Believe in Yourself: The Key to Persuasion and Success w/ Robert Greene EP 1441

https://lewishowes.com/mindset - Order a copy of my new book The Greatness Mindset today! My guest today, Robert Greene, knows all about human nature. His most recent work The Laws of Human Nature covers a wide range of human characteristics that are important to understand if we want to obtain success. We can tap into these characteristics to better understand people and ourselves. Robert Greene studied at U. C. Berkley, and he received a degree in classical studies from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Robert published his first book The 48 Laws of Power at the age of 36 and has since become one of our generation’s most influential writers. He’s responsible for several inventive successes, including The 33 Strategies of War, The 50th Law, Mastery, The Art of Seduction, and his most recent work The Laws of Human Nature. In this episode you will learn,How our insecurities can motivate us. How to determine the quality of a person’s characterThe power of believing in your own success. How to be persuasive. The importance of finding your true purpose. For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1441 Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Lewis Howes?

  My friend, I am such a big believer that your mindset is everything. It can really dictate if your life has meaning, has value, and you feel fulfilled, or if you feel exhausted, drained, and like you're never going to be enough. Our brand new book, The Greatness Mindset, just hit the New York Times Bestseller back-to-back weeks, and I'm so excited to hear from so many of you who've bought the book, who've read it and finished it already, and are getting incredible results from the lessons in the book. If you haven't got a copy yet, you'll learn how to build a plan for greatness through powerful exercises and toolkits designed to propel your life forward. This is the book I wish I had when I was 20, struggling, trying to figure out life. 10 years ago, at 30, trying to figure out transitions in my life, and a book I'm glad

• 0:46Lewis Howes?

  I have today for myself. Make sure to get a copy at lewishouse.com/2023mindset to get your copy today. Again, lewishouse.com/2023mindset to get a copy today. Also, the book is on Audible now, so you can get it on audiobook as well. And don't forget to follow the show so you never miss an episode.

• 1:10Robert Greene?

  Every human is different. You are different. You have something very unique about you. That uniqueness exists for a purpose. If you follow that, if you use your uniqueness in some way, you will create something probably pretty interesting and pretty great.

• 1:28Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 1:52Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to today's special episode. Over the last 1,300-plus episodes, there have been so many impactful interviews that I've been lucky enough to have, and I always like to reflect on some of the most powerful. And this episode was one that resonated with most of you guys in the past, and I'm excited for the value it's going to bring you today as well. So I hope you enjoy today's episode.

• 2:16Lewis Howes?

  You are one of the most influential writers of the last two decades with your books, Forty Eight Laws of Power, Thirty Three Strategies of War, The Fiftieth Law, Mastery, Artist's Deduction, and now The Laws of Human Nature, which is going to be a massive hit. Make sure you guys get this book. And probably your best work in your mind ever, right? Do you think this is your best work?

• 2:38Robert Greene?

  It's hard to say. It's like choosing between your children, which is your favorite child.

• 2:43Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 2:44Robert Greene?

  It's the latest, so it is, you know, I'm very proud of it. But the thing was, I've been for 20 years, over 20 years, been writing these books. So massive amounts of research and reading, but also consulting work with people in business and other areas. So I've gathered a lot of intelligence or knowledge about people and what makes them tick. And I've seen a lot of mistakes that I've made and other people have made. So this is sort of the distillation of all of my years of research and all the things I've experienced.

• 3:16Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 3:17Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 3:18Lewis Howes?

  Where's your biggest insecurity in your life? Whether it be when you first started writing books, you know, 20 years ago to where it is now?

• 3:27Robert Greene?

  Well, I'm very insecure, like, yeah, but I try and turn it into something positive. Meaning when I finish a book, I don't really know if it's that good or if it's going to be successful. I'm very worried that I'm not connecting to the reader, to the audience. And so what that does for me is I never kind of rest. I'm never comfortable. I never assume, wow, this is a masterpiece, it's going to do really well. And so when I'm writing the book, and it's been in all my books, I'm thinking very, very deeply about the reader. How's the reader going to assimilate this information? Will it help him or her? Will it strike a chord? Will it resonate with their life?

• 4:11Robert Greene?

  Will they think of people that they know? So I'm trying to connect very, very deeply to the reader. Because I'm insecure, because I don't take them for granted. I think where a lot of writers and people go wrong is... They believe in their own myth. They believe that what they've written is so good, or that they don't have to make that effort to connect to people. You know, a lot of professors or experts or people who are in a very specific field, they assume that their knowledge is, you know, that other people know what they know. And they kind of talk down to the reader. And I never try to talk down to the reader. I try to elevate the conversation.

• 4:51Lewis Howes?

  Right. And what would you say is your main insecurity? Is it a fear of judgment? That people may not like your writing, or they may not like you, or that you're not good enough? Or what's the?

• 5:04Robert Greene?

  Probably all of that.

• 5:05Lewis Howes?

  All of it, yeah.

• 5:05Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 5:08Robert Greene?

  You know, I kind of grew up that way. My parents were not the type to coddle me or to say, "You're great, Robert." Or if I came home with straight A's, it's like, "Ah, so what?"

• 5:22Lewis Howes?

  They didn't care that much? Oh, wow. Even if you got a perfect?

• 5:24Robert Greene?

  No, they cared, but, "Oh, you can always do better."

• 5:27Lewis Howes?

  Even if you got a perfect score?

• 5:29Robert Greene?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 5:30Lewis Howes?

  Okay. Could've done it faster. You could've done, yeah.

• 5:34Robert Greene?

  Yeah, it's kind of a Jewish thing, I have to say. But, so I never felt secure about my work. Maybe when I was younger, you know, I tried to write. I tried many different forms of writing. I tried writing novels. And I think in my twenties, I was a little more grandiose. I believed that what I was writing was really great, and it wasn't. It kind of sucked. So it's been a process of also getting over that kind of youthful exuberance and, you know, taking more time and thinking more deeply about what you're doing. But I have a lot of insecurities. I mean, that's one of them.

• 6:12Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm, yeah. And you talk about detaching from our emotions. Is there, is there more value in detaching from our emotions? Or because we are emotional and insecure, we create better work by holding on to those emotions?

• 6:30Robert Greene?

  Well, that's a great question.

• 6:32Lewis Howes?

  Like, if you didn't care, do you think these books would be as, as good as they are?

• 6:38Robert Greene?

  Well, probably the source, to get back to your first question, the source of my insecurity is I kind of have a desire to please people, to impress them. I'm just being very honest here.

• 6:52Robert Greene?

  And this probably went back to very early on, so I've always wanted to get the best grades and be the best pupil in the class. But there's a weakness in that. It seems great, you're getting straight A's, you're doing well in sports, etc. But there's actually an insecurity, a self-doubt, where you're trying to please people and maybe you go a little extra hard. So in that sense, compensating for your insecurities in that way can be a positive thing. So my insecurity by itself could destroy me, in that I would never get the effort up to make, write a book, or do something.

• 7:28Lewis Howes?

  Would hold you back from putting it out.

• 7:30Robert Greene?

  Yeah, because if I doubt myself, maybe it's better never to try anything. A lot of young people have this problem. They have a negative attitude where they, they think that, well, if I don't do anything, if I just be a slacker, at least I won't fail and I can kind of make my feel, myself feel better that I'm the best slacker that there is. You know, if you don't try too hard, you're never gonna fail, you're never gonna have the pain of failure. So that's the negative side of insecurity. But it can also motivate you to try even harder, to actually get work done, and to make it something really great, and to doubt yourself constantly, you know, which is how I kind of use that.

• 8:10Lewis Howes?

  Right, using the doubt to push yourself to put out better work.

• 8:14Robert Greene?

  Yeah, I mean, it probably, you know, I had a, we can get to this, I had a stroke a couple of months ago. Probably is what led to this, and is not necessarily a good thing, but I worked so hard on this book.

• 8:25Lewis Howes?

  Five years.

• 8:26Robert Greene?

  Five years.

• 8:27Lewis Howes?

  obsessing over it, every word, every sentence.

• 8:30Robert Greene?

  Yeah, yeah, and I was thinking, you know, how can I make this more accessible? Because a lot of the information I had was from kind of heavy sources, like psychologists, people who were psychoanalysts who've studied human nature very deeply. And they use a lot of jargon and you can't really figure out exactly what they're saying. And I want to make it readable for the average reader out there. So the effort of constantly trying to connect to people.

• 9:00Robert Greene?

  Is, I think, comes from an insecurity, but it's turned into something positive.

• 9:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:05Robert Greene?

  This is a great question. I never had, never been asked this before.

• 9:08Lewis Howes?

  Do you feel like it's worth putting out these books that reach millions of people at the detriment of potential health challenges?

• 9:17Robert Greene?

  Yeah, I mean, if you ask me, if I could have a choice of not writing the book and never having this physical problem, I would have chosen writing the book.

• 9:26Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 9:26Robert Greene?

  For sure.

• 9:27Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 9:28Robert Greene?

  Because I have, I may be physically crippled a little bit and I'll get over it. But I have this for the rest of my life. I can feel really good about myself. I could die tomorrow and I know that I wrote what I wanted to create. I expressed what my life was meant to express. So that's a great feeling, that even in the worst depression I could have, with my body not responding the way I want, I can feel a great deal of pride that I actually got this thing done and it didn't kill me.

• 10:00Lewis Howes?

  Is there a way to create masterpieces?

• 10:03Robert Greene?

  Without doing that?

• 10:05Lewis Howes?

  And staying healthy and peaceful in your mind?

• 10:08Robert Greene?

  Well, you know, you'd think I would have because I exercise every day.

• 10:12Lewis Howes?

  You swim?

• 10:13Robert Greene?

  I swim. I, I, I mean, I'm a fanatic. Even now with my stroke, I'm exercising every day aerobically. And eat well, and I meditate.

• 10:23Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 10:23Robert Greene?

  And I, you know, I do everything right. But it's still, it's still led to this. Yeah, it's a good question. I think my next book, because I am getting older.

• 10:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 10:34Robert Greene?

  And this happened. I'm gonna have to kind of find a better way to do it a little bit. To still write something shorter with a lot of work, but not maybe take five years.

• 10:44Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 10:44Robert Greene?

  You know?

• 10:44Lewis Howes?

  Take a year and a half, two years, maybe three years.

• 10:46Robert Greene?

  Three years, maybe. Two, three years, yeah.

• 10:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, wow. So you're already thinking about the next book?

• 10:53Robert Greene?

  Yeah, um, in the ambulance on the way home from the hospital, I had an idea for my next book.

• 10:59Lewis Howes?

  Really? What was that?

• 11:02Robert Greene?

  Well, it's very, it's very primitive. I've not really totally developed it. But it's about how, how the bad things in life, how negative things are actually, I mean, it's similar to Ryan's book, but it's a different spin on it. How they, you actually learn more from negative than the positive.

• 11:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:25Robert Greene?

  Like you learn, this is, I, I thought in the ambulance back home, I thought of all of the people I knew who handle adversity terribly. I'm not gonna name names.

• 11:37Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 11:38Robert Greene?

  Some of them are related to me.

• 11:39Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 11:40Robert Greene?

  Who handle adversity really badly. And I thought, I don't wanna be them. And as I thought about that, I thought, hmm, there's something interesting in that thought. Like who I don't wanna be. We never think like that. But it's actually very interesting. So, um, and it's also getting in touch with, um, learning from your bad experiences, but also, um, it's kind of a book about negativity, and I know that sounds really bad and negative.

• 12:11Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 12:12Robert Greene?

  But how we're so attached to what we see in life, to what's in front of us, to what the appearances people have, to their masks they wear. And I want you to think of what isn't there, what you're not seeing, what's invisible. I kinda go into it in the, in the chapter about generations and trends in society.

• 12:32Robert Greene?

  And all my books, I'm trying to tell people, don't accept what you see with your eyes. Look for something deeper. What is the meaning behind this? If you're planning a, a strategy or making a big decision in your life, what is it that you're not considering? So it's kind of about negative space. I know it's very primitive, but I'm, I can promise you I'll turn it into something interesting.

• 12:55Lewis Howes?

  It's beautiful, yeah. Well, in sports, they always talk about, you know, you learn more from your losses than your wins.

• 12:59Robert Greene?

  That's right.

• 13:00Lewis Howes?

  You're not, everything's fine when you win. You're like, ah, everything's forgiven.

• 13:03Robert Greene?

  That's right.

• 13:04Lewis Howes?

  Like, let's just keep doing it.

• 13:05Robert Greene?

  That's right.

• 13:05Lewis Howes?

  When you're losing, that's when you're like, okay, we evaluate everything.

• 13:08Robert Greene?

  That's right. Well, some people don't, so people don't know how to do that. But you, that's how you have to profit from your losses. I do that with things I've written that didn't quite work out. You know, I've written books that I had to completely rewrite that were dead ends. Like the fifty cent book. I had a version of that book that we did together that wasn't working at all. And I learned a lot from what I did wrong there. I learned, for instance, the problem of that book in its first version was that I wasn't being myself. I was trying to be, please him more. And I've learned to always sort of be myself. But I had to learn that by trying to be someone else. So that sort of is what you're talking about.

• 13:51Lewis Howes?

  Interesting, yeah. In this book, I think this is fascinating. You have all these different laws about human nature and understanding why humans do the things they do, why they think, why they feel a certain way.

• 14:06Lewis Howes?

  And you talk about determining the strength of people's character. How do we understand the strength of someone's character? Whether they're toxic, whether they're, they have high values. Besides this, you know, the things that we can see of like, okay, they broke their word or they're negative or things like that. How do we really determine someone's character?

• 14:28Robert Greene?

  Well, the first thing you have to do, the most important thing is to realize that determining people's character is the most important thing that you have to do in judging them. So normally, we think if someone's very charming, that that's great. Or if they're really good looking, or if they're very successful. So if we're looking, let's say we're looking for a business partner or a romantic partner or a colleague to work with. We're going to base our decision on those kinds of appearances. Like people can be very good at deceiving you with being very charming and flattering. Or they have a brilliant resume and you'll be seduced by that. And what you want to do, the first step in that law is to say, no, that's not how I'm going to judge people.

• 15:11Robert Greene?

  My main value is their character and the strength of their character. And character is something from deep, deep, deep within. The word "character" comes from the Greek "chairos", which means "to carve", and "character" is something really deeply carved inside the person. It's who they are at their core. It creates patterns of behavior that they can't even really control. It's who they are genetically. It's who they are from the early values of their parents. So you wanna connect to that, you wanna see that. It's not immediately visible to you, because people will disguise their character. You wanna see that and you wanna value it more than anything else. And what you want are people with strong character. And what that means is, people...

• 15:57Robert Greene?

  They have an expression for metal, they call it "tensile", where a metal is stronger if it can give a little bit. Because if something is too rigid, it breaks. So you want people who are adaptable, who can be fluid, who aren't weak, because that metal isn't weak, who have an inner strength and a core to them, but they can bend, they can learn, they can adapt, they can change. You wanna see people who are empathetic, you know, who know how to get along with other people. So if you have two people to choose, and one has a glittering resume, but the other person understands human nature and is superior in a social sense, and can also has a good work ethic,

• 16:42Robert Greene?

  you choose that other person. You don't choose necessarily the person with that glittering resume. And so the one... One of the things you look for are patterns in judging their character. Because people reveal themselves in the past. They reveal who they are through their actions. They try and disguise it, but they reveal it. So I say in that chapter, "Nobody ever does anything once." So let's say you have a friend who does something kinda nasty to you. They talk behind your back. Then they'll say, "Oh, Robert, Robert, that was just... Something came over, that isn't me. You know, I'm sorry about that, that just happened. Circumstances made me do that." And you'll be likely to believe them.

• 17:27Robert Greene?

  But the fact is, if they've done that once, they've probably done it many times. If people gossip, and you hear them gossiping about other people, they'll probably eventually gossip about you. So you wanna be able to look at people's patterns and look at their past and see trends and understand that if they've done certain things in the past, they will continue to do them because we humans have compulsive behavior. We are compelled to repeat the same mistakes over and over and over again.

• 17:58Lewis Howes?

  How do we, how do we stop that pattern? If we recognize it within ourselves, my character's been off. I've been doing something, you know, for years or certain way that I don't wanna do anymore. How do we do it so we can strengthen our character? But also, so you know what? I believe this other person can have a stronger character through breaking a pattern. Or is it just not possible?

• 18:22Robert Greene?

  Of course it's possible. At the end of every chapter, I show you how you can turn this potentially negative quality into a positive quality. So when it comes to you and your own patterns, you have to first realize that you have these patterns before you can even begin to break them.

• 18:41Lewis Howes?

  So awareness.

• 18:42Robert Greene?

  Yeah, honesty. This is a book about awareness and being honest with yourself. If you don't admit that you have these patterns, then you can't possibly break them. I know in writing books, I have terrible, terrible patterns.

• 18:55Lewis Howes?

  Like what?

• 18:56Robert Greene?

  Well, stressing so much over things that aren't that important.

• 19:00Lewis Howes?

  Obsessing, stressing, yeah.

• 19:02Robert Greene?

  Obsessing. I take note cards for everything that I read, all my research, and I take way too much, too much information. I have like thousands of them, I'm writing. I have to stop and I say, "Stop being so, such a perfectionist." It's, it's like you're wasting your time. It's been book after book after book. I'm very aware of it and I'm very aware of breaking that pattern. But you have to see it and be honest with yourself in order to break it, you know? So that's the first step, is, is seeing the pattern and then not struggling against it, not trying to be somebody who you're not, but find a way. To use that pattern, to use that problem to your advantage.

• 19:43Robert Greene?

  Similar to what Ryan Holiday wrote in his book, The Obstacle is the Way. I have an example in the book of an actress Joan Crawford from the Hollywood classical period. And she had a very troubled childhood. Didn't know her father, her mother beat her, men abused her, et cetera. And she managed to take, and it was creating terrible patterns in her life. And she found a way to turn that around, to use all of those disadvantages and make them, make herself a much stronger and very powerful performer. By bringing all of the pain in her childhood into her acting. By becoming so focused on the director.

• 20:27Robert Greene?

  Because she had been abused, she was very sensitive to other people. She used that sensitivity to focus on the director and other actors, to be in tune with them.

• 20:35Lewis Howes?

  To connect with them, to build relationship, is that essentially?

• 20:38Robert Greene?

  Yeah. She was very aware of her own weaknesses and her own fragility. And she was able to use that as a strength.

• 20:48Robert Greene?

  So with other people, it's never hopeless. I mean, some people are toxic. I talk a lot about toxic characters. People, those are the kinds of people who can't really change, their patterns are too ingrained. And we've all met people like that. We've all had to deal with a narcissist who's so deeply self-absorbed. There's nothing that's ever gonna save them or pull them out of that self-absorption.

• 21:13Lewis Howes?

  Unless they have like a near-death experience, or they have someone close to them.

• 21:16Robert Greene?

  That's true.

• 21:17Lewis Howes?

  You know, something where it's like a big awakening.

• 21:19Robert Greene?

  That's true.

• 21:20Lewis Howes?

  Where they get sick or whatever, right?

• 21:21Robert Greene?

  You're right, that happens, that does happen.

• 21:24Lewis Howes?

  Sometimes.

• 21:24Robert Greene?

  Sometimes it does. But you have to be honest that there are people out there, you can't be naive. There are people out there who are toxic, who are dangerous, who can ruin your life. You hire the wrong person. And I've dealt with a lot of, in my consulting, with a lot of people who hired a business partner who ended up sort of taking the business from them. Very common scenario. You have to not be naive and recognize these toxic types. And often it's best not to try and change them. Because trying to change them entangles you in a lot of their drama.

• 22:01Lewis Howes?

  And it just, it's just never gonna happen. You might be trying for years and wasting your time and energy.

• 22:08Robert Greene?

  But you know, people have to be able to to change themselves. You know, they have to be motivated. You can help illuminate some of their patterns and their problems. But it has to come from within.

• 22:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Now, you talk about the law of self sabotage.

• 22:23Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 22:23Lewis Howes?

  And you know, we could self sabotage ourselves by attracting toxic people, but also what are the other ways that we sabotage ourselves?

• 22:34Robert Greene?

  Well, um, it's, this is a chapter about your attitude in life, right? And um, the the point of that chapter is related to human nature, is none of us see the world in the same way. So you and I could go watch a movie. It's the same movie that we're watching. I love it. I see something. You hate it. You see something else. You don't experience it the same way. We're watching the same world, the same reality, but we experience it differently. Everybody you meet is experiencing their world differently than you are. So you have an attitude that colors what you see. And some people have an attitude that tends towards the negative.

• 23:18Robert Greene?

  And I describe a negative attitude as something that's closed. So you're not open to new experience. You're trying to close that lens. You want to, you you have certain beliefs, certain ideas about life, and you're not willing to change them. Right? Because that gives you a sense of security.

• 23:39Robert Greene?

  And so you want an attitude that's expansive, where you accept people. You're not always judging them. You're not negative about them. You understand that people can't necessarily help who they are. You're open to change. You're open to being, to having adventure. And that kind of attitude kind of gives you a certain degree of freedom. So that the worst thing that happened to you, and you're able to transform that into something good. So um, what your question was.

• 24:10Lewis Howes?

  How do we recognize when we're sabotaging ourselves? And what's the things we do most to self sabotage?

• 24:20Robert Greene?

  Well, um, if we have a setback or a failure in life, which is inevitable, do we do one of two things? Do we analyze ourselves and see what we did wrong? And how we could change ourselves? Or do we immediately look outward and blame other people? That person screwed me. Society doesn't like me. Because of these circumstances, I'm screwed and I can never help it. It's the world, it's not me. That's a self sabotaging pattern of behavior. Because if you're always pointing fingers at other people and blaming them, you're never gonna learn from your experiences. And you're all, you're gonna end up being quite bitter.

• 25:05Robert Greene?

  Um, so that's probably one of the most, the main sources of a self sabotaging.

• 25:10Lewis Howes?

  So you could easily say, this stupid bee that stung my neck that caused this blood clot and this high pressure in me. I blame the bee for this, you know, stroke that I had. Screw you bee. Or you could take responsibility and say, well, what did I do to my health? Leading up to the bee sting, you know, for years and taking full ownership and responsibility. Is that what I'm hearing?

• 25:33Robert Greene?

  Yeah, that's what you're hearing, yeah.

• 25:35Lewis Howes?

  The story and the perception around the experience, the way you see that movie playing out. Having a positive attitude around it.

• 25:44Robert Greene?

  And being, and reflecting about you, the role that you played in what happened. So, we can't, we're not in charge of everything that happens in life. There are circumstances that are beyond our control, right? But a lot of what does happen to us is something that we do, that we are responsible for. There are amazing studies about the role of attitude and what happens to you in life. So they have this thing called the Pygmalion Effect.

• 26:15Robert Greene?

  Teachers who treat a student as if they are smart and gonna do well, those students end up doing well, right? So how you treat people, how you think about yourself, has a great impact on what happens to you. When doctors prescribe a new medication, there's always the same trend that when a new medication has been invented, the success rate is like eighty percent. Because people believe in it, because it's new. And then like two years later, it starts going down.

• 26:48Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 26:48Robert Greene?

  Yeah. It's a placebo effect. So if you believe something is going to work, if you believe that you are great and you deserve good things, that you are a good student, you will end up making those things happen. So how you look at yourself will often determine what ends up happening to yourself. So if you're talking about what causes self sabotage, if you go through life thinking, "God, I'm not really that good." You know, "There's something wrong with me. I don't really deserve good things. I don't deserve to have a lot of success or to have a lot of money." People read that off of you. A major theme in this book is that we are masters at reading people's body language and nonverbal behavior.

• 27:33Robert Greene?

  So when somebody feels that they don't deserve things, it's kind of an off-putting quality in them. And it pushes people away. So you create self fulfilling dynamics by how you look at yourself and your attitude. I had a chapter in the Forty Eight Laws of Power called, "Think Like A King To Be Treated Like One." And there's a story of Christopher Columbus, who came from dirt poor poverty, but imagined that he was royalty. And by imagining that, people started treating him like that. And as they treated him like that, he felt even more kind of greater about himself. And he was able to convince the king of Portugal to give him these ships,

• 28:15Robert Greene?

  when in fact he was sort of a mediocre captain. So your attitude and how you think about yourself sort of determine how people treat you and what happens in life.

• 28:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I always say that we're either... You know, life's an enrollment game and we're either enrolling people in our vision or unenrolling people by the way we're showing up, our energy, our language.

• 28:38Robert Greene?

  What do you, what do you mean by enrolling?

• 28:40Lewis Howes?

  I'm enrolling you to come on my show.

• 28:43Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 28:44Lewis Howes?

  And getting you to come on my show because of the energy I put out, the relationship we have.

• 28:49Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 28:49Lewis Howes?

  The connection, the platform, or I'm unenrolling you by, by the, the way I've treated you over the last six or seven years.

• 28:58Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 28:58Lewis Howes?

  The platform being out of integrity or not doing that well. You're not gonna be as excited to wanna say yes.

• 29:05Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 29:06Lewis Howes?

  You know, we're, we're influencing people all the time.

• 29:09Robert Greene?

  You are influencing people all the time.

• 29:12Lewis Howes?

  Negative way, right?

• 29:12Robert Greene?

  Yes, everything you do, people are reading and they're either saying, I like that or I don't like that, or I'm indifferent.

• 29:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yes is like, I'm enrolling you, yes, or I'm not enrolling you is a no. And you talked about the, you know, the chapter that I really like is

• 29:29Lewis Howes?

  about.

• 29:30Robert Greene?

  Seven or seven.

• 29:31Lewis Howes?

  Where are we at here?

• 29:34Lewis Howes?

  Where am I at here?

• 29:35Robert Greene?

  Soften people's resistance.

• 29:37Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 29:38Robert Greene?

  Okay.

• 29:39Lewis Howes?

  Where are we at? The persuasive one.

• 29:41Robert Greene?

  Yeah, seven.

• 29:42Lewis Howes?

  Is that one? Yeah, right here. The five strategies to becoming a master persuader. Is that this one? Yeah, right here, seven, yeah.

• 29:49Robert Greene?

  Well, you Louis don't need to read that chapter because you already have that kind of mastered.

• 29:53Lewis Howes?

  But I think people need to understand this.

• 29:55Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 29:55Lewis Howes?

  Because I think what we just talked about right there is probably one of the most powerful parts of this whole book in my mind and in life is are you enrolling people in your vision?

• 30:08Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 30:08Lewis Howes?

  In, in being the king or queen and getting the ships that you want. Are you, are you stepping up and enrolling people and getting people to say yes to you?

• 30:17Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 30:18Lewis Howes?

  Or your dreams, or hire you, or date you, or

• 30:21Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 30:21Lewis Howes?

  marry you.

• 30:22Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 30:22Lewis Howes?

  Or are you not showing up in a way that people wanna say yes to you?

• 30:26Robert Greene?

  Right.

• 30:27Lewis Howes?

  And I feel like

• 30:28Robert Greene?

  Key question.

• 30:28Lewis Howes?

  My whole business has been built on getting people to say yes. When I had nothing, you know, I was on my sister's couch 10 years ago.

• 30:36Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 30:36Lewis Howes?

  No money.

• 30:37Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 30:37Lewis Howes?

  No skills, no degree, and it was an energy.

• 30:42Lewis Howes?

  That I had to learn how to just get people to say yes. And then more and then building momentum around that.

• 30:49Lewis Howes?

  So I'd love to talk about this, becoming a master persuader. And the first thing you talk about is, which I think most people aren't doing, you say is to deepen your listening. You get a better listener. Most people don't have the patience to care about someone else. They're so concerned about what they think about them.

• 31:07Robert Greene?

  Well, people always talk about being a better listener. And their advice is usually very weak. I mean, it doesn't ineffective because, okay, I've become a better listener. Yeah, I'll try that, but it's very hard to overcome certain patterns. So I tried to tackle the question of, why is it that you're not a good listener? And at the root of that is, you're more interested in yourself than you are in the other person. You will deny that. You will say, oh, no, no, no, that's not me. That's not me. I really like people. But the truth is, you're more interested in your own thoughts and your own ideas. Things that you're so certain about, your own experiences, than about that other person and what they're saying and what's going on inside them.

• 31:51Robert Greene?

  If you can flip that around, if you can actually feel the motivation to get inside Lewis and get inside his head and his experience. Then you will suddenly will become a better listener. That's the key, not just telling people to listen more. The key is the quality of the listening and the emotion involved. So if I feel I want to get inside that other person inside their life, then suddenly you will start listening. What will make you interested in other people? Well, first off is the idea you don't know them. Normally, when you're, let's say you're on a first date with someone or you're just meeting someone. You have assumptions about them. You create a simplified version of who they are. And that's what you think, you know, and that'll stay with you forever.

• 32:35Robert Greene?

  Instead, you want to think, that person is more interesting than I imagine. I, their first appearance isn't really who they are. They're like a book that I could read. We love going to movies and getting inside other characters and what motivates them, being taken along for a ride. Think of the people that you meet in life as a character in a movie. You want to know what motivates them. They are more interesting than you think. They've had traumas, they've had problems from their early childhood. They have fantasies. They have a shadow, a dark side to their personality they're not revealing. They're more complicated and interesting than you think. So if you're motivated to understand what makes them tick, their experience, suddenly you will start listening.

• 33:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:20Robert Greene?

  So that's the key to me. And it's not easy.

• 33:25Lewis Howes?

  Why is it so hard for people? Because for me, it's been an easy thing because I've used my insecurity of not feeling like I was smart enough growing up because I was one of the poorest students in school.

• 33:36Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 33:37Lewis Howes?

  So I was like, my voice doesn't matter as much. Let me just ask smart people what they think.

• 33:44Robert Greene?

  Right.

• 33:44Lewis Howes?

  And it became a huge advantage for me.

• 33:47Robert Greene?

  Right.

• 33:47Lewis Howes?

  Because I've learned that being the most interested person in the room, you become the most interesting.

• 33:54Robert Greene?

  Well, the key is, really so much in the book is, are you motivated to change yourself? Do you want to become successful in life? This book is trying to realign your priorities and how you look at the world. Normally, your focus is on yourself and on your work and the techniques in your work, you know, the skills you have to master. And I'm telling you, the key to success in life is people. We're a social animal. You know, we're like dogs or wolves or whatever, chimpanzees. We're a social animal. And how we interact with people will determine how far we get. You can be brilliant at hacking computers or whatever,

• 34:37Robert Greene?

  but if you're terrible with people, your life is going to be hell. So are you motivated to become somebody supremely skilled at understanding and working with people? That's the whole point of the book. You have to buy into that. You have to buy into the fact that you're usually bad at dealing with people. You're not seeing who they are. You're seeing reflections of your own fantasies or projections. You have to admit that you're not good at dealing with people and you need to improve. If you're that, if you understand that and you want to change and you're motivated to get out of your shell, then you can make that leap. I'm a big advocate of baby steps. You're not going to suddenly... Transform yourself into Bill Clinton overnight.

• 35:20Lewis Howes?

  Right, remember thousands of people's names and yeah.

• 35:23Robert Greene?

  Or suddenly become a great listener. So every day you give yourself little tests. So you have now lunch with this person who you normally find kind of boring. All right, for ten minutes, I'm gonna, I'm gonna shut off my internal monologue. And I'm gonna force myself to listen to them. And I'm gonna glean some information, some nugget about their character that I never understood before. I'm gonna ask them about their childhood. I'm not gonna be like, it's, it's not gonna be that kind of inquisition where I'm asking them, you know, penetrating questions. But in a relaxed mood, I'm gonna find out about something that, that really motivates them or something deep or some traumatic experience they had.

• 36:05Robert Greene?

  You, you force yourself day by day to take little baby steps in which you try to learn something about people that you didn't know before.

• 36:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:13Robert Greene?

  And get interested in them and their experiences.

• 36:16Lewis Howes?

  I think a lot of people are asking the wrong questions too. I think you gotta start learning to ask different questions.

• 36:22Robert Greene?

  Like what, what do you mean?

• 36:24Lewis Howes?

  I think a lot of questions are very service-y. And I know you wanted to keep it relaxed as well. You don't need to be like, tell me you're done.

• 36:29Robert Greene?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:30Lewis Howes?

  It's also, there's ways you can start opening that up. And I think for me, I know if I wanna get the most out of someone, I have to give the most myself. I have to start with vulnerability or opening up in certain ways. I can't just expect someone else to open up if I don't. But I think certain questions, like if you're meeting someone for the first time, as opposed to what do you do or where do you work? It's what are you most excited about right now?

• 36:55Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 36:55Lewis Howes?

  Or what's something you've been having a challenge with in your life?

• 36:59Robert Greene?

  Well, the thing I tell people to look for, because I'm a very big believer in non-verbal communication. In the course of a conversation, if you, if you keep it kind of open and flowing. People's eyes will light up when a certain topic is mentioned. It could be their children. It could be their work. It could be their parent. It could be something in their life that their whole body language changes. They relax. I know if you suddenly asked me about the Los Angeles Lakers.

• 37:27Lewis Howes?

  Were you excited?

• 37:28Robert Greene?

  I would be very excited because that's one of my deep passions in life is basketball and the Lakers.

• 37:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 37:33Robert Greene?

  But people.

• 37:33Lewis Howes?

  You got my hometown guy, LeBron James.

• 37:35Robert Greene?

  Oh, you're from Cleveland.

• 37:36Lewis Howes?

  I'm from Ohio. From Ohio, but I.

• 37:38Robert Greene?

  How do you feel about this?

• 37:40Lewis Howes?

  I feel bittersweet because I wish he stayed in Cleveland.

• 37:43Robert Greene?

  Oh, you did?

• 37:44Lewis Howes?

  I wanted to win one more there, but you know, I live in LA now, so it's nice that he's here at least. And then I could go to some games and watch him.

• 37:50Robert Greene?

  That's right.

• 37:50Lewis Howes?

  Because I didn't get to go watch games in Cleveland, so.

• 37:52Robert Greene?

  That's right.

• 37:53Lewis Howes?

  So I'm like, you know, if he's gonna go anywhere, this is the place to be.

• 37:57Robert Greene?

  That's right. That's good.

• 37:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 37:59Robert Greene?

  Yeah. I never used to like LeBron, but now I love him.

• 38:01Lewis Howes?

  Now you love him. Greatest player in the world, yeah.

• 38:04Robert Greene?

  For sure.

• 38:05Lewis Howes?

  So you light up about that. Look at you, you're getting excited talking about it.

• 38:08Robert Greene?

  You can see it. If somebody inadvertently brought that up, they could see like, oh, wow, man, I could talk for hours about the Lakers, you know? But there, everybody has a topic like that. It could be something a little more intellectual, more interesting than sports, but. Look for, you're not paying attention to people's body language is another thing, so. As an observer, as a good listener, you're not just hearing their words. You're looking at their eyes, their facial expressions. I have a chapter on that. How to differentiate between the fake smile and the genuine smile.

• 38:40Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 38:41Robert Greene?

  And it's, and it's very real, you know? A real smile lights up the whole face. It alters how the eyes look. You wanna see when you've hit something like that, or when you've done the opposite and you get that kind of scowling micro expression. Right? But people aren't observant. They're, they're in their own shell. They're not seeing. People are constantly giving out signs of their likes, their aversions, you know, their values, and you're missing them because you're not paying attention.

• 39:08Lewis Howes?

  Is it because we're too obsessed with how we look? Or what other people are judging about us? Is that why we're closed off or not observant?

• 39:16Robert Greene?

  I think it becomes kind of a habit. And that's the main part of it that we're worried about how we look and how they're judging us. But also part of that habit is, you know, life is difficult in this world, in the modern world. We're absorbing too much information on our phones, et cetera. And it's very, you know, competitive world out there. So naturally, we turn inward. Naturally, we're thinking about ourselves. We're thinking about what we need to do, you know, our own anxieties. Or they're talking and I'm thinking about, I have to, I can't change that appointment tomorrow. Kind of thing, because you're thinking about your own problems, et cetera. And naturally so.

• 40:00Robert Greene?

  But the whole thing is, is my books are all about getting outside of yourself and finding other people more interesting than yourself in some ways.

• 40:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I'm always doing that.

• 40:12Robert Greene?

  Yeah, well, you don't, you don't need this book.

• 40:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I know, this is great, though. I, I think you, you know, for me, I do need this book because there's always another level of like, what am I missing? What am I not seeing? And how can I get to where I want to be faster? You talked about infect people with the proper mood.

• 40:28Robert Greene?

  Yep.

• 40:29Lewis Howes?

  What does that mean? And how do we do this?

• 40:31Robert Greene?

  Well, this is a key to influence and persuasion. I'm trying to make the case in this book about human nature that we are animals, that we have an animal side to our nature that you have to understand. And we are extremely vulnerable to the emotions and moods of other people. I trace that back to how we evolved as primates. And the need our ancestors had for understanding the moods of the people in the group or the tribe before language was invented. So we're extremely vulnerable to the moods and attitudes of other people. If someone visits us and they're in a depressed mood,

• 41:14Robert Greene?

  it will tend to lower our energy. We've all had the experience. Think of it yourself. You go through life and you encounter ten different people. And there's always one in those ten people that kind of makes you feel happy.

• 41:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:28Robert Greene?

  The moment you meet them, an old friend or whomever. Wow, you're smiling, you're laughing, your mood changes. And there's one in ten that every time you meet them, they just feel like, man.

• 41:37Lewis Howes?

  Your mood changes in a bad way.

• 41:38Robert Greene?

  Bad way. Well, it's because you're feeling something. It's not just the fact that you're a friend. There's something nonverbal going on. Our moods are extremely contagious. And so you can persuade people more through you infecting them with your mood than through your words.

• 41:57Lewis Howes?

  True.

• 41:58Robert Greene?

  Words are not necessarily the best means of influence.

• 42:01Lewis Howes?

  Energy.

• 42:02Robert Greene?

  Energy.

• 42:03Lewis Howes?

  The way you show up.

• 42:03Robert Greene?

  Attitude.

• 42:04Lewis Howes?

  It's like if there's a negative room or people having a negative conversation. There's ten people and someone enters it with a positive energy and just starts connecting with each person. You see the mood lift in a positive way.

• 42:17Robert Greene?

  Right.

• 42:17Lewis Howes?

  But it could also be if everyone's having a good time and one person comes in.

• 42:20Robert Greene?

  A downer.

• 42:21Lewis Howes?

  And it's like just being negative and taking everyone down and saying stupid stuff. You're like.

• 42:25Robert Greene?

  We've all been through that.

• 42:26Lewis Howes?

  Then everyone's mood goes down. Again, goes back to life is an enrollment game. You're either enrolling people in the way you want to show up or they're enrolling you in that energy.

• 42:35Robert Greene?

  Well, so this, this should be like a really exciting concept to you with the reader. Because what it means is.

• 42:43Lewis Howes?

  You can change.

• 42:44Robert Greene?

  You can alter people by how you approach them with your energy.

• 42:48Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 42:49Robert Greene?

  Right? So, I mean, I wrote about that a lot in The Art of Seduction. Errol Flynn was probably the greatest seducer that ever lived. If we counted the number of women he slept with, it's close to three thousand.

• 43:01Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 43:02Robert Greene?

  And he died when he was fifty. So if you do the math, it's pretty insane. He was an unbelievable seducer. And I researched this as deeply as I could. Why? And women would write memoirs about it and they would mention their experience. And they said, being around Errol Flynn was like having drunk three martinis. He was so relaxed and so comfortable with himself. He had a kind of animal spirit where he was just really himself and very comfortable. Very open, that being around him, you just, you felt all of your resistance and all your defenses just melting away. There were other greats to do, like Duke Ellington was like that.

• 43:43Robert Greene?

  So, on the level of seduction, and, and male or female, how you approach them, your mood, more than what you say about yourself and your own insecurities, will have a much greater impact.

• 43:54Lewis Howes?

  More than the pick-up lines or whatever, it's the energy.

• 43:56Robert Greene?

  I believe so.

• 43:58Lewis Howes?

  The confidence.

• 43:59Robert Greene?

  A relaxed, undefensive quality is, will, will go very far. I remember.

• 44:04Lewis Howes?

  How did he, how did he die?

• 44:06Robert Greene?

  Alcohol.

• 44:07Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 44:08Robert Greene?

  He was just, he was a major alcoholic. He drank himself to death.

• 44:11Lewis Howes?

  Probably was unfulfilled.

• 44:12Robert Greene?

  Huh?

• 44:12Lewis Howes?

  He was probably unfulfilled.

• 44:13Robert Greene?

  Well, yeah, you know, three thousand women, it could be, kind of, it gets kind of soulless after a while. He was a great, he was a very interesting character. But I remember I was in Paris when I was twenty-one, I was living there, I was working in a hotel. And there was a man, it was a hotel where all the models stayed. And there was this Brazilian man, who was obsessed with all the models in the hotel, and he was the greatest seducer I've ever seen in my life. And one day I was walking down the street with him and some other friends, and this other woman came running up. She realized he was a seducer, and was not, had not been honest, and was cheating on her.

• 44:52Robert Greene?

  And I will never forget how he responded. He was so relaxed and so undefensive about it, and he didn't apologize. He was just, "This is who I am," more or less in his body language. And she completely relaxed and changed. You know, and I thought, God, normally, it would have been this yelling match, and he completely diffused it with his sort of relaxed attitude, you know? So, it's a whole language that you need to master, is how your moods infect other people. And I tell people, experiment with that.

• 45:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:27Robert Greene?

  Normally with this one person, you're locked in a dynamic where you always are kind of reacting the same way. Try next time approaching them with a completely different mood, think something differently about them. Suddenly force yourself to think that this person is really. Really like good-looking and exciting and seductive. And you'll see that your thinking of them in a certain way will change how they respond to you.

• 45:54Lewis Howes?

  Wow. As opposed to being defensive and guarded and reactive and angry.

• 45:58Robert Greene?

  Judgmental.

• 45:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and you said you do not judge other people, you accept them as they are.

• 46:04Robert Greene?

  Well, that's a key throughout the whole book.

• 46:06Lewis Howes?

  You're not gonna influence people if you're judging them, right?

• 46:09Robert Greene?

  That's the key through the whole book. The book starts with a quote from Schopenhauer. Meaning that if you come across people who are bad, just think of them as, or as toxic, just think of them as a sort of kind of mineral that you're encountering. That you're a scientist, people are all different. You're not going to change them. They are who they are because of their circumstances. And instead of judging everyone, learn to accept them. And to kind of understand that you are fatal, you are flawed, and so are they. Sort of kind of get rid of your superiority.

• 46:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, because that's not gonna influence them. If you're trying to persuade them to do something, judging them and making them wrong is only gonna make people more defensive, right?

• 46:53Robert Greene?

  Well, that's true, but the other point is, your superiority, your sense of superiority is usually not justified.

• 47:01Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 47:02Robert Greene?

  I'm making the point in this book, the number one thing about human nature is that we tend to deny that there is such a thing. I'm not aggressive, I'm not narcissistic, I never feel envy, I don't have a bad side to me. It's the other people, right? Right? I don't have any of these bad qualities.

• 47:19Lewis Howes?

  We all do that.

• 47:19Robert Greene?

  We all, yeah. You have these qualities as well as anyone else. If you can be honest with yourself, you'll be a little more humble and realize you're not so perfect and not superior, which will make you less judgmental about other people.

• 47:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And you said, you just talked about this, but thinking of the person in the best light as they're generous and caring, or thinking that they're good-looking. You know, thinking that will help you, your energy show up in a different way to potentially persuade them.

• 47:51Robert Greene?

  Will alter the dynamic.

• 47:53Lewis Howes?

  Of the conversation, right.

• 47:54Robert Greene?

  I have a story in there of, in the next chapter, of this great Russian writer Chekhov, who came from the worst, the poorest circumstances. His father beat him every day. He lived in the most miserable village in Russia. Then his family abandoned him to go to Moscow and left him alone in this village. And he said, "God, I could end up being the most bitter person and hating everybody and hating my life. And I don't want to let that happen to me." There's a chapter about how to change your attitude. And instead, I'm going to accept my father. I'm going to learn to love him.

• 48:34Robert Greene?

  He grew up under terrible circumstances. He's beating me because his father beat him. I'm going to understand him and I'm going to accept him and I'm going to love him. I'm gonna do the same about my mother. I'm gonna do the same about my alcoholic brother. And then he moved to Moscow to be with them. And he moved into this house with eight people who were miserable, fighting, bitter, hateful, toxic. And his attitude and his acceptance of them completely altered everything. He got his father out of the house and into a better job. He changed his, you know, he got his siblings to start reading and to think of higher things than just their petty feelings. He changed the dynamic by how he thought of them.

• 49:16Lewis Howes?

  Wow. One person can change the whole dynamic.

• 49:19Robert Greene?

  That's right.

• 49:20Lewis Howes?

  Or the whole dynamic can change the one person.

• 49:23Robert Greene?

  That's right.

• 49:23Lewis Howes?

  And you say that when you want to persuade someone, they can't feel like they're being coerced or manipulated. They must choose to do whatever it is you want them to do, or they must at least experience it as their choice.

• 49:36Robert Greene?

  Well, this is the key to this particular chapter, but it's a key to the whole book, is people have what I call a self-opinion. They have a way that they look at themselves. I said there are three universals to the self-opinion. Practically every human being has them. Number one, we all think that we're autonomous, that when we make a decision, we weren't manipulated. We did it on our own. We're independent. Number two, that we're intelligent, that we're smart, that we know what we were doing. It doesn't mean that you feel like you're an intellectual. A plumber thinks that he knows plumbing better than anyone. That makes him feel like he's intelligent in his own way. And the third is that we're good people, that we treat people well.

• 50:21Robert Greene?

  And none of these might be true, but we all tend to believe them, that that's who we are. Then there'll be other components to that. "Oh, I'm very independent, self-reliant person," or "I'm a great rebel. I'm anti-authoritarian," etc. So you have an opinion about yourself. And if someone tries, says something that challenges that opinion of yourself inadvertently, if they make you feel that you're kind of stupid, or that you don't know what you're talking about, or that you're, you're doing something because you were manipulated, that you didn't choose to do it, or that you're really not such a good person, we will suddenly get extremely defensive and closed off. And nothing you will ever say or do will change that.

• 51:05Robert Greene?

  You can even turn into hatred, or something bitter feelings. Most of the time, we're going around, and we're not doing that, but we're not necessarily feeding people's self-opinion. The number one need that humans have, I want you to remember this, is to feel validated by other people.

• 51:23Lewis Howes?

  It's the number one need.

• 51:24Robert Greene?

  The number one need. William James, the great psychologist, said that it's not just me. People want to feel recognized and validated by other people. We can feel good about ourselves, but if we don't get that from other people, if they don't validate that we're smart, intelligent, independent, it's hard to feel that. So we're all craving that validation.

• 51:45Lewis Howes?

  Constantly.

• 51:46Robert Greene?

  Constantly. If you're able to give people some of that validation, if you're able to feed their self-opinion without being a flatterer, because, you know, people do have good qualities, and you can actually recognize them. But if you can validate their self-opinion, suddenly their defenses go down, and you have room to maneuver them, to persuade them, to influence them.

• 52:08Lewis Howes?

  You're talking about being ally to their insecurities. And you say by praising and flattery is a great strategy, like you just said, but not, there's praise and strategy, but then there's manipulation. So what's the dance between the two?

• 52:25Robert Greene?

  Well, if you flatter someone, and it's clear that that it's your after something, you've already validated their, sorry, you've already violated their self-opinion, because it's clear that you think that there's someone that can be manipulated. So you're telling them. Oh, you're not so independent as you think. I can, I can trick you. And that doesn't work if we see through some obvious flattery. So that can actually-

• 52:53Lewis Howes?

  You can't flatter someone and then say, "Oh, can you do this for me right afterwards?"

• 52:55Robert Greene?

  Well, that's, that's, that's pretty obvious, yeah.

• 53:00Robert Greene?

  But also, um, if you flatter someone about something that everybody flatters them about, then it's clear what you're after, that you're, that you're doing something. So you wanna find those qualities that no one's been flattering them about, but that they feel insecure about.

• 53:16Lewis Howes?

  Uncertain about.

• 53:17Robert Greene?

  Right. Now, what would that be for you, Louis?

• 53:22Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man. Probably like, that I'm a good writer. You know, it's like, I believe that I'm a good writer, but it's like, I'm not as good as you, you know? It's like, I'm not like a Ryan Holiday or-

• 53:32Robert Greene?

  So now all of your listeners know that.

• 53:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, tell me. You have a great book, Louis. I love reading it.

• 53:38Robert Greene?

  Your writing is amazing.

• 53:39Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 53:40Robert Greene?

  You're on Ryan's level completely.

• 53:43Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 53:43Robert Greene?

  So, to, to get to that point, though, you have to understand people. You have to see who they are. You have to understand what their insecurities would be. Generally, you don't wanna flatter people about what everybody else is flattering them about.

• 53:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 53:58Robert Greene?

  It's too obvious.

• 53:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:00Robert Greene?

  So sometimes, for instance, a person will be very, is very Machiavellian. Uh, is very clever and strategic. And if you flatter them about that, um, thinking that that, you know, that's, you know who they are, et cetera, you're actually gonna insult them, because they don't wanna think of themselves as being Machiavellian. They think that they're doing these things for a good cause, for a good reason. So you wanna find a different avenue, a different way of approaching them, to say, "Wow, you won that election and because you, you, you're gonna do great things with it." You know, flattering their, their values, their sense of goodness.

• 54:43Lewis Howes?

  The impact you're making and how you're helping people.

• 54:46Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 54:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I think it's, um-

• 54:50Lewis Howes?

  I think it's figuring that out and figuring out what's and the way you do that is by being a good listener, I think.

• 54:55Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 54:56Lewis Howes?

  And a good observer.

• 54:57Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 54:57Lewis Howes?

  By not just observing the obvious, but observing the unobvious.

• 55:01Robert Greene?

  Right.

• 55:02Lewis Howes?

  You have to get out of your own self to be interested in someone else.

• 55:05Robert Greene?

  Yeah, all these things are interconnected that we've been talking about.

• 55:08Lewis Howes?

  And then you talk about using people's resistance and stubbornness. They are often most people with deeper levels of insecurity and low self opinion.

• 55:18Robert Greene?

  Well, this is tricky. This is kind of advanced influence.

• 55:22Lewis Howes?

  Yes, advanced seduction.

• 55:24Robert Greene?

  Yeah, yes. Where it's basically reverse psychology.

• 55:29Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 55:30Robert Greene?

  And the best example is like a rebellious teenager who doesn't want to do their homework, who doesn't want to be told what to do. You have to realize that you telling them what to do feeds into their rebellious nature and just makes them more defensive. But if you go with their resistance and go with their feeling of being a rebel, you can actually work within their mindset and get them to change. I have an example of a student who's thrown out of school because he's not studying hard enough. And the teacher says, he's gonna have to do all of this work at home in order to graduate.

• 56:12Robert Greene?

  And he's gonna have to study at home, but I can't have him in school because he's like dealing drugs, etc. And the kid is like, I'm not gonna study at all, that guy, you know, I'm just gonna be a slacker. And his mother went to an psychologist who trained her about how to use reverse psychology and said, look, you try and get him to study will make him worse. Dude, try this approach. Try telling him that the teacher wants him to fail. The teacher gave him all of this work, knowing that he wouldn't succeed. Because he knows you're a slacker. And if you could prove him wrong, can you imagine how great that will feel to show that up? So if you study hard and actually graduate, you'll make him look like a fool.

• 56:58Robert Greene?

  And it worked.

• 56:58Lewis Howes?

  It worked?

• 56:59Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 56:59Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 57:01Robert Greene?

  I mean.

• 57:01Lewis Howes?

  Proving people wrong is some of the most powerful energy. And fire that I think humans have. I think that's. That was my entire life was proving everyone wrong about like kids who made fun of me and bullies and. Guy who sexually abused me and all these things. I was like, I'm gonna prove everyone wrong.

• 57:20Robert Greene?

  Wow.

• 57:21Lewis Howes?

  And it worked.

• 57:22Robert Greene?

  Powerful motivator.

• 57:23Lewis Howes?

  It worked until it didn't. Until I realized, man, I'm still suffering inside. And I'm not fulfilled.

• 57:30Robert Greene?

  Uh huh.

• 57:30Lewis Howes?

  And it wasn't until about five years ago, when I started opening up about. Everything I was insecure about or holding on to and frustrated about. When. I realized like, okay, yeah, that got me to where I'm at and it helped me accomplish a lot of things, but I'm still unfulfilled. And when I started to say, how can I prove people right and lift other people up? Whether they doubted me or hurt me or not. And focus on that energy. That's when I became. So much more fulfilled, so much more peaceful.

• 58:00Robert Greene?

  It's amazing.

• 58:00Lewis Howes?

  And. More driven. To impact more people as opposed to prove a handful of people wrong.

• 58:07Robert Greene?

  That's right. Well, uh, the sort of a lot of what I'm talking about in the book is. Your ability to be aware of yourself and honest with yourself. And say that this isn't ultimately fulfilling.

• 58:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 58:18Robert Greene?

  And that. What I think is this strong thing is actually a weakness of mine. And I'm gonna work against that. That's sort of the whole point of the book. Is knowing who you are. Knowing your, your, your weaknesses, knowing what has, what really motivates you. Because it was your self-awareness that was able to make you change.

• 58:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And my self-awareness in the beginning. For thirty years where I was like, this is the way it needs to be in order for me to achieve.

• 58:45Robert Greene?

  Was there, was there a particular experience that, that provoked this?

• 58:48Lewis Howes?

  I mean. I was sexually abused when I was five by a man. My brother was in prison for four years and I didn't have friends during that time because the neighborhood parents wouldn't let their kids hang out with me.

• 58:58Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 58:58Lewis Howes?

  I was, you know, in the special needs classes all through elementary school and had a tutor through college because I couldn't read and write.

• 59:06Robert Greene?

  Wow.

• 59:06Lewis Howes?

  So just getting, feeling like very insecure around. You know, everything. I wasn't a good student. I didn't learn in the, the structure that school was built. For us. I learned from sports. So I put all my energy into proving people wrong in sports because I could learn from. Moving my body, from listening to a coach and applying it right then and failing and learning and. And that structure was a better format for learning for me.

• 59:32Robert Greene?

  But was there something that happened five years ago that triggered?

• 59:34Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah, five years ago, I I started, I went through a, I I I read about this in my book, the masculine masculinity and talked about it many times, but I had a a bad fight. I was playing basketball down the street, pickup game with a bunch of people and got a bad fight, like a real fistfight and blood everywhere and and I had this awakening right afterwards of fear. I was like, what did I just do?

• 1:00:00Robert Greene?

  Were you the instigator?

• 1:00:03Lewis Howes?

  We were both kind of the instigators. He hit me first, but we're like, you know, talking trash the whole game and hard fouling and then, you know, playing a hard game, but he actually hit me first so that but who knows, I insti- I could have diffused this this situation at any time. I could have backed away. I could have been calmer, all these things.

• 1:00:22Robert Greene?

  So that made you reassess yourself?

• 1:00:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it made me realize I'd achieved all these things. I was, you know, successful or whatever with these accomplishments, but I was like, why am I still angry? Why am I still? Why am I still reactive to this nonsense that's nothing? It's a little pick a basketball game. And yet I take it so personally. And feel like this person is attacking my masculinity, my manhood, my life, my credibility, everything. So I would defend myself. Anytime someone said something negative about me, I had to defend myself. It's kind of like my whole life, though. Now, I was a joyful, happy guy, but when that happened, it was a trigger. So and my friend was like, I don't want to hang out with you anymore because he was there.

• 1:01:09Lewis Howes?

  He was like, every time we play basketball, you get in a fight. Or you react, or you say something, or you shove someone, whatever. And so I said, I need to take a look at my life and I started going to workshops. I started doing emotional intelligence training. I started working with therapists of all different types. And I was just like, I need to see what's the root of this.

• 1:01:28Robert Greene?

  The key is here is that decision that you were not going to let this become a pattern.

• 1:01:32Lewis Howes?

  That was it.

• 1:01:33Robert Greene?

  And a lot of people could have reacted the opposite way. So what's what makes you different from others is someone could write a whole book about.

• 1:01:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, well, I'm a I'm a student of life, too. You know, I always want to learn and I realized that's something that was holding me back. Like I'd achieved a certain level of success or results. But I still couldn't sleep at night. I was still hurting inside. I was still unfulfilled and I was like, well, I thought once you achieve these things.

• 1:01:59Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:00Lewis Howes?

  Like you feel better.

• 1:02:01Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:01Lewis Howes?

  Like, these are dreams that I've had for years that, why don't I feel good now?

• 1:02:06Robert Greene?

  Well, that's a common.

• 1:02:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and I think it was like I turned thirty, I was going through a breakup in a relationship that I moved here for in LA.

• 1:02:13Robert Greene?

  Yeah, I remember that.

• 1:02:14Lewis Howes?

  I was in a business breakup as well with my partner and I was like, huh, what? You know, I'm the common denominator for everything going wrong in my life.

• 1:02:21Robert Greene?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:02:22Lewis Howes?

  Like.

• 1:02:22Robert Greene?

  So you saw your own patterns.

• 1:02:24Lewis Howes?

  I saw it and, and I think that was my, you know, not near death experience of like getting in this fight, but it was like an awakening.

• 1:02:31Robert Greene?

  Well, the fight, see, sometimes it takes something physical, like you, you could feel the, the fist on your face and you knew the feeling of shame.

• 1:02:39Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 1:02:40Robert Greene?

  These are powerful chemical reactions that you'll feel twenty years from now and so that can wake you up. Hopefully it doesn't take that much for other people, but sometimes it does.

• 1:02:50Lewis Howes?

  Sometimes it does.

• 1:02:51Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:51Lewis Howes?

  And luckily, you know, the guy was, the guy was fine, I mean, there was blood everywhere and everything, but the police station was right across the street and I was just like, I could lose everything.

• 1:03:02Robert Greene?

  Yeah, you could.

• 1:03:02Lewis Howes?

  Like, what if this guy had a knife? What if they pressed charges or what if, you know, it's like, what's the point of this?

• 1:03:09Robert Greene?

  You see, this, this is something I, I talk about in the book a lot, is, um, there's almost like a stranger inside of you. A person that acts and you don't even know who they are. Like, in those moments, you're not Louis.

• 1:03:23Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 1:03:24Robert Greene?

  Who is this? And it could happen tomorrow still.

• 1:03:26Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:03:27Robert Greene?

  Where you could get in a situation where that will happen. And where does that come from? Well, there are things like that in everybody where certain circumstances, certain events will trigger something in you and you'll act in a way that you don't even understand. Like, I never did that before. Why am I doing this?

• 1:03:43Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:03:44Robert Greene?

  You know? Why am I falling in love with the absolute worst woman that I could possibly, you know, involve in my life? Why am I taking this career job path that's making me miserable? Why am I getting into fights? Why am I suddenly getting angry? I'm saying that these are forces inside of you, human nature, that you don't understand, that are compelling you to behave in certain ways. And your only way outside is to understand what's going on inside of you.

• 1:04:14Lewis Howes?

  Wow. And that's why this book is so important. You have so many other great chapters in here. I want to ask you a couple more questions. And then we can wrap it up. This one on, you know, advance with a sense of purpose is a law. You talk about the law of aimlessness. And I think, you know, for me, having a clear vision, or at least a vision that you think is clear for a certain amount of time, is one of the most powerful things we can have, because if we are aimless, then we're screwed, I feel like.

• 1:04:42Robert Greene?

  Yeah. Well, the problem for human beings is, um, you know, an animal, a cat or a dog, they don't have to wake up in the morning and decide what they're gonna do, right? Oh, am I gonna eat this food? Am I gonna go for a walk? Whatever. Their life is sort of programmed by their, who they are genetically, etc. We humans don't have that kind of programming. We are not given any kind of natural guidance in life. We could wake up and we could not go to work tomorrow. We could suddenly do whatever we want if, if we felt so inclined. So we have to create our own sense of purpose. And that purpose can't come from the outside. If our parents tell us, you need to do this, this and this, or a teacher tells us,

• 1:05:27Robert Greene?

  it's not gonna connect to something deep within us. And it might work for a while, but when we're 25, we'll feel empty and hollow because we're not, it's not something from within and we'll lose.

• 1:05:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:40Robert Greene?

  So the trick in life is figuring out what you were meant to do. I maintain, and this is something that I go into in great depth and mastery, in chapter one of mastery, but also in this book, is to figure, every human is different. Every human has a different genetic code. Their brains are wired differently. Their parents, um, no two people have the same parents who raised them a certain way. You are different. You have something very unique about you. That uniqueness exists for a purpose. If you follow that, if you use your uniqueness in some way, you will create something probably pretty interesting and pretty great, right? But if you follow what everyone else is doing,

• 1:06:25Robert Greene?

  you will be like everyone else. You will become a lawyer because your parents say you are, should. And when you're twenty-nine, you'll feel, you won't feel connected to it. And you'll see that there are eight million other lawyers doing the same thing. And you'll be thirty-two and you'll be drinking and you'll gain weight and you'll lose all, and your life will go downhill from there. Is this your life? No, could have been. Yeah. Could have been. My parents would have liked me to become a lawyer or a doctor. Yeah, right. So, you know, how do you find that voice? I call it a voice that's telling you who you are and what you need to do. How do you find it? Well, it's listening, first of all.

• 1:07:08Robert Greene?

  So, you, when you were young, you were generally attracted to certain, to certain activities or pursuits. I call it in mastery, primal inclinations. It's a voice inside of you saying, you should do this, you are attracted to that. There's a book that I recommend by a man named Howard Gardner called The Five Frames of Intelligence. He mentions that there are five forms of intelligence.

• 1:07:39Robert Greene?

  One that has to do with mathematics, patterns. One is kinetic with sports. One is social and to do with people. One has to do with words. There's a fifth one, I don't remember. Everyone has a brain that is inclined towards one of the five. That's like your main strength.

• 1:08:01Robert Greene?

  For you, it might have been kinetic, which was sports and activity and physical action. We tend to emphasize in our culture intellectual as a form of intelligence. But being really good with your hands or being really good at sports is a form of intelligence. You are naturally drawn to one of these five forms. You have to know what that is. And when you were very young, you felt naturally drawn to certain things. When I was a kid, I was drawn to words. I was obsessed with language and words. And I was obsessed with strategy.

• 1:08:37Robert Greene?

  With warfare and war games and sports. Um, and so, you know, eventually that's sort of what I ended up, ended up doing. You know, Tiger Woods, when he was a year and a half old, saw his father hitting golf balls in the garage and he went berserk. He felt this like primal attraction to it. I have many examples of famous people. You probably had that in your life, but as you get older, you start listening to your friends, your teacher, your parents. And you're not hearing that voice anymore and all you're hearing is what other people tell you who you should be. What they think is cool and you lose connection to what makes you unique. And what, who you are, your uniqueness is your source of power.

• 1:09:18Robert Greene?

  The further you deviate from that uniqueness, the weaker you will become, you will become like other people. So the, the game in life is to know who you are, to gather skills and train yourself and be disciplined. And by the time you reach your age of thirty, you, you have a lot of creative energy and you're able to take all the things that you've learned. And create something unique like you did with your school of greatness. It, I was thirty six when I started writing the forty eight laws of power, so it took me a little bit longer than that.

• 1:09:49Lewis Howes?

  Well, you're obsessed a little more with things, that's why. You're a perfectionist. You let that get in the way, yeah.

• 1:09:54Robert Greene?

  Well, I had a little more failure than most people have. Took me a little longer, I'm a little slow.

• 1:09:59Lewis Howes?

  It's okay. Work in your advantage. Um, that's powerful, I like that. So lean into your curious, the things that you were curious about as a kid. And go back into the one of those five things, figure out what it is.

• 1:10:11Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:12Lewis Howes?

  And start pursuing that more.

• 1:10:14Robert Greene?

  And also know what you don't like.

• 1:10:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:16Robert Greene?

  Um, you don't like working in a group where, where everything's political. Uh, well, then maybe you need to be an entrepreneur and work for yourself and start your own business. So the things that you dislike show you a lot about who you are.

• 1:10:31Lewis Howes?

  I like that a lot, because I think a lot of people right now, they have too many options.

• 1:10:35Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:36Lewis Howes?

  I'm passionate about everything. How do I know which direction to go?

• 1:10:40Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:40Lewis Howes?

  And that's like a downfall in itself. It's just like, well, figuring out how to choose one direction. There's people that don't have, they don't know what their passion is. They're like, how do I find my passion? And there's people who have lots of passions.

• 1:10:52Robert Greene?

  Right.

• 1:10:53Lewis Howes?

  You're basically in the same boat.

• 1:10:54Robert Greene?

  They are.

• 1:10:55Lewis Howes?

  You're not doing either, anything.

• 1:10:56Robert Greene?

  That's right. And it's hard because, especially with the internet and all the access to information, you can get excited about so many things. Oh, I could direct a film. Oh, I could, you know, write a screenplay. Oh, I could win a political election, et cetera. No, you can't. You can't do everything. You're not meant to do everything in life. You are not Leonardo da Vinci. There's probably one or two or three things that you need to focus on, but you need to find that thing to focus on. Focusing on one activity is not something that should frighten you, which should liberate you. Because by developing solid skills in one area, you now have power to maybe branch out to something else

• 1:11:37Robert Greene?

  and combine different skills. If you aren't somebody, if you're somebody that gets easily bored, and just one straight path, you can follow this path of doing different things, but you have to master each level before you can advance.

• 1:11:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and if you are scattered in your passions or your direction or your vision, you will influence less people. The more powerful you become in one area, the more influential you become in with lots of people. Isn't that right?

• 1:12:04Robert Greene?

  That's right.

• 1:12:06Lewis Howes?

  We'll finish with, with this topic and then I'll ask you my final couple of questions. Because there's a lot of people that are looking to build a business or build a following with social media. You have a chapter that says, make them want to follow you. How do we make people want to follow us, whether it be offline, online, you know, buying into our business, our products, our services, our books?

• 1:12:29Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:30Lewis Howes?

  Following us on social media, listening to our podcasts. How do we do that?

• 1:12:35Robert Greene?

  Well, you have to understand human nature. That's the key. Yeah. Understanding the nature, yes. People don't want to be forced, or coerced, or manipulated. They want to feel that they are coming to something on their own. So, if you create this podcast, and you go out there and you get all this advertising, etc., and you force people, you force yourself down people's throats with your presence, they go, "Ah, this guy's trying too hard, I'm not so interested." But if you create a viral buzz, where instead of you promoting yourself, I go out and go, "Wow, Lewis was the best interviewer, but you are, you are one of the best interviewers around." Thank you. I believe that. Appreciate it, thank you. And I realize, because that was six years ago, I remember.

• 1:13:21Robert Greene?

  Yeah, thanks. If I'm the one going out and promoting you, suddenly that carries so much more power. So you have to understand that you don't want... So oftentimes, this is a chapter about leadership. Often, as a leader, your impulse is to yell at people and make them do things, do your bidding. And that creates defensive, resentful, bitter people. You want them to want to join your force, to do, to join the group, to follow the group's path, to, you know, to get into line. On their own, of their own volition, they follow you. And so, you have to understand that first of all, you're dealing with individuals. You can't compel, you have three people who work for you,

• 1:14:05Robert Greene?

  you can't do the same thing with each person, you have to play to their psychology. You have to create a cause.

• 1:14:13Robert Greene?

  People don't want to feel like they're doing something for money. It makes, it's kind of soulless and mercenary. Right. If, "Oh, I'm gonna listen to Lewis's podcast, because I'm gonna become a millionaire." Well, you'll get some people, but a lot of people will find that kind of empty. But if you say, "I, you listen to my podcast, and you're gonna help humanity, you're gonna change the world, you're gonna feel great about yourself, people are gonna love you." You're appealing to things that motivate people, right? So you have to understand that, you have to get them to, to, to join a cause. Basically, that's, that's, I mean, I have more things in the chapter. Yeah, yeah, that's the essence of it, yeah.

• 1:14:56Lewis Howes?

  You talk also about a dark shadow, is that what you call it? Shadow side, a dark shadow?

• 1:15:01Robert Greene?

  The shadow side.

• 1:15:02Lewis Howes?

  What is, what is that mean and what is your shadow?

• 1:15:05Robert Greene?

  Well, your shadow side came out on the basketball court very clearly.

• 1:15:08Lewis Howes?

  Yes, the Incredible Hulk.

• 1:15:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:14Robert Greene?

  Yeah. So, um, yeah, it's, it's a very important concept. Basically, it means, um, when we were children, we were two or three years old, we were like a complete individual. We felt all this range of emotions, anger, hate, love, it's joy, depression. And we tended to express it as children often do.

• 1:15:37Lewis Howes?

  All the time, right?

• 1:15:38Robert Greene?

  Yeah. And then our parents intervene and say, because a, a, a child who just does what he wants and is always expressing it can be kind of irritating and you, you, you wanna sleep and you want, you have your own cares. So you're telling the child, stop that behavior, stop being like that. You know, be a good boy, be a good girl, study harder. And so you start to repress certain qualities in yourself in order to please your parents, in order to please other people. Those qualities could be your aggressiveness, your, your natural assertiveness. It could be your, your kind of dramatic, you know, tendencies or whatever.

• 1:16:16Lewis Howes?

  Your theater nature, yeah.

• 1:16:17Robert Greene?

  Your what?

• 1:16:17Lewis Howes?

  Your theater nature.

• 1:16:18Robert Greene?

  Your theater nature.

• 1:16:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:20Robert Greene?

  You kind of repress them. You try to be who you, something that will please other people. And as you repress that other part of your character, it goes into what we call the shadow. It doesn't disappear, nothing ever disappears. It just is not immediately visible. It forms the dark side of your character. There's the moon that we always see in the sky, then there's the dark side of the moon that we don't see. But the dark side of the moon doesn't exist, it's still there, just we don't see it. Everybody has the dark, their dark side. And it comes from these qualities that they were repressed when they were younger. And it will come out later in life. In sudden bursts of anger like you on the basketball field.

• 1:17:03Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:17:04Robert Greene?

  Or it'll come out, you know, in a relationship. For instance, um. You might have felt like your parents didn't really love you. And you're worried that that you were worried with the child that that you had irrational fear that they would abandon you. And then you form a relationship later with a woman. And she's slightly cold to you, but not for any reasons that would do with you. Maybe she's in a bad mood. You assume that she's about to abandon you because you have that fear. And you lash out and you get angry and you like basically instigate a breakup. In advance because you don't want to deal with that pain of going through it. You don't want to have to be abandoned. You want to be be the one abandoning.

• 1:17:48Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:17:49Robert Greene?

  Well, that's your shadow side coming out. Everybody has it. And you'll notice it when people do something that seems out of character. They will lash out. They will get angry. They will do something self-destructive. They will say, as we said earlier, oh, that's not me. You know, something came over me. But no, that is them. That is their shadow acting out. That person on the basketball court wasn't somehow. Mister X who suddenly invaded Louis's body. It was Louis. It was more Louis than what we normally see.

• 1:18:22Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:18:23Robert Greene?

  Normally, we see the nice pleasant Louis.

• 1:18:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:25Robert Greene?

  The real Louis suddenly came out on that basketball court.

• 1:18:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:28Robert Greene?

  And you saw it. Well, everybody has that. And you want to see that in people. You want to see that they're any you want to see their shadow.

• 1:18:37Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:18:38Robert Greene?

  And understand that that that they're not as the nice as nice and wonderful as they say they are. Not to judge them, but to be aware. And you want to see your own shadow so you can use it, so you can be aware of it, so you can overcome it.

• 1:18:50Lewis Howes?

  Wow. What's your shadow side?

• 1:18:54Robert Greene?

  That's a good question. Um, I've had to deal a little bit with my shadow side now because I suffered a stroke about two months ago. And my shadow side is I feel like I'm, I have an incredible need to be independent and self-reliant. And if I don't feel that way, if I feel like I'm trapped, that I can't do something, I get really angry and really can be vicious and violent. So the sense that something is stripping or stepping on my independence or autonomy can trigger that Lewis How basketball reaction.

• 1:19:29Lewis Howes?

  The Hulk comes out.

• 1:19:30Robert Greene?

  The Hulk comes out.

• 1:19:31Lewis Howes?

  So your wife and everyone has to suffer that, huh?

• 1:19:33Robert Greene?

  Well, I had to deal with it. I've had to deal with the fact that I am dependent, that I am like a baby right now, that I can't have to rely on people. But there are other things that I can do for myself still, but they're small things. That's part of it. And then the other shadow side is the hyper perfectionist in me that's always trying to please and make the absolute perfect book, you know?

• 1:19:56Lewis Howes?

  Well, they're pretty amazing. They're pretty amazing. So it's paying off in some ways, but at what cost also? What's the price you have to pay?

• 1:20:04Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:05Lewis Howes?

  With that shadow, I guess, right?

• 1:20:06Robert Greene?

  Yeah, but you know, um, as I said before, when we were first talking, I'll take that price.

• 1:20:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:14Robert Greene?

  Because I created something that I wanted to do. I did something that meant a lot to me. And I knew I was kind of hurting myself physically, but I still did it. It's like you're going off to war. What will make a man, a person, man or woman, go into battle, knowing that you could die?

• 1:20:35Lewis Howes?

  A greater purpose.

• 1:20:36Robert Greene?

  Yeah. So you give up your body for, or a football player, you give up your body for something greater. And that's not a bad feeling.

• 1:20:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What's the thing you're most proud of that most people don't know about?

• 1:20:50Robert Greene?

  Wow.

• 1:20:54Robert Greene?

  Well, um, that's a good question.

• 1:21:01Lewis Howes?

  I try to make you think about things you normally don't think about.

• 1:21:04Robert Greene?

  Think I'm proud, well, I don't like tooting my own horn. I don't like saying how wonderful I am.

• 1:21:11Lewis Howes?

  If you had to, about the thing that you're most proud of.

• 1:21:14Robert Greene?

  Well, you know what people assume, because I wrote the Forty Eight Laws of Power, they have this image that I'm kind of this

• 1:21:22Robert Greene?

  that I'm sort of this manipulative Machiavellian who goes around trying to get the better of people. That I know every trick in the book, that if I'm late for a meeting, I'm doing that on purpose.

• 1:21:33Lewis Howes?

  Strategy, yeah.

• 1:21:35Robert Greene?

  And actually, I'm a really nice person. You know, I'm kind of a puppy. I'm not like that at all. You know, I can be tough when I have to be. But it's kind of my father, my father was a really nice person. He wasn't weak, but he was just really nice. So I don't know if I'm proud of that, but that's sort of a side of me that people don't know. I'm not, I'm not as much an

• 1:22:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, that's good, good to be proud of being a nice guy. Your shadow side is the manipulative strategist, right?

• 1:22:07Robert Greene?

  That's right, that's right, that is right, that's actually more accurate, that would be my shadow side.

• 1:22:12Lewis Howes?

  There you go. What's the question you wish more people would ask you, that they never ask?

• 1:22:18Robert Greene?

  Wow.

• 1:22:21Lewis Howes?

  Anytime you get Robert Greene, it's a wow, that's a good sign.

• 1:22:26Robert Greene?

  The question people will ask me?

• 1:22:28Lewis Howes?

  You wish people would ask you?

• 1:22:31Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:32Lewis Howes?

  Or you wish you could answer more?

• 1:22:37Robert Greene?

  Man, you see, the problem for me is my books cover so many different topics that people generally ask about everything. I mean, a lot of it has to do with, um, You know, because I've spent my whole life listening to other people and writing about other people, I don't really talk about myself very much. So, um, sort of talking about my own experiences and how I formed myself. I did that in a TED Talk and it was very difficult for me. It's very unnatural. But in this TED Talk, I discussed how I arrived at where I am right now. And uh, it's something I don't get to talk a lot about because I don't like to talk about myself that much.

• 1:23:23Robert Greene?

  But that's sort of a question I don't get so much.

• 1:23:26Lewis Howes?

  How you arrived where you're at right now?

• 1:23:28Robert Greene?

  Yeah, how I ended up writing the little kind of books that I write.

• 1:23:32Lewis Howes?

  I remember you telling me about this six years ago where you had done a lot of different things that were all failures.

• 1:23:39Robert Greene?

  Right.

• 1:23:40Lewis Howes?

  I think you were like a newspaper writer or like a screenplay writer and you know, all these different things. And you were like seventy percent good at all of them, but they weren't really that great.

• 1:23:49Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:49Lewis Howes?

  And then they all kind of magically showed up at thirty-six to writing like this different book that no one really wanted. But then it was like a big hit.

• 1:23:58Robert Greene?

  Yeah, I mean, the thing was, um, goes back to the thing about uniqueness that we were talking about. Uh, I've never felt like I was like other people. I've always felt like an oddball. I never did what my parents told me to do. I left college and went and lived in Europe. I mean, I graduated, but I lived in Europe and I just wandered around. I never listened to what people told me to do. And um, so when it came time to writing this book, this man who was my partner in writing it, who packaged it, he sort of asked me if I had an idea for a book and I kind of explained my ideas about power.

• 1:24:36Robert Greene?

  I decided to make it something very weird and unique.

• 1:24:41Lewis Howes?

  Different than was in the market and.

• 1:24:43Robert Greene?

  Yeah, like you can hate the Forty-Eight Laws of Power, but you can honestly, no one has ever written a book like that. The structure with the stories, the sections, the quotes, the things on the side. And I got a lot of grief for that. The publishers go, I don't think this will work. And we want you to change. We want it to be more like other books. And so I stuck to my guns and I said, no, I'm gonna go down sinking with who I am. If this works, it's because I'm weird and I'm unique. And it succeeded. So the idea that, and then after the forty-eight laws of power, the logical thing was to put forty-eight laws of power, part two,

• 1:25:25Robert Greene?

  and just sort of kind of mine what I'd already done. Said, no, I'm gonna go in a new direction. So I'm constantly challenging myself and following my own path. I'm a weirdo and people don't realize maybe how weird I really am. Only my wife kind of knows how truly weird I am. So maybe that's to answer your question.

• 1:25:46Lewis Howes?

  I like that.

• 1:25:47Robert Greene?

  How truly strange and weird I am.

• 1:25:49Lewis Howes?

  But that's the path to achieving something great is leaning into your uniqueness.

• 1:25:55Robert Greene?

  I think so. I mean, you could go too far, but that.

• 1:25:58Lewis Howes?

  It's still gotta reach the masses in some way.

• 1:26:00Robert Greene?

  I could have written poetry.

• 1:26:02Lewis Howes?

  There are poets right now that are selling millions of copies. Groupie Corr, have you seen her? She sold millions of copies, two books, I think were number one, you were telling best seller, poetry books.

• 1:26:12Robert Greene?

  I take that back. If I had written poetry, I wouldn't have.

• 1:26:14Lewis Howes?

  It wouldn't have been good for you, yeah. This is a question I ask at the end. It's called the three truths. And I didn't ask you this last time because I didn't have this question. So imagine you live as long as you want. You live for as many years as you want, but at some point you get to choose the day. It's the last day for you. And you've written every book that you can think of. They've all been bestsellers. They've all, you know, millions of copies, like you've already done, and then some. You've done it all. And you say, okay, it's been good, like, time to go. And for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your work with you. So no one has access to your work anymore. You've got to bring it with you, hypothetical.

• 1:26:59Lewis Howes?

  But you get to write down on a piece of paper, the three truths from everything that you've learned in your life, from all of your books, all of your messages, your work, your insights, all your weirdness that you are, the three things you know to be true about life. And this would be the only thing that you would leave behind for everyone to have. Robert Greene's Three Truths or Life Lessons. What would you say are your truths?

• 1:27:24Robert Greene?

  Well, um, there's a weird kind of law that governs the universe, which is what you give to the world is sort of what you get, right? So, we are more active than we think we are. We are more responsible for what happens to us than we think we are. And so, the things that have worked for me in life, when I've sort of been aware of that, and through my attitude, through, you know, like, the pattern of my life is kind of foggy with all of the failures. But overall, there was a reason behind it. There was a purpose, and I followed that purpose unconsciously,

• 1:28:09Robert Greene?

  maybe consciously to some degree. And it led to where I am today. But that there is something, a feeling that I had, that there is something kind of guiding me. And I can't put my words, I can't put my finger on it. Something was guiding me to where I ended up today, even from when I was five years old. So I've always had a feeling of like fate and destiny, for better or for worse, and it happened. So that's That's one. One of the two.

• 1:28:44Robert Greene?

  Wow.

• 1:28:47Robert Greene?

  The other truth is that, um,

• 1:28:51Robert Greene?

  is that, uh,

• 1:28:56Robert Greene?

  we tend, I tend and other people, we tend to be too nice in life.

• 1:29:02Robert Greene?

  Too indulgent with other people, too nice. We don't ask for enough. We, we, we feel like we don't deserve much in life, etc. And we let people push us around. I was pushed around a lot because I was sort of a naive. Writer type who didn't understand that there are bad people out there. So one of the things I had to learn in life and that are the source for my work is that there are bad people out there and you have to recognize that. That there are narcissists, that there are aggressive people, that there are passive aggressive people. They are enviers.

• 1:29:43Robert Greene?

  And you you have to be aware of that and you have to be strong enough to deal with them. And by not being able to deal with those kind of people, your life can be completely ruined. One awful toxic person, one bad relationship can ruin you for life. You internalize the negative energy. So the ability to stand up for yourself and to be aware and to understand that not everyone has the best intentions and that you're going to be more strategic and not always kind of just accepting what people give you was a major source of wisdom for me.

• 1:30:25Robert Greene?

  And all of my books come from a bit of anger, you know? And I think the reader can feel the anger in them. And anger is kind of an intoxicating emotion. I even talk in the book how it can be a positive emotion. When when my writing is angry, it's very real and you can feel it. So I've been able to take that kind of sense of there are people out there who are hurtful and use that anger and turn it into something positive into a book. That was sort of the sex.

• 1:30:58Lewis Howes?

  Final truth.

• 1:31:00Robert Greene?

  Final truth.

• 1:31:05Robert Greene?

  Well.

• 1:31:06Lewis Howes?

  For the world to know.

• 1:31:09Robert Greene?

  For the world to know.

• 1:31:19Robert Greene?

  Ah, man.

• 1:31:22Robert Greene?

  Well, I'd say one thing was kind of related to some of the other things I've said.

• 1:31:29Robert Greene?

  And I did write a book about this. But it has to do with the role of fear in my life and what I've been afraid of. And I come from a background of my parents were kind of anxious, somewhat fearful people. And I tend to internalize that.

• 1:31:52Robert Greene?

  And to worry about what will happen next, to whether people will like me. And to the degree that I overcame that fear and did something bold and unusual. I've kind of become more of who I am and kind of achieved things. So I've always been one to confront my fears. Like, I have great fears now of walking because if I fall, and it's very easy for me to fall. I could be finished, you know, I'll break something and now I can't. My stroke will never, I'll never get over. I've got to get over that and I've got to keep walking and walking and get over my fear.

• 1:32:36Robert Greene?

  I was afraid of, of being alone or being in a situation I had no control over. So when I was twenty-two years old, I went and lived on the island of Crete in Greece. In, with a backpack and sleeping in caves.

• 1:32:53Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:32:54Robert Greene?

  And kind of being alone and sort of cutting myself off from the world was something I greatly feared. And I kind of overcame that fear. So sort of the ability for me to confront what I'm most afraid of has been a great source of power. I'm not great at it, there's still many fears that, that haunt me. But instead of kind of giving into them, always kind of confronting them and moving past them.

• 1:33:23Lewis Howes?

  Confront your fears.

• 1:33:25Robert Greene?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:25Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's powerful.

• 1:33:27Robert Greene?

  Did I cover three?

• 1:33:27Lewis Howes?

  You covered three, these are beautiful.

• 1:33:31Lewis Howes?

  Make sure you guys get this book, The Laws of Human Nature, it's out right now, very powerful. I recommend getting a couple of copies to give to friends as well because... The key to life is relationships. And this is the key to understanding people and understanding how to be better in relationships. So get this book. It's going to transform the way you move through life.

• 1:33:56Lewis Howes?

  We can follow you on Instagram, Twitter. Where do you spend time at?

• 1:34:00Robert Greene?

  Well, we have a website in which everything is followed into. I've had it for years. It's Power, Seduction, and War, the "and" spelled out, dot com. Those are my first three books.

• 1:34:12Lewis Howes?

  Power, Seduction, and War.

• 1:34:14Robert Greene?

  Dot com. You'll find there a site for mastery and for the new book.

• 1:34:19Lewis Howes?

  Right. And you spending time on social media at all or no?

• 1:34:22Robert Greene?

  Yeah, I'm on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. Instagram. But I'm not as active as I should be, but I'm there.

• 1:34:31Lewis Howes?

  What's your handle on Instagram? We'll find it and link it up for people.

• 1:34:35Robert Greene?

  Yeah, I don't even know what it is on Twitter. I just have it on my phone. I don't.

• 1:34:38Lewis Howes?

  We'll find it. It's probably your name. So good.

• 1:34:42Lewis Howes?

  Well, I want to acknowledge you before I ask the final question. I want to acknowledge you, Robert, for constantly showing up and creating masterpieces because these books truly transform lives. Millions of people talk about them, read them, and they improve their life because of the information that you obsess over, whether that's good or bad. But your ability to dive into a topic is unbelievable. So I acknowledge you for your care and attention to detail.

• 1:35:09Robert Greene?

  Thank you, Lewis.

• 1:35:09Lewis Howes?

  To impact people's lives.

• 1:35:11Robert Greene?

  Thank you, Lewis.

• 1:35:11Lewis Howes?

  I just want to make sure you take care of your health moving forward.

• 1:35:15Lewis Howes?

  But it's amazing everything you've done. I'm grateful for our friendship over the years.

• 1:35:20Robert Greene?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:35:21Lewis Howes?

  And just, you know, everything that's happened, so.

• 1:35:24Robert Greene?

  I saw you when you were just a little.

• 1:35:26Lewis Howes?

  You're my first episode, so I appreciate you for giving me my first chance.

• 1:35:31Robert Greene?

  It was an honor. I'm so proud of you and everything you've done.

• 1:35:34Lewis Howes?

  Thank you, thank you. The final question is, what is your definition of greatness?

• 1:35:41Robert Greene?

  Well,

• 1:35:45Robert Greene?

  it's kind of what we've already talked about. So, um, I feel like everybody has the potential for greatness. And greatness would mean something a little bit larger than what you've already done. For going a little bit beyond what you've already created, going a little bit past your limits. Great implies kind of size and largeness. And so, everybody has the potential for greatness. I don't care who you are, or, or the bad circumstances of your childhood. And greatness is realizing your own potential. I don't care what that is.

• 1:36:30Robert Greene?

  It could be in being the best possible parent. It could be in using your hands and creating some beautiful work of art, or some great bit of craftsmanship. It could be in writing a book, or creating a great podcast. But it's something larger than what you were 10 years ago. You've expanded your boundaries, you've expanded your own limits. You've pushed them a little bit further. So to me, that's greatness. I made this a circle, I didn't explain it in the book. Because I said, human nature kind of contains us, it creates a limit for us. We can't become a chimpanzee or a sheep. We are human, and this is the limiting factor.

• 1:37:15Robert Greene?

  But by knowing the laws of human nature, you can begin to explore a little bit further out, and become something a little bit more. You can take your irrational nature and become more reasonable and rational. Well, going, pushing a little bit past your limits, and expanding like a balloon, just a little further, that's greatness to me. Not accepting, but moving past your own limits. Well, we're agreeing. Thank you, man. Thank you, Louis. Appreciate it. That was great, thank you.

• 1:37:42Lewis Howes?

  I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend. Leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels, @TheLuisHowes. I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world-class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness Newsletter

• 1:38:25Lewis Howes?

  and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com/newsletter. And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.