was
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: angry about things. I didn't like the way the world was.
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: It was Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and yuppies and
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: ugly values I didn't have. And I thought there was
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: something wrong with the world. I was angry and I
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: wanted to change it. Young people are still like that.
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: And I think a lot of young people, Gen Z
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: or whatever the next one is, whatever they call them,
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: I don't know yet. They're growing up in a world
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: that isn't healthy, that isn't right. And when you're young,
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: you have all these energy, all this physicality and you,
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: you don't like it. You don't feel comfortable in it.
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: And I know a lot of young people don't feel comfortable.
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: And at some point they're gonna rebel and they're gonna say,
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: I'm tired of all this virtuality. I want something real.
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: I want some, I want real experiences. That spirit of
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: rebellion that I see seeds of and signs of gives
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: me hope. And I hope that it continues. Because I
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: remember once I had a dream, probably the most memorable
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: dream I ever had. It was maybe about 15 years
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: ago or so. And I dreamt that I was there
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: in the year 2072 or something like that. I was
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: walking around the year 2072. It was the streets of
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: New York. Wow, everybody looks so happy. Humans finally figured
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: out how to do well in this world. They figured
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: out what matters. There's hope in this world. That was
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: my moment in that dream. It's always sort of stuck
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: with me. Maybe that will happen. Maybe it won't. I
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: don't know. I'm not Nostradamus. But, you know, so I
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: struggle with that. I struggle with part of me is
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: pessimistic and part of me seeks seeds of hope, particularly
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: in young people. And I really, really, really wish they
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: figure it out because my generation, generations before, we've kind
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: of screwed this world over. Things aren't good right now.
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: And I'm hoping that spirit of rebellion, that young energy,
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: will kind of come and kick the apple cart and say,
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: screw all this, we want a different world.
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 2: We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 2: last guest asks a question for the next guest, not
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 2: knowing who they're going to ask it for. And the
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 2: question that's been left for you to answer is, in
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 2: adult life, when were you most happy and why and
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 2: then brackets it says are you this way now and
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 2: if not why.
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: Well I have to say the happiest moment of my
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: life came at that turning point when I was 38
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: or so, and I was given the opportunity to write
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: the 48 Laws of Power, and it came out, and
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: my life had changed. And so the contrast from being
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: in a small apartment, rather poor, rather desperate, where people
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: were beginning to worry about me, and suddenly things were
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: clicking together, and I was having fun, and I was
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: having all these adventures, and I had a reasonable amount
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: of money, the shift was so radical and so dramatic
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: that it was extremely exciting. And it was almost like
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: a drug high. It was pretty damn intoxicating. I don't
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: have that now because it's 25 years ago, and I'm
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: kind of still riding off of that, and the high
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: has worn off. But I can remember in my body
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: how depressed I was and that feeling. And I never
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: lose it. I'm very grateful for what I have because
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: I know it could have turned out very differently. So
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: I still feel that initial happiness because I know if
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: you have success when you're 24, you're not ready for it.
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: You don't realize how evanescent it could be, how it
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: can disappear and how important it is. I never had
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: that because I struggled for so long. And so many
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 1: bad jobs. So the happiness, the euphoria isn't the same.
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: It's not the same intensity. But I'm still riding on
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: that wave because I know where I was before it happened.
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: And it's been an amazing journey. You know, my wife
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: who's been there for it goes, can you believe that
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: you were having dinner with Stevie Wonder when you were
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: 12 years old? You told me, Robert, that that was
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 1: the first album you ever bought. was inner visions. And
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: what would you have told yourself when you were 12
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: years old that this was what was happening? Whoa, I
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: would have flipped out. It's been an amazing journey. I
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: can't complain. My whining complaint card was taken away from
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: me in 1998 when I published that book. And so
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: I'm still feeling the last vestiges of that euphoria from
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 1: back then. Robert, thank you.
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much. I've been a tremendous fan of
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 2: your work for what feels like forever in my life.
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 2: And your wisdom, your willingness to confront difficult subject matter
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 2: that a lot of people would avoid because there is
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 2: darkness enlaced in a lot of the subject matter that
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 2: you've written about in some of your books. But it's
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 2: very human, important, as you say, objectively neutral darkness that
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 2: just is. And for you to confront that over and
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 2: over again in your work makes it, Some of the
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 2: most important work I think anyone could do because it's
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 2: the work that a lot of us avoid, but your
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 2: vulnerability and openness today as well have been like a
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 2: shot at my ass in terms of gratitude and the
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 2: importance of perception as it relates to our happiness and
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 2: our sense of self. So thank you so much. I've
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 2: really enjoyed this conversation more than I could express in words.
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Stephen. It was a great interview.
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 1: I was telling Jemima that I've done thousands of these
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: podcasts and I know I can tell I've done my 10,000 hours.
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: I can tell a great interviewer from a mediocre interviewer
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 1: and you were in that elite category because you ask
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 1: really great questions and you're a great listener and it's
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: been really fun. So thank you so much. I appreciate
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: the opportunity.
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 2: It means a lot to me. Thank you, Robert.
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: Okay. You're welcome. Quick one.
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 2: As you guys know, we're lucky enough to have Blue
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 2: Jeans as a sponsor and supporter of this podcast. For
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 2: anyone that doesn't know, BlueJeans is an online video conferencing
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 2: tool that allows you to have slick, fast, good quality
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 2: online meetings without any of those glitches that you'd normally
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 2: find with other meeting online providers. You know the ones
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 2: I'm talking about. And they have a new feature called
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 2: BlueJeans Basic, which I wanted to tell you about. BlueJeans
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 2: Basic is essentially a free version of their top quality
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 2: video conferencing. And that means that you get immersive video experiences.
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 2: You get that super high quality, super easy and zero
• 1:52:58
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  Speaker 2: meetings and calls, it also comes with high fidelity audio
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  Speaker 2: and video, including Dolby voice. They also have expertise grade security,
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 2: so you can collaborate with confidence. It's so smooth that
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 2: it's quite literally changed the game for myself and my
• 1:53:14
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• 1:53:17
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• 1:53:21
  Speaker 2: how you get on. Over the last couple of, how long?
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 2: Maybe four months, I've been changing my diet, shall I say,
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 2: Many of you who've really been paying attention to this
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 2: podcast will know why. I've sat here with some incredible
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 2: health experts, and one of the things that's really come
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 2: through for me, which has caused a big change in
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 2: my life, is the need for us to have these superfoods,
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 2: these green foods, these vegetables, and then a company I
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 2: love so much, and a company I'm an investor in,
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 2: and then a company that sponsored this podcast and that
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 2: I'm on the board of, recently announced a new product,
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 2: which absolutely spoke to exactly where I was in my life,
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 2: and that is Huel. and they announced Daily Greens. Daily
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 2: Greens is a product that contains 91 superfoods, nutrients, and
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 2: plant-based ingredients, which helps me meet that dietary requirement with
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 2: the convenience that Huel always offers. Unfortunately, it's only currently
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 2: available in the US, but I hope, I pray, that
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 2: it'll be with you guys in the UK too. So
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 2: if you're in the US, check it out. It's an
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 2: incredible product. I've been having it here in LA for
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 2: the last couple of weeks, and it's a game changer.
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 1: Thank you.