The Guy Behind 48 Laws of Power Shares His Rules for Founders

Category: Self-Improvement

Tags: BoldnessIdeasInfluenceMasteryPassion

Entities: 50 CentBeyonceElon MuskHoward GardnerKobe BryantMichael JacksonRobert GreeneSteve JobsWarren Buffett

Transcript

00:00

One of the best parts about this is there's so many levels to this. So when I tweeted this quote out, Darmsh, who's this, you know, co-founder of a 2030 billion dollar company, retweeted says, "This is exactly what I needed to hear today.

00:17

I uh man, I am so excited to talk to you. I've read all your books and I've always thought that instead of whatever they're teaching at universities, I was like, man, I wish I could just do a four-year degree on like four or six of these Robert Green books cuz they're amazing.

Wow. And in particular, Mastery, it

00:34

absolutely changed my life. I read that when I was 20, 22 years old, about 12 years ago, 11 years ago.

It totally changed my life. It changed my life because I thought that being a generalist was the way to go.

But according to the book Mastery, it was not.

00:51

Yeah. Well, you know, um, we live in these fantastic times with so much technological power.

It's just almost incredible, you know. I mean, yesterday I was working on my new book and I had a question and I just did an AI search and

01:09

it's just insane what it can do for you. But the problem is the human brain is what it is.

It isn't a piece of technology that that somebody developed recently. It's something that has hundreds of thousands of years of development and it has a certain way

01:25

that it operates and a certain grain to it and you want to go with that grain and you want to be excited by learning and you want to make connections in the brain between different things and you want to be able to focus so deeply on something. I like to think of the brain as this

01:42

kind of landscape and it can be rich and it can be one where all these different plants are emerging or it can be like a wasteland and if you learn different things and you focus very deeply and you're excited by what you're learning then all of these connections will start

01:57

happening in the brain. And so if you go through that apprenticeship focused and developing real skills and whatever that is, by the time you finish your apprenticeship, let's say you're 30 years old, you'll be set.

You'll be able to create your own business, you'll be

02:14

very creative, you will laid the groundwork for something really important to happen. But if you're distracted, if you're focusing on a hundred different things, that's not how the human brain functions.

We function when we go deep into something. When we bore deep deep deep deep into a subject.

02:32

I know when I'm writing a book, which I'm doing right now, the first attempt that I make at something is very superficial. It's not interesting.

You wouldn't believe how bad my writing is on the first go. But I go deep, deep, deep into what I'm thinking.

I cross it

02:48

out. I do something else.

I edit it. By the 10th time I go into it, something interesting is happening.

So when you focus deeply on something, ideas will come to you and sometimes those ideas will be brilliant. How many books do you read um to write

03:03

one book? So for mastery, how many books did you consume to write that one or 48 laws of power?

It's hard to estimate, but I it's somewhere around 300 some could be upwards of that. And you know, sometimes

03:19

if a book is is bad, and believe me, I get I read a lot of bad books. I kind of skim them, you know, oh, this passage is really sucks or this chapter is meaningless, I'll kind of float through it.

But if a book is really good and, you know, I could there are some books

03:35

that are incredible. I'd say maybe about a fifth of them reach that level.

I'll focus very deeply. I'll even reread it several times.

It's probably why my health suffered and why I had a stroke is because I read too many books. I do

03:50

too much research. But I want to get at the reality of what I'm writing about.

I don't want to be superficial because so many books out there, at least for me, don't really go deep enough into the subject. They're kind of skimming along the surfaces.

04:06

So Sam was talking about mastery and you have this concept of people finding their life life task, their life's task. And I think that's great.

Uh, but I know a lot of people who are maybe in their 30s or 40s who don't know that that is and maybe they feel like it's too late

04:21

or they're stuck or don't know where to start. Um, could, you know, what's the sort of pocketbook guidance you have for somebody like that who's looking for who who's trying to figure out what that is and what are the tools they could use to figure out that life's task?

Well, it's a question I get all the time

04:37

and it's an extremely important question. The idea that I have is that when you were born, your your DNA, there's something completely unique about you.

Genetically, there's never going to be anyone in the past or the future who will be like you. Your

04:53

parents who raised you, they're also unique. So, you are a unique individual.

You were so at birth, right? And when you were very young, 2, three, four years old, you were attracted to certain things naturally.

I call them primal inclinations. Things that you loved very

05:10

deeply, that you were drawn to, that you were attracted to. I tell the story in the book of Steve Jobs.

He's 7 years old. He's walking with his father in Sunnyvale, California, where he grew up, and he passes by an electronic shop and

05:25

he's just fascinated by these objects in the window, the design of them, and how beautiful they are. And it was at that moment that he be sort of fell in love with technology, not just as technology as as a machine, but as the design of it because he was a brilliant designer.

05:42

So I'm saying you had those moments when you were five or 6 years old. But your problem is when you were 18 or 19 or 20, you took a wrong path.

You listened to other people. You didn't listen to yourself.

You listened to your parents who said, "Robert, you should go to law

05:58

school." And this is what, you know, some of what my own parents told me. You need to go to business school.

You need to go become a doctor. You need to get something practical and make a living.

And you're alienated from that deep, deep love of something that you had when you were four or 5 years old or 6 years old or whatever it is. And then you go

06:15

down a wrong path. So the way is to get back onto that path.

And the way is to reconnect with who you are, with what you truly love and what your interests are. And there's a process for that.

And I can go into it. And I've consulted with many people on this thing.

But the

06:32

problem is you're so in tune with what other people are telling you, you're not listening to yourself. You don't know what makes you unique.

And if you look at all of the really successful people in this world, people the great entrepreneurs or in any field, they're

06:47

one of a kind, right? There's nobody else like a a Kobe Bryant out there, you know, God rest his soul, my favorite basketball player.

They're one of a kind. Okay.

So, you lost that somehow. And when you're in your 30s,

07:05

you can get back to it. But what you need to do is you need to be practical in life.

You can't just suddenly start all over and go, I've been learning these skills. I went into law school and and I'm not happy with it.

You can't now turn around and say, well, I'm going to

07:21

be a poet or I'm going to be a rock star. You've already learned skills.

You have to build on what you have and take it in a direction towards something that you really really love, right? You need to be practical and you may have to compromise a little bit, but when you're

07:36

in your 30s, you can still do it. And because you're you're young enough and your mind is flexible as you get older, you get rigid.

You get set in your ways and becomes harder and harder and harder to do this process. When you're in your 40s, it's still possible, but get it's

07:51

getting harder. when you're 50s, it's getting almost very, very difficult.

So, the real lesson for people out there is if you're 20 years old, do not go on that wrong path because it gets very difficult later in life to adjust.

08:07

But if you're in your 30s, you have to reassess yourself. You have to get a journal and every day you have to write down things about what really excites you in life.

what it was when you opened a book and you read about something and you go, "Wow, that just attracts me." I

08:24

know personally whenever I see an article or a story about early humans and how we developed 30, 40, 60,000 years ago, I I can't believe it. I'm so excited.

I can't We were actually like that and look who we are now. You have

08:42

subjects like that, but you've just become alienated from yourself. If you're not listening to yourself, you're not listening to that voice in your head and you need to find your way back.

All right, I read a ton. I would say almost a book a week.

And the reason I read so much is because my philosophy

08:57

towards reading is I want to see what worked for the winners that I love and what strategies they use. And then I want to see what mistakes uh did they all make, what were the common flaws that they all had, and I just want to avoid that.

And so HubSpot asked me to put together a list of the books that have changed my life so far in 2025. And

09:14

I did that. And so I listed out seven books that made a meaningful difference in my life and I explained what the differences that they had on me or what actions I took because of the book.

And then also I listed out my very particular ways of reading because I'm pretty strategic about how I read and

09:31

how I read so much and how I remember what I read and things like that. And so I put this together in a very simple guide.

It's seven books that had a huge impact on my life. And you can scan the QR code below if you want to read it or there's a link.

you guys know what to do. There's a link in the description.

Just go ahead and click it and you'll

09:47

see the guide that I made. So, it's the seven books that had a massive change in my life this year so far.

And then also how I'm able to read so much. So, check it out below.

You know, I u I'm only saying this to give you context. Um, Robert, but millions of people listen to this

10:04

podcast and sometimes they look up to Sean and I because we've done some interesting things in the business world. Yes.

And sometimes they look down on us, too. Yeah.

Sometimes they look up to us. A lot of times they look down at us.

Uh no, they and uh and I can't speak for

10:19

Sean, but even, you know, we're fortunate to have people look up to us and even I am sometimes like I still don't know what my life's task is. I still have doubts.

And I think that you said something you're like, you have to listen to yourself and like maybe yourself is yelling at you, but so is everything else. And so it's kind of

10:35

hard to hear. Can you actually walk me through?

You said you consult with people. And the interesting thing about being a historian like you is like very billionaires I imagine they're like be my oracle tell me what to do.

What questions do you ask to journal uh or what is like your 7-day exercises that

10:53

you do with someone who's hiring you to help you find you know hiring you to give them their life task or help them find it. Okay.

Well, you know, as I as you as you point out, the problem is in this era of social media, we have so much

11:10

information coming at us that we're confused and we're distracted, right? There's all this noise, this static going on in your brain.

You're hearing what people are having for lunch. You're hearing about this outrage, this problem.

You don't have a you're not able to focus. So, the main thing here

11:27

is you got to really, really go into yourself. You got to cut out all that crap.

you're taking it seriously. Because a lot of people who come to me, I can tell right away they're not serious about it.

They kind of, well, I'm not really happy. Maybe Robert can

11:43

help me figure it out. No.

Damn it. You have to figure it out.

It's not up to me. You're not taking it seriously.

You're playing a game. You kind of have dreams and you wish.

No, you got to take this seriously. Your life is at stake.

Time is short. You know, you could die

11:59

tomorrow. Life is shorter than you think.

So you don't have time to waste. So take this thing seriously.

That's the number one thing I tell people. And what take it seriously means is it requires time.

All right? You're going to carve

12:15

out, let's say, a week of real focus. And I think you could do it longer than that, but let's just say in in your scenario, a week of clear focus.

All right? You're going to get a journal, a book, or if you do it on a computer.

I recommend an actual book because the

12:31

brain and the hand there's a there's a process there's a magic that goes on when you handw write something. I'm not asking you to handw write everything but in this case writing in a journal is the best idea I think.

Okay. So you're going to start writing in a journal.

You can even sometimes voice recorder because I

12:48

do that too as well if that's something you prefer. Um but I don't want you to be on the screen all the time.

Okay? I want you to be really listening to yourself deeply.

Okay. So, you're writing things down.

You're going to start writing. You're going to begin by saying, "These are the things that I

13:04

love and these are the things that I hate." And you can put you can put it in in you can divide the page in half and and do that if you want. So, to give you an example, things that you hate and dislike are a very important part of figuring out your life's task.

13:20

Now, personally, I didn't figure out what I was really meant to do, which is writing these books, until I was about 38 years old. Okay?

I was kind of lost and I was kind of wandering. But the one thing I knew and and I knew at a very

13:37

early age is I hate working for other people. I hate working for other people.

I hate the politics. I hate the egos.

I'm I like to control things. So, I need I need to be somebody who works for

13:52

myself, right? I can't work for other people.

I'm really bad at it. I never held a job for longer than 10 or 11 months in my entire life.

I was always dissatisfied, quit, and whatever. Okay?

So, knowing what you hate is very

14:08

important for knowing what you love. All right?

So, you cut things out. You cut all the stuff out that you don't want to do.

You You're not interested in math. You're not interested in numbers.

You're more of an idea person. I don't know what it is, but you're going to write down the things that you love, the

14:24

things that you hate in the present moment. All right?

And you're going to what this is really about, Sam, is you're connecting with yourself, right? Because you're not connected to yourself.

And that's the number one problem people have in this world. They're listening to other people.

14:39

They're imitating other people. Oh, this is a cool person.

I want to be like him or her. No, you got to be yourself.

you're not connected to yourself. So, this journaling process is going to take you through several days of reconnecting with who you are.

The other thing that

14:57

you need to do is you need to go into your childhood into your early years. So, we begin by looking at the present moment.

I hate working for other people. I love this kind of subject or this kind of thing in the world.

Now, I want you to go deep into your childhood. I

15:14

compare it to being like an archaeologist. You're making a dig, right?

It's you're not going back millions of years. You're going back to when you were four or 5 years old.

And I want you to cuz in those early years, you were open to the world. You were

15:29

really open. As we get older, we get really closed.

Certain things excited you in a way that you can't even recall. It's not the same to you now, right?

It didn't have to do with words. It had to do with feelings.

So, I tell the story I

15:45

told you like Steve Jobs. There's the story of Tiger Woods with his father in the garage.

He's like 2 years old. I don't know, something like that.

His father is hitting golf balls in the garage. You know those one of those little plastic balls against the against the wall.

And Tiger is sitting there in

16:01

his baby chair and he's getting so excited. He's kicking his legs.

Oh my god, this is incredible. Right then and there, he had discovered his life's task.

Basically, it wasn't like an intellectual process. It wasn't, well, I'm 2 years old and golf is really

16:17

interesting and I'm going to study it. It was in his heart.

It was something deep. You can't put it into words, right?

You had that moment. It's almost preverbal, but something really really excited you.

For me, when I was a child, it was language and words. I was

16:34

obsessed with with words and books and and just the magic of a word itself. It like boggled my mind how incredible you had those moments, whatever it was.

So, we're going back into your childhood

16:49

and we're digging and we're digging and we're digging. You also have to cut out all of the other voices.

Part of the journaling is I listened to what my friends were telling me. I listened to what my parents were telling me.

Cut all that [ __ ] out and listen to yourself.

17:05

That's pretty great. I do have one kind of followup or I don't know.

clarifying question on it. So, I have a 5-year-old today and I think about like what I observe in her.

But I would guess that, you know, most of the things that she really loves are pretty common. Like she

17:22

lo like since she's in a baby, like if music comes on, she loves to dance. My one-year-old is the same way.

My four-year-old is the same way. Um does that mean she's going to be a dancer?

Right? Like they love to play video games on the iPad.

Does that mean they're going to be a gamer or a game designer? Like there's some things that are just so common everyone loves.

They

17:37

love cookies. They love ice cream.

Does that mean they're going to be Ben and Jerry's? Like is there another angle to it which is like you know you're sort of uniquely into it or um maybe others are not you have to look for the things that others are not into you know I guess like how do you differentiate just like

17:52

common dopamine things we all like versus my life's task? Well it's a great question.

Um I like to refer people to this book by Howard Gardner called five frames of intelligence I think. I'm sorry, I might not have the title exactly right, but

18:08

the point of this book is that there are five kinds of intelligence. And some of it has to do with math and patterns.

Some of it has to do with words. Some of it is kinetic.

It's just the body and moving the body. Some of it

18:23

is social. Okay?

Some of it involves music and or or visual things. He studied this very deeply and he asserts that every human being has one of these intelligences that stands out that kind of dominates their brain.

So it's not

18:41

it's not a trivial thing of you know I like to play video games or I like to eat cookies. It's something more deep.

It's something more primal. It's about a certain direction that your brain heads in.

So with your young daughter, it's is

18:59

she into sort of just physical things or does she have some kind of intellectual interest that draws her? That's very exciting.

Okay. So, you know, all children like to move around and jump around and run around, etc.

That doesn't mean that they're going to be an

19:14

athlete. I understand your question.

But some people are like that. Some people that is their dominant interest, right?

And you can see that, as I said, by looking at the negative, they're not into they're not into math. They're not into words.

They're just into moving

19:31

around. And maybe at four it's hard to see that, but by the time they're seven or eight, it becomes very clear.

But what is their mind, their brain attracted to? Okay.

And the problem with parenting is you're projecting onto your

19:49

child what you like, what your interests are, who you are. You're not understanding that they're an individual.

Your daughter is unique. She's something.

She's not you. She has your genetics, but she's a girl.

She's different gender. She has a different experience from you, right?

She also has

20:06

the genes of her mother. You're projecting onto her.

So imagine that you're in her skin and seeing her the world from her point of view and you can see the things that she doesn't like that she hates. But what is her mind drawn to?

20:22

I'm pretty sure that if you focused on it deeply, you could see some the outlines of what that is. But the main thing you want to do is you want to let your child discover that for yourself.

You don't want to push them in a direction that you think is better for

20:38

them. You want to let them discover it for themselves.

And when you see it, which you will with your daughter, maybe it'll happen soon or maybe in a couple years, you want to encourage them, right? Even if it's something that you think isn't good for them that, oh, you

20:54

can't make a living at that. You want to encourage them because you want children to be excited by learning.

If you turn your your five-year-old off from learning for whatever reason, man, you're a bad parent. I'm sorry to say.

21:10

That's the number one thing. They've got to be excited by something.

What is that thing that they're drawn to? I believe there you if you went deeply into it, you could almost figure it out right now.

You know, we could even talk about it, but I think that's right. That would be my answer.

21:26

It reminds me of one thing, Sam. I want to I want to hear your question about the maybe one of his other concepts or books but just reminds me of uh Warren Buffett has said the best thing his dad ever taught him was the was the importance of an inner scorecard.

So he says most people live with an outer

21:41

scorecard and the thought experiment he gives is like you know would you rather be the uh you know whether uh the funny example he gives is would you rather be the world's best lover but everybody thinks you're the worst or the world's worst lover but everybody thinks you're

21:56

the best and that your answer to that he says the same thing about investing what should I be the be if I was the best investor but everybody thought I was the worst would that be better or if I was the worst investor but everybody thought I was the best would that be better what's the answer well he's He's like the, you know, for him, he attributes most of his success

22:12

to the fact that he has a very strong inner scorecard. I see that like he's not immune to the idea of an outer scorecard that like other, you know, caring what other people think of him.

However, he listens to himself first and foremost and he carries an inner scorecard and he marks his actions and his choices in his life on what he

22:29

thought would be the right choice and what he thinks is a good life for him, which is totally different than what other people have. But he's he says that that's the importance of having an a strong inner scorecard.

Yeah. I mean this isn't rocket science.

This is like very basic stuff. It's very basic human psychology.

I want to ask

22:45

you about silence. You're um I think there's two reasons why I love your book or all of your books.

I think the first takeaway is that it's about human nature and human nature generally doesn't change. Uh that's the point of it and so

23:01

you kind of like give a blue blueprint for that. But the second thing is that particularly with the 48 laws of power, the most important thing is self-control, which is quite challenging.

And in particular, you write a lot and you talk a lot about silence. And you're like, it's actually better to say as least as possible

23:17

because when you talk too much, you make yourself look stu stupid or you reveal your true intentions, which you don't always want to do. With social media and like particularly Sean and I's job, it's like very easy to talk too much or to talk a lot.

Is there any examples of you

23:33

think that someone who's popular or someone who's doing a really good job of sort of a masterclass on how to use silence to their advantage? I think of of various musicians like a Michael Jackson or Beyonce.

I mean

23:48

Michael Jackson is sort of before the era obviously of social media but he was somebody who knew that occasionally he had to withdraw completely from the public eye. And um the thing about Michael Jackson was he was very clever and very kind of savvy about things.

And

24:07

he um actually had the 48 laws of power and um when he died his estate had the book and they auctioned it. Somebody bought it for $300,000.

But if you look on it, he annotated everything in there, right? He wrote on

24:22

the margins, etc. But the thing that Michael Jackson understood before he even read the book was the importance of disappearing.

So he understood the public very well and the magic of attention, right? Cuz attention is the whole game when you're a celebrity.

24:39

And he understood that when you're too present, then people know you too well. They take you for granted.

So he would disappear for several years in between albums. Nobody knew what he was doing.

And it made everybody talk about him, made everybody fantasize about him, made everybody wonder what's the next trick

24:56

that Michael Jackson's going to perform. Beyonce will do the same thing.

You know, I was once asked by um by a famous female rapper named Sidi. She we were having dinner and she asked me the same question like I I'm in social media.

How

25:13

do I disappear? if I disappear.

Well, it's not a matter that like you you're gone for for several months, but you don't have to post every day. You have to create some mystery around you.

And even if you do post, you're not so obvious. You're not saying exactly who

25:30

you are, exactly what you had for breakfast, exactly the clothes that you're wearing, you create some mystery around you. That is a form of silence.

That is a form of disappearing. Because the whole point is if people know exactly who you are, there's no fantasy

25:46

element in anymore and they're going to get bored with you and they're going to turn their attention to somebody else who seems interesting for the moment, right? So, you can be too present.

You can be too in in people's face. They know everything about you and they start to take you for granted.

You're too

26:02

familiar. So, if you're in the public eye, you have to shake things up.

People have to go, I thought that you were like this, Sam, but now I'm getting this idea that maybe I didn't know who you are. You can do that by disappearing for a

26:18

week or so and then people are wondering what happened to Sam, why isn't he posting? Or you can do it by putting things on social media that kind of scramble people's expectations of you, scramble what people think of you.

I know in in in my line of work, if I

26:34

wrote the same book, if I did the 48 lost power part two for my second book, it would probably have some success. People would be interested in it, but it starts to get predictable, right?

So, I make sure every new book that I do is different, goes off in a different

26:50

direction, so people can't take me for granted. So, people don't know what I'm going to do next.

keeping them guessing as to what the next subject is. Going off in a new direction and challenging them is part of the game.

So if you become too predictable, people are going

27:06

to tune you out and they're going to move on to somebody else. And so changing the scrambling their expectations is a form of silence is creating mystery because that's what this is all about.

Sean, do you ever think about this stuff?

27:22

I thought of it when uh Sam said something kind of amazing to me. Uh he said, you know, we're doing this podcast and not long ago, a couple years ago, we were in a group chat where a bunch of us who had 10,000 followers were like, you know, we want to get to 100,000.

Let's make it and we called it the 100,000

27:37

club and we we all started posting and and we got there. And he said something like, um, my goal is by the time I'm 40 to be off the internet, like like just just sort of disappear from the internet.

Uh, and I really never I've only ever heard of people saying, "I

27:53

want to become more famous." Um, not and and more more digital and have a bigger platform and a bigger audience and more followers. And it was the first time I'd heard somebody in my friend group say the exact opposite, like the goal is to push delete when I turned 40.

I almost didn't believe it.

28:09

In fact, I still only half believe it. Um, and but I loved it.

It and I and I think Sam also does a good job of the scramble. He'll, you know, on one hand he's'll be a CEO of a media company and then he'll post a video of himself skateboarding and like or

28:24

dunking and like you could I didn't even know you're athletic and you and many times on this podcast in the last 5 years of this podcast he's come on and be like I decided I'm a fitness influencer now and then he comes back and changes it and he's like I'm all about fashion and style and I'm like dude no offense but you're not the first guy I think of when it comes to fashion

28:40

but this idea and and he'll annoyingly quote you Robert. He'll be like, "Whatever.

Rule number seven, reinvent yourself." I told him I was picking up the piano this year. He's like, "I love it.

Reinvent yourself." And I was like, "That's a much, you know, grander, you know, uh, frame for what I'm doing." But

28:55

I appreciate that. I like that.

I like go I do like going back to the bottom of the mountain. And so, um, when you're saying this about silence or about disappearing, you know, I don't think there's a lot of that, which makes it, I think, even more valuable.

It's more rare. It's more different.

Um, but I also think it comes with a season. Like, you need a almost a season

29:11

of loudness to get people to care. Or if you just if you're nobody and you disappear, then you never were anybody, right?

Like but if you have a season of loudness and then it's followed by a season of silence, that seems more optimal. That's what I wrote in my I'm as you can see I'm taking notes while we do this.

That's what I wrote on there is this this is seasonal and I think I have

29:27

been one track minded about too many things where it's like this is good, therefore always do this and actually um you do need different seasons and how you're how you're going to operate and that combination is what's more powerful. Yeah.

No, I couldn't agree with you more. Yeah.

So, so what is Sam gonna do

29:42

when he turns 40 then? Uh, that's a great question.

But, uh, the reason I said that was, uh, well, how old are you now? I'm 36.

I just turned 36. The reason I said that was because I think that I I do believe in reinventing

29:58

yourself. Like, I'm not, you know, blowing smoke.

I like your your work has had a profound impact on me. But I I believe in reventing yourself.

But I also believe that wherever your life ends and wherever you are like the goal is to f you know find your life's purpose and go after it. But there's like these weird pivots to get there.

It's not a straight line. And I believe

30:14

in like these forcing forcing functions to make you pivot to kind of find where you're supposed to be. So where will that pivot lead you when you get off the internet?

You don't know. You're going to discover when it happens.

You're open to it. You just know that at some point

30:29

you want something else. Yeah.

I I I don't know. But I think that like I think that I'm a I'm a gregarious person.

I talk a lot. And I actually think that um I think that I think that for the last 20 years since the internet has been around, you know, you you hear

30:46

the a word authenticity thrown thrown around a lot. Yeah.

And I actually think that based off of your works and and reading history, being authentic is like that's actually kind of a new thing. Like people that's a relatively new idea to

31:02

be authentic because now you can just film yourself on a camera and you've been told to be authentic. But people the most powerful people on earth they they're not really authentic.

They wear masks and they're acting. And I think that like an interesting takeaway from

31:17

your book is to understand what outcome you want and which masks you need to wear. And I actually think that being authentic is over glamorized and actually is actually ineffective when you want your particular goal.

And

31:32

I actually think that it's for some reason we think being authentic is good. And and and I don't know if I agree with that.

I think of of um too often we humans get trapped in in kind of words and things that are black and white. They're the this or the that.

So you can

31:50

create the veneer, the appearance of authenticity, right? Which is very important.

It's a very important quality in the public eye. It doesn't mean that you're completely faking it.

It just means that there is something about you that's natural that you that is very powerful

32:07

about you. But you're a conscious of it.

You're not just operating, you know, without thinking about it. You're conscious of what makes you look authentic and you kind of up it and you kind of lean into it and you kind of create it.

Okay? And then maybe in four

32:24

or five years it's a different mask or a different form of authenticity that you have. But it doesn't mean that it's completely fake.

So I think it's important for a politician, for an entertainer, for anybody in the public eye to create the appearance of

32:41

authenticity, that they're not somebody fake, that they're not saying things just for attention, that they actually believe it. But you have to be aware that that's the game that you're playing.

People who aren't aware of the game that they are playing have no control over themselves. They will say

32:58

stupid things. they will be authentic when it's no when their when their authentic character is no longer interesting, right?

Because tastes change and maybe right now kind of um saying what you think about certain

33:14

things is cool, but in 3 years it won't be cool and you'll look stupid. So you have to be aware of who you are and you have to adapt to the times and you have to kind of play a middle game where you know the importance of appearing

33:29

authentic and and playing that game but you're also aware of it and you can consciously control it. Yeah.

You have a few of these quotes that are so good. I just want you to unpack them.

So I kind of want to read you something that stood out to me that resonated and

33:45

just hear you kind of riff on it. Um, and maybe where that comes from or where you think that that needs to be applied or like if you could shake somebody, get them to sort of hear this message, you know, what's that?

Cuz uh, uh, one of them I tweeted out today, it was great. It was you talked about how being timid

34:02

is very dangerous. And you basically said um, you know, don't take action when you have hesitation or doubt.

It infects your execution. And the quote was, "Timidity is dangerous.

Be better to enter with boldness. Any mistakes that you commit through audacity are

34:17

easily corrected with more audacity. Everyone admires the bold.

No one honors the timid. It's a very important quote for me because um timidity is is to me one of the worst sins that I think people have, right?

And it's what is

34:34

causing you to not be successful in life. Right?

Boldness is the most important quality that you can develop. And first of all, get rid of this misconception that some people are born bold and others are born timid.

When we're a child, we're bold as hell. All

34:50

children are born bold, right? They know what they want.

They scream. They yell.

They get their parents to do things. The parents are their slaves essentially.

Children are born bold. You become timid.

It becomes a habit. You become afraid.

You become differential. You're

35:08

always saying yes. You're always trying to please people.

It becomes your face just becomes like that and you lose a sense of that boldness that you once had. And the the the main thing around that idea is that people are assessing you in these kind

35:26

of nonverbal ways. They're reading your body language.

And when they can sense that you don't have confidence, that you're doubtful, that you're hesitant, they don't want to join you. They don't want to be part of your team.

They don't want to listen to you. They tune you

35:42

out. They don't respect you.

Okay? So, if you start something, a project, a business, and you're not quite sure of it, that kind of radiates outward.

That spirit of your hesitation, people can feel it, and it has a a quality that

36:00

that repulses people. They don't want to join you.

But if you show boldness and confidence, even if it's not real, you fake it. Even if you make yourself believe that you're confident and bold, it excites people.

We want to be around

36:15

people like that. I know when I wrote the 50th law and I first met 50 Cent, I was amazed by how confident this guy was.

And it made me feel ashamed that I'm not as as confident as he is, that I was even a little bit timid. It excited

36:32

me and it excited everyone around him. They wanted to be part of his team.

They wanted because it fed off of them. We all want to be infected by the energy of someone who's bold, who knows what they want, right?

So that's the main thing is

36:48

your first impressions are critical. And if people see you as timid and differential and all closed and not so certain, they're going to run away from you.

They're unconsciously they're not going to want to be part of your team. Well, the one of the best parts about this is there's so many levels to this.

37:04

So when I tweeted this quote out, uh, Daresh, who's this, you know, co-founder of a 2030 billion dollar company, retweeted says, "This is exactly what I needed to hear today." Yeah. Isn't that crazy?

I saw that. I thought that was awesome.

We just did a podcast um with this guy, Hayes Barard. He's probably, I don't

37:20

know, one of the top thousand wealthiest people in the world. And we we wanted to do this podcast.

And most people when they come on the podcast, they might agree to do it. And then we sort of badge them to be like, "Hey, would you um you know, can we get on a call, maybe

37:35

talk a little beforehand?" Or, "Hey, we've got some ideas, but what we might talk about, you know, you you've published so much work that it's we know where we know where your thoughts are already." But for people who don't publish, like you kind of want to find what are your big ideas and um most people put in, you know, very little effort. He was the exact this guy Hayes

37:52

was the exact opposite. He takes a ton of action.

He calls, he's got his own brainstorm. He's decided if I'm going to enter this, if I'm going to do this, it doesn't matter if it's just a a 2-hour podcast recording, like I'm going to try to do this as best as this can be done.

And so he was like going full force. And he said, "Come out and hang out with me

38:08

for the day. Come do my morning routine.

Let's hang out all day." And then he's like, "Well, let's" He's like, "I do this thing in the middle of Lake Tahoe. I go I do the breath work.

I jump in the ocean. I jump in the lake.

It's cold. Um I watch the sun rise." And he goes, "I'm on such a high.

I'm in such a peak mental state." He's like, I think if we

38:24

do the podcast right after that, it'll be the best podcast we could we could possibly do. So, I go out there and I do I spend all day with this guy and he's so bold.

Meaning, the way he just approaches life is super bold. Even after we do the breath work and stuff, he's like, you know what?

Every day I heard you a great quote, do something

38:40

new every day. It marks the day.

It keeps you growing, keeps you fresh, keeps you alive. You know what I've never done?

I've never swam to those rocks out there. Let's try to swim to those rocks.

And so, we jump in the water. We try to swim to the rocks.

And I'm just around this guy and I ask him about Elon Musk cuz he worked with Elon

38:56

for about 10 years and he talks about Elon the way I talk about him. He goes I go tell me you know describe Elon in a word.

He goes the ultimate alpha and because Elon I would say is probably the biggest um example of boldness and and like the solution to

39:12

making a mistake through Audacity is more Audacity. I think he is the number one on earth out of 8 billion people at doing that.

And um seeing that this guy was around him and had the same impression of like he thought he was timid once he saw you know the the level

39:28

that Elon played at um I just w there's so many levels to this. Yeah.

I mean um we're infected by the energy of the people around us, right? And we can we pick up things.

We we're too in tune to words and and

39:44

and we don't realize that we're actually there's an animal part of our nature and that animal part of our nature is picking up the energy the signs that we can read and and how people in the tone in their voice in how they stand in

39:59

their posture. And when we when we feel somebody who's confident it kind of rubs off on us we want to be around it.

We want more of it. Right?

I have a chapter in the 48 laws of power called infection. And the opposite happens where people who are

40:17

overly dramatic or kind of dramat drama queens who are always have some terrible thing happening to them. They're always a victim and they just, you know, and they sort of suck you into their drama and they can destroy your life.

We're infected by the energy of the people

40:33

around us. That's the most important takeaway that I would give here.

when you're seeing what's going on right now um on social media or whatever, it's it's kind of fun after reading your books because I'm like, "Oh, that's interesting. There's that thing.

There's that thing." Is there anyone out there who uh you not exactly look up to, but

40:51

you're like, "Oh, they are playing the power game like textbook perfect." Uh, it's a good question, but I don't really think I can answer it because the problem is that you do need time to to see what people are truly like, you

41:08

know. So, I remember um some 25 years ago or 24 years ago, I met a man named Dove Charnie who ended up um becoming the founder of the company American Apparel.

I met him when he was just starting out and man that guy was

41:26

charisma in a ball. He was in insane this level of confidence, right?

He was incredible and he built this factory, this vertically um organized factory in Los Angeles. He created an inc an empire American Apparel

41:42

and I thought he was brilliant and he got me to join the board of directors and I was on the board of directors for American Apparel for several years until it ended. But then over the time we realized this guy has incredible flaws, right?

He

41:58

doesn't have self-control. He seems confident but in the end he was making some really bad decisions because he wasn't flexible.

So, you know, I could say uh, you know, certain artists who are able to sort of stay on top of

42:13

their game seem to me to be kind of power players because they know how to mix things up. And I mentioned someone like Beyonce, I would say somebody like 50 Cent, I'd say people like Jay-Z.

These are people who understand the attention game and how to play it. And

42:29

that's a very important part of the 48 laws of power. Appearances, how you appear.

But with politicians, I will not go anywhere near that because we have no way of knowing. We have no way of seeing in the present moment.

I see I see so

42:44

many stupid people out there who immediately react to something in the news and make their judgment about this was great or that was stupid. I'm sorry.

You have no idea. In two years, we will know if it was great or if it was stupid.

And in 20 years, we'll even have a better idea. And in 200 years, we'll

43:02

even know for certain. Right?

So I can't even go near judging about political figures. Entertainers I can see.

I think we have some some value there, some metrics. Um and in sports obviously we do.

But um who who are some of those folks?

43:18

Well, you know um I'm being a little bit selfish here, but I'm friends with um a head coach of the NBA, Mark Dageno, who's the coach of the Oklahoma City Thunder, and they just won the NBA championship. I knew him eight years ago when he was

43:36

the coach of the G-League team at the Oklahoma City Thunder. And this guy is absolutely brilliant at the game of power.

And it's not like he's Machavelian, not at all. He's a great leader, but he understands there's

43:54

no there's no more difficult job in the world than being an NBA coach. You have 12 or 15 people with these incredible egos who all think they're the greatest, right?

And you have to build them into a team, into a spirit that's one, that's unified, that wants

44:11

to play the game, right? He understands perfectly human nature and psychology.

And he built himself from the ground up as as a coach of the G-League. And then he started off as the coach of the Thunder.

and they were very bad the

44:27

first couple of years, but he was very patient. He had a goal in mind.

I tell people, you know, we're so distracted. We're so confused in the social media world that we can't think, let alone 3 months ahead, but even try to think a

44:43

year or five years ahead. Like a plan, right?

My god, I can't think that far ahead. But it's powerful when you have a plan that goes two years, three years down the road.

It gives you a sense of control like this is what I want. This

44:59

is what's important. This feeds my overall goal.

This is irrelevant. It doesn't mean you're inflexible.

It just means that you have a direction. And people don't have direction these days.

This man had direction. He had a plan.

He knew exactly how he was going to lead

45:15

his team to a championship. Now, of course, he couldn't predict everything.

who you draft, etc. But to me, the way he man he manufactured this recent championship is one of the most brilliant examples of the 48 laws of

45:30

power. I'm not going to take credit for it by any means, but he's a figure on there who's going to be a coach to reckon with for the next 10, 20 years.

He's the Phil Jackson of our era. He's somebody I would point out.

And Phil Jackson was somebody that I greatly

45:45

admired who was definitely a man of power because he understood human nature and psychology. I love that.

I want to ask you about 50 Cent because um when somebody said, "Yeah, you wrote a book with 50 Cent." I hadn't actually I hadn't read the 50th law, so I don't

46:01

know that book. Uh literally I learned about that book today.

It's awesome. It looks like it's got like gold pages.

It looks like a Bible. bought like the the faux leather cover one just now and I'm like excited to get it.

But the funny thing is you and 50 Cent. I mean, I couldn't think of two more

46:16

opposite people culturally. It's like, you know, like I look at your room and I look at where you are and I'm just like, okay, you're basically like what I think of when I think of an author and then 50 Cent has this incredible story, you know, coming up from the streets and getting shot and becoming a hip-hop icon

46:33

and then like a business guy or whatever. So, um I'm just curious like a how did that come about and b you said he was incredibly charismatic.

Can you tell any specific stories about like either one of two things? Your impressions when you met him and like what stood out to you about this guy cuz

46:49

you you know you said you're infected by the energy of the people around you. Like tell me I would love a specific story or where you think most people don't actually really appreciate 50's story or you know what what actually he's done.

you know, people have a very surface level understanding of him as like, oh, he's just some rapper guy.

47:06

Well, I mean, first of all, you have to understand his his story a little bit. I mean, a lot of people know it, but um, you know, he was his mother died when he was like eight or nine years old.

She was a hustler herself. And so, he was raised by his grandparents.

He grew up

47:24

on the streets of Southside, Queens. And he was a drug dealer.

He was a hustler. He dr crack.

and he talks about it in his his really great autobiography from pieces to weight. I highly recommend that book.

Okay. But how many people from that

47:40

background ended up being who he was being this successful this multi-millionaire? Maybe I don't he's not a billionaire but incredibly successful, right?

Nobody. So something about him is different.

Something about him is very exciting and

47:57

very interesting. Okay.

So that alone tells you something is unique about about 50. And so when I met him, you know, I was a little bit intimidated because I'm I'm as

48:12

Did he reach out to you or you to him? Yes.

His his literary agent reached out to me and set up a meeting in New York in in the back room of a steakhouse on Madison Avenue. Right.

It's like a scene out of The Godfather or something. And

48:28

so, you know, you can see I'm this kind of thin, slightly nerdy white guy and, you know, he's surrounded with his posy and he's kind of he's buff and he's a little bit intimidated. I was kind of intimidated, but then I learned later on

48:44

that he was sort of intimidated by me because he thought this he was meeting the 48 laws of power guy, the sort of Henry Kissinger type and he was a little bit uh intimidated as well. But what impressed me most about him was that he

48:59

was very calm. He has this very calm energy.

So people think of him as being really out there and angry and thuggish, but that's not who he is. He's a very calm person.

He's always seeking to be in control of a situation. He wants power.

And you don't get power by being

49:16

out there of being yelling and being angry and being thuggish. So I was very impressed by how kind of thoughtful he was.

He's very he's actually a very interesting thinker. And so in America, everything is so divided.

49:33

Everything is just so conventional and boring. It just drives me crazy.

like a book between a a nerdy white guy, Jewish white guy from Los Angeles and this rapper from Southside Queens. That that's that's that's a really odd mix.

49:50

That's exactly why you do something like that to bring two people who were strange, who were very weird. It's not a normal combination.

Bring them together, something interesting can happen. So yeah, I was with him for about six months and I witnessed some some very

50:05

interesting things. I remember He was on a phone call in in in one of his um offices and doors were closed.

It's just him and I, but he was on a call with um a a a female celebrity whose name I will

50:20

not mention. And I was going, man, this guy is a seducer.

He is really good at it, right? You know, his voice and what he was saying to her and how he was making her laugh.

He was seducing me. It was incredible,

50:36

right? This guy's got skills in the art of seduction.

I could see that right away. I remember once it was in like August, I can't remember what year, like 2006 or so, he was about to drop a a record and

50:52

they they dropped a single that he had done with Robin Thick. We're going way back here.

and it got leaked onto the internet and Chris Lighty, who was his manager at the time, was furious because they had a whole marketing plan laid out

51:09

for the roll out of the song and then it got leaked to the internet. It just completely ruined their whole marketing.

Everybody was freaking out. They were so upset and angry.

What do we do? We're going to take a lawsuit.

We're going to bring them to court. We're going to get them to take it off the internet.

I was in there in the room when 50 got the

51:25

news. Once again, he was so calm.

He was like Buddha. And he goes, "No, man.

This is the best thing that ever happened to us. Here's what we're going to do.

We're going to go with it. We're not going to fight it.

We're going to create a story. They created their own story.

We're not

51:40

going to try and and repress it. We're going to create our own version of what happened.

And here's what I'm going to do. We're going to create this story that 50 Cent freaked out and was so angry and up so upset.

He took the big screen TV off the off the wall and he broke it on the ground. He was so angry.

51:57

He took his cell phone and he threw it at somebody. He said, "Blood's going to roll.

Heads are going to roll. This is what we're going to do." Right?

It was total theatrical. He never none of it ever happened.

He got his team to take the big screen TV off the TV off the

52:12

wall and and smash it and they would film it, you know, as if he had done this. And that was the story.

Now instead of 50 reacting and getting all upset which made him look weak, he turned it around and made it about him and his anger and that's what the only

52:30

thing people could talk about in the internet. That was brilliant, right?

Instead of freaking out, he was calm. He thought of the internet is all about attention.

It's all about creating stories. I'm going to take control of this and I'm going to create my own story.

And I was I was absolutely

52:47

amazed. You know, that that that to me was the 48 laws of power and action.

I mean, I had so many stories with him, you know. It was probably one of the most fun elements of my life.

You know, going to parties with him, going to the awards ceremony in Vegas, meeting Floyd

53:03

Mayweather Jr., going to his house in Connecticut. It was a trip.

It was like a drug trip. It was amazing.

I have lots of stories, but that gives you an idea. your life's so fascinating because like you know Tupac was interested in Makaveli and then you 48 Laws of Power came along and that's like the new

53:19

version of Makaveli. I originally saw 48 Laws of Power because I don't even know if it was true but there was like a rumor or I saw on the internet that there's this book that is banned in prisons because it's so powerful and all the prison and I was like I don't I don't know if that's true but like you I'm hooked.

I'm in. Well, if it's banned

53:36

for prison it must be the best. And then you're huge in the hip-hop community and black community and I was like this is I'm I'm I'm in again.

I love this. I want to read what these guys are all about.

And so you must have had a really exciting life because you are not a

53:51

person who I would think would be buddies with 50 or whoever else you're friends with. And yet you have the best type of fame where like these guys who normal people admire, they're those guys admire you.

Even the billionaires, the athletes, all the successful people admire you. So, you must have met so

54:07

many awesome people. I I've met a lot of awesome people and um you know, I must say I'm I'm very very grateful for my life.

It's been a blessing because I struggled for so many years. I know what it's like to struggle in life.

I know what it's like to have no success. It

54:25

came very late for me. So, um having it at my age when I was basically 39, 40 almost was very meaningful.

So, I don't take any of it for granted. And I remember

54:40

I I was when I wrote the 48 Laws of Power, I was living in this crappy one-bedroom apartment in Santa Monica. I mean, it was you by the ocean, so you can't complain, but it was a really kind of small, cramped little apartment because I, as I said, I had no success.

I wrote the 48 Laws of Power in that

54:57

apartment. And then suddenly, you know, I'm I'm on television, things are happening.

Okay, it's a little bit weird. But then I was invited to Italy in early like four or five months after it came out cuz it came out in Italian, you know, the land

55:14

of Makaveli. and I'm invited to go give this kind of conference and suddenly this guy is whisking me around to meet all these celebrities and we're on the island of Capri and paparazzi are following me and

55:29

taking pictures of me and I get to meet the ex-p prime minister of of Italy who's a very famous person there named Andreotei since passed away the most Machavevelian Italian politician of the modern era I'm sitting in his office I'm

55:45

interviewing you go, man, my life right now, just 5 months ago, it was nothing, and now I'm doing this. It was almost too hard to believe.

So, I take none of it for granted. It's it's been it's been an incredible ride, and I'm I'm I'm very

56:00

grateful. What triggered the transformation in you?

Most people don't have this sort of career renaissance where you figure it out, you put it together and you start suddenly you go from a sort of nondescript um you know situation to to suddenly

56:17

you're in this guy's office in Italy in the island of Capri you know uh what triggered the transformation in you at age 37 38? Well, a bit of luck.

Um, so I, you know, I had spent all of these years. I wasn't a loser.

I worked at

56:34

Esquire magazine in New York. I had jobs in journalism.

I lived in New York for several years. I worked, you know, I had jobs.

I lived in Europe and I wandered around. I, you know, but I was always writing and trying to figure life out.

I never gave up on myself. I learned

56:51

different skills at writing. I also had lots of [ __ ] jobs with very bad bosses.

So when I was 35 years old, I was in Italy um on a project that I won't even discuss. It was so stupid.

I met a man

57:08

there who was there for the same project who was a book packager and um we were both really unhappy with what we were doing there. We were walking in Venice, Italy, and he's Dutch.

And he asked me if I had an idea

57:24

for a book. And that was the turning point in my life to put it down into one like second of time, that exact moment in Venice, Italy in July of 1995.

57:40

He asked me that question and everything clicked. I I improvised what would turn into the 48 laws of power.

All of my bad jobs, all of my horrible bosses with their egos and their political games, all the crap that I had dealt with in

57:56

Hollywood cuz I had worked in Hollywood for years just came flowing out of me almost like I was vomiting. And I said, you know, power, the book about power, how timeless it is.

In the time of Louis the 14th, if you made a mistake, you

58:13

were put in prison and you were executed. Now, if you make a mistake, the same mistake, you're fired.

It's the same game. You're just not as bloody, right?

And I told him a story about Louis the 14th and his finance minister, the opening story of the 48 laws of

58:29

power. He got very excited and he goes, "This will be a great book.

I will pay you to write a treatment for it and then we'll try and sell it. And I was so desperate, I was so hungry, I

58:45

was so depressed that I came back to Los Angeles. I actually borrowed money from my parents so I could I could afford to try and write this treatment because he was actually offering money once he had the treatment.

I was so desperate and so depressed that

59:02

I put every goddamn ounce of energy I had into it. All of my bad experiences life.

Everything that I had been through, all the skills I had developed, I just poured into that treatment. It was literally get rich or die trying at that moment.

And I wrote a great

59:18

treatment. He loved it.

And the rest is history. So part of it was luck.

If I hadn't met this man, I wouldn't be here talking with you. But part of it was I never gave up and I had spent those 16

59:33

18 years in the wilderness developing skills. So that's what helped turn it around.

That's so awesome. And I I think I've read that um I don't know how many books you've sold in general of all of your books of your seven or eight books, but I think I read that the 48 laws of power came out in 2000 or 98.

I think

59:49

it's accelerated, right? So isn't it selling more this year or last year than it did early on?

I'd say 2024 was best year we've ever had. It was insane.

It's accelerated. Yeah.

And I think we're now close to 10 million

00:07

copies sold in the United States alone. Oh my god.

It's pretty crazy to have like a life's work, right? I mean, that's like like I don't know if you meant to do this, but like you've it's a timeless thing that can be readable and awesome for 50 or 100 years.

Yeah. I mean, um, you know, you never

00:24

know when you write a book like that. It's a very weird book.

And that could be good or it could be bad. It looks strange.

You know, the design of it with the things on the side and everything broken up. It has all these stories from history.

00:41

For better or for worse, I can say nobody else has written a book that looks like that or reads like that, right? And it could have easily failed.

It could have easily bombed. I, you know, I remember, God, am I gonna have to go back to to working at some crap

00:57

job after this book is a disaster? Uh, yeah, maybe.

Maybe you'll have to like go back to doing temp work or something. So, it could have easily been a disaster, but it didn't.

And so, um, it's one of those strange things. It's

01:12

very a lot of it's luck but all of it also it's how much effort I put into the work to make it kind of this timeless thing. So um yeah it's it's it's insane because you never know in life what's

01:28

going to be successful or what's not. I wanted to ask you about daily application of of the ideas from 48 Laws of Power because it's one thing to read a book to nod along, maybe even underline it, and then you close the book and you go back to being exactly the person who you are, which would be,

01:44

I think, a pretty disappointing outcome. And I think about these day-to-day situations I get in.

I'm in my car, I'm in traffic, I'm in a grocery store, I'm at a coffee shop, I'm having a just yet another meeting at work, whatever it is. I'm curious, what's one law that you

02:01

think is easily applicable to people's day-to-day life, to their normal routines of their life that they could kind of mark in their mind like, oh, he mentioned that situation. Let me approach it differently using what he's using one of Robert's sort of laws of human nature, laws of of of power.

Okay.

02:18

Well, the the try this is to um get out of the moment and to be observing the situation that's in front of you. So, so often you're just reacting to things.

You're just in the moment. You're just

02:34

listening to what people are saying. You're just in your own head, your own thoughts, your own ideas that circle around and round and round, your own emotions, what you what you happen to you in the morning.

You're not listening. And I want you to turn around

02:50

and pay deep attention and not to listen to yourself at all. To cut that off completely and to absorb your your interest, your mind, your spirit in the people you're dealing with.

This pertains to power. This pertains to seduction.

This pertains to strategy.

03:06

This pertains to war uh and to human nature, to all of my books, right? You're too self-absorbed.

So even when you go to Starbucks and you're getting your coffee, you're thinking about your own problems. You're thinking about how much prices for

03:22

coffee is going up. Okay?

No, what you do is you look at that barista and you go, "What is it like to be him or her? What is their world like?" You know, that's kind of weird that you know, probably let's say it's a it's a guy.

03:39

It's probably this is not his life's task. He's got some other interests.

What's going on in his mind in this moment? Try and read his body language and go into this almost like f story in your head of what he's like, what his

03:54

apartment looks like, what his girlfriend looks like, what his dog looks like, and think about it. Get out of yourself.

Okay? Do that again and again and again and again in every situation.

It will calm you down. It will be a form of therapy for you.

It

04:11

will also make you a superior observer of people. It'll make you a superior observer of human nature.

It will make you understand that people say that they love your ideas, but their body language actually reveals that they're not interested at all. You'll

04:27

become a superior reader of people and you won't be so self-absorbed. Right?

That is the number one skill you can develop is to get outside of yourself and to be an a supreme acute observer of people. Sam, you ever done anything like that?

04:43

I think I'm a very emotional person and I get upset. But like for example, the other day I got a ticket, like a parking ticket, and I caught the guy giving me the ticket and so I had like this interaction and like I was like, I want to yell at you.

I want to do this. I want to do that.

And I was like, wait,

04:58

hold on. I got to think about I got to reflect.

what does what does this guy want to be doing with his time right now? And how do I use my insight into his perspective to get out of this situation as opposed to saying you suck, you're this is go solve a real crime, whatever.

And so, but I think um but

05:17

related to that, the the thing before you have to do that is to control your emotions, which I work hard and I fail at all the time. But that that's what it's kind of rooted in, I think.

That's like the foundational like step, which is like don't react, reflect. The other

05:32

side of it is that um the guy who's giving you your parking ticket, you know, he's got his own life, he's got his own world. Yeah.

It's annoying as hell. You feel so help, so stupid.

Why you have you're right there, but he's still going to write the ticket, you

05:48

know? Why couldn't he wait like three minutes?

Oh, no. It's already written.

He can't he can't go back. But the people you deal with are interesting.

They're weird. They're different.

They have their own life. They have the He's He's this poor schlub

06:03

who's got this miserable job. Everybody hates him like you do.

He's got to receive all of this hate and negative energy from people. Then he has to go back to his apartment somewhere in Queens and, you know, and and other people are kind of, you know, yelling at

06:20

him. He's got all this internalized anguish and anxiety.

Get into the story of other people because they're interesting. There were I know I'm making this up.

I never met this guy giving you the ticket or if it's a woman, but it's fun to think about it. It's fun to get out of it.

06:36

It's fun to imagine what they're like. And then you slowly start developing this muscle where you start thinking about other people and not yourself and getting into their stories and figuring out what makes them tick.

So if you need to seduce them, if you need to get this

06:54

guy giving you a ticket to not give you a ticket, you have the way to do it because you understand who he is. You understand how much negative attention this guy gets every single day he's out on his job.

And your first reaction will be, "Man,

07:10

that must be a terrible job. I'm so sorry for you.

Say something that kind of disarms him." Well, maybe now you have the power to get him to stop writing that ticket. Whereas opposed to your aggressive energy.

[ __ ] man. I deal with that.

Every single person gives that to me. I'm not going to still I'm going to still write your ticket

07:25

just to spite you, you a-hole. No, you diffuse the situation by coming up to him with like, man, you must have a horrible I'm really sorry that you I don't know, whatever it is.

You know, that's the approach. Well, have you ever read uh Chris Voss's book, Never Split the Difference?

Like,

07:41

if there was any takeaway, it's basically uh so Chris Voss was like a FBI negotiator and he teaches people how to negotiate. And like the main thing that he teaches is exactly what you said, which is don't react to what you hear.

Put yourself in their shoes and actually verbalize and label how they

07:57

feel. And that's an immediate disarming thing to get what you want, basically.

and Sean, I don't know, uh, you know, like me and Sean have both talked about the book The Game, which I I I assume you you know all about, Neil Straws. Um, and for a 14-year-old boy, that was like

08:14

the greatest thing ever because we like desperately wanted to meet girls and it was like a very pop pop pop um poppy way of like learning about it. It was like easy to learn and read about.

But you have a book I is it I have to remember the numbers. 33 rules of seduction.

Is that it? No, it's called The Art of Seduction.

08:32

Art of Seduction. 33 Laws of War.

Uh I'm I'm getting them a bunch of I'm getting them confused, but you have a whole book on seduction, which like I wish I would have read this when I was younger because like you outline like all these interesting ways basically seduction not meaning just sleep with people, but like

08:47

seduce someone into like basically doing what you want them to do. And it gives like actually amaz it gives like your books Sean uh Robert's books are pretty great.

They like tell you the history, but then they also the history of like a person who's a story of this rule, but

09:05

then you outline like the tactics and strategy, which is like the best format. And so, uh, that was that was another winner.

And it taught all these like tactics on like seducing people or getting them to like buy into your whatever you want them to be buy into. Yeah.

I mean, I I know Neil Strauss and

09:20

I, you know, he talked he quotes the art of seduction in the game. Um, but the art of seduction is different.

is not a book for pickup artists. It's a book for making people fall in love with you.

It's a book for making people interested

09:36

in you. It makes a book It's a book for people who who you want to like fund your project or who you want to hire you.

It also is something that you maybe want to seduce a woman or a man for for sex or whatever. Yes.

But seduction is

09:53

something that you do every single day of your life, right? you're always bad at it or you're good at it, but you're always constantly having to make people like you in some way or other.

So, I wanted to come up with the ultimate psychology of what it makes people what

10:10

draws people to you and what repulses people from you. So, sort of that's what the artist seduction is about.

Did it make you more likable? Were you uh were were pre and post Yeah.

was pre and post uh Robert different?

10:25

I uh I got interested in seduction in the 80s when I well obviously I was a young man um you know and I was living in Paris. I was 22.

I was working in a hotel in Paris where all the models

10:41

stayed for the for the fashion weeks or whatever. The most beautiful women in the world were staying at this hotel at 22 years old, you know, and come and it was insane.

And there was this guy who would come by. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

He knew that these were all

10:58

these incredibly beautiful women were. He was this tall, good-looking Brazilian guy.

He was so good at the seduction game. I was fascinated by it.

How come he could get all of these women to go out with him on dates and I couldn't do anything? I couldn't get anywhere.

I

11:13

kind of got interested in it. And then I started reading books, literature about it and I kind of got fascinated by the whole phenomenon of seduction.

And I went through my 20s, what I would call my years as a rake,

11:29

where I was, you know, I was fairly successful at meeting and seducing women. Not on his level, not on 50 Cents level, but on my own level, I was pretty good at the game.

Um, and so I was fascinated by years before I wrote the

11:46

book. And then when I had the chance to write it, you know, all of my all of that knowledge and experience came into into writing the book.

Some of my own failures and some of my own successes. So it it's been something that had been on my mind for many many years.

In

12:02

general, how self-actualized do you feel like you are in these different book categories, power, seduction, etc. like are you if a 10 is kind of like what you think is somebody who's sort of maximally doing these things maybe the best examples of people you've you've

12:17

met or or or have read about where do you put yourself and and is bookw writing an effective way to move up that ladder you know what I mean does did the study and the process of writing it actually help well a writer is a writer I'm not out there uh running for

12:33

political office I'm not you know uh on a stage entertaining people I'm a writer Okay. So you judge me by that barometer and not by other things.

And um I talk about I think about like Makaveli himself.

12:50

He was this mid-level diplomat in in Florence in at the early part of the 16th century. He was not successful.

He was not powerful. He came from the middle classes.

And then um he aligned himself with the

13:07

Republic of Florence. And then when the Medici came back into power, he was in disgrace and he was in he was imprisoned briefly and he went off into the countryside.

And to get himself back in power, he wrote a book called The Prince, right? This was going to

13:23

ingratiate himself with the Medici and maybe get him so he could come back and be a diplomat again. Okay, that one book that he wrote some hundred pages long.

Can you you cannot quantify the

13:38

influence that that one book has had, right? It's insane.

I mean, maybe next to the Bible, you can't think of another book that has had greater impact. All of the historical figures since Mchaveli who read the prince, who

13:55

internalized the lessons, who loved him or hated him, who reacted against him or for him, if you had to measure that power, it's insane. It's off the charts.

And yet, he never made any money from it. He never realized that power.

But

14:10

that is true power, true influence in the world. So we can look at all the people around us who would we imagine as having power with all their money and their billions but ideas are the most

14:26

powerful thing in this world. Okay?

You can put all you want price tags on on on material things but something completely immaterial an idea is what is most powerful in this world. So when somebody

14:42

has an idea for a great business or Steve Jobs has an idea for a new iPod, it's in his head. It's in his brain.

He's thinking and then it becomes reality. That is power.

The power of thinking of ideas is greater than all

14:58

the other nonsense in this world. So I can't dunk a basketball unlike Sam.

I I can't dance very well at all. I can't sing.

I have a stroke. So my body is kind of messed up right now.

But on the level of ideas,

15:14

I have tremendous amount of power and influence. And I and I know it because of people writing to me.

I'm not bragging at all. It's just very real.

So on that barometer, I have actualized it. It's not whether I

15:29

can go out there and command an army or become president because that's not my game. My game is ideas.

And on that level, I have actualized myself. I have realized my life's task and my power.

And after I die, I'm not going to be

15:46

like Makiabelli with his 600 years of influence. But I will have some influence over people after I die.

That is power. That is ideas.

Ideas shape this world. And people have lost that kind of lesson.

They're so into

16:02

material things that they don't understand the spiritual intellectual power of thinking which can change this world. That's a good ass answer.

That was a great I mean that was a great answer. Do you do you have your oneliner of your life's task?

I'm just curious.

16:17

Yeah. To change to change people, to change how they think, and to change how people act.

That's always been my my goal here, you know. Um there's too much kind of stupidity.

There's too much kind of people who don't understand

16:33

themselves, who don't understand power. I'm not saying I'm superior in that game because believe me, I've made many, many mistakes, never outshine the master.

I violated that law at least two times, maybe even three times. I'm a flawed

16:51

human being. So, I'm not the epitome of the 48 laws of power.

But I've witnessed people being so stupid, being so single-minded, being so inflexible, so unable to adapt that it infuriates me that they don't understand how to

17:08

actually operate in this world. So I'm trying my books, my life's task is to enlighten people on that front.

Are you a happy person? like um because when I whenever I read your books, it's a very serious topic

17:23

and you spend your life reading and writing about very serious things. Does are you able to find joy in that and be happy?

Well, you know, happiness is is is just a word and um you know, we live in our bodies and ourselves and our emotions and you know, at some hour in

17:42

the morning, I'll be very happy and excited and then two hours later something will be frustrating and it'll so we all go up and down and up and down. But I like to talk about fulfillment as opposed to happiness.

a sense that I

17:57

fulfilled, you know, I have a sense of fulfillment that I accomplished something and I have a very high sense of fulfillment. So, right now I'm writing a book.

It's very frustrating. I can't type because I had a stroke.

I can't take hikes. My life is very limited

18:14

right now. But I get to write this book and it involves so much tedium and so much difficulty.

But then I pull back and I go, "Wow, man. What a privilege this is.

And this is a book I hope that's going to change people on a very

18:29

deep level. So on the micro level of happiness, I have a lot of frustration.

I have a lot of tedium. I have a lot of things that I wish were otherwise.

But on the level of happy of fulfillment when you pull back over a course of months or years, it's off the charts. I

18:47

I have an incredible sense of accomplishment. Particularly this book here, the it's a book on the sublime.

Been working on it for six years. You have no idea the things I've had to overcome to write this book, right?

Physically, the

19:03

challenges have been insane. As I said, I can't type.

I have to handwrite everything. I have to edit in handwriting.

It's a mess. And then I have to dictate it on the computer.

Then I have to edit it with one hand. I can't take a hike to clear my mind.

I'm just

19:20

trapped in my body in my office. And yet I've written the book.

And so I'm going to feel so proud of that what I had to overcome. That to me that's more important than happiness.

You know that sense because

19:36

it's very it's something where happiness comes and goes, but a sense of fulfillment it just sort of stays with you for a long time. you've had um such a huge impact on me um you know when I was in my 20s and to this day still um you've had a really

19:51

big impact on me. So I'm personally very like honored and thankful to be able to talk to you.

But the predominantly the people who listen to this are are young men in their 20s and I hope that we've kind of been the gateway drug for that because we have a lot of awesome people on here but not everyone is um necessarily wise

20:08

or intentional which I think you have that in space. I think that's kind of your thing, which is you you you seem very intentional, very wise, and very calm, and I find that to be uh uh and it kind of infects me a little bit and and rubs off on me.

So, we appreciate you doing this. You're um you're awesome.

Hopefully, you know, I

20:24

think you you said your goal was to change people. You've changed me and hopefully this is a gateway drug to introduce you to even more uh people who you could potentially change.

I appreciate that. You know, I I don't take it for granted being invited to these podcasts.

I know sometimes I can be a little bit difficult because my schedule's a little bit uh full, but I

20:42

I'm very grateful to have audiences like this, you know. So, thank you so much for for allowing me to do this, for allowing me to to just blow hot air for an hour and a half.

I mean, look at this. This is you're in the business of ideas and influence.

I mean, this is

20:57

okay. I'm on the podcast.

I'm I'm supposed to be talking. I'm supposed to be paying attention and I'm sitting here furiously writing notes to myself of small nuggets of wisdom, little little golden nuggets that you were dropping.

So, thank you for coming on. Thank you so much for having me.

Thank you. That's it.

That's

21:13

the pod. [Music]