Video summary
In this high-level discussion, legendary author Robert Greene emphasizes that true power stems from mastering universal laws of human nature rather than reacting impulsively to external events. He argues that life is a series of facts and that awareness serves as the catalyst for transforming one's reality by shifting from automatic reaction to deliberate study. Greene posits that an individual's unique source of power lies in their ability to see inside themselves, perceive others accurately, and understand the world without being clouded by projection or emotional bias. He illustrates this with practical steps, such as observing a spouse's nonverbal communication during disagreements to uncover truths previously unnoticed, noting how people often display nervousness around those they fear while relaxing around friends. By stepping back from immediate social interactions—whether in personal relationships or the office—one can analyze body language and subtext, thereby gaining control over one's environment instead of being a victim of circumstance. A central theme throughout the conversation is the critical importance of emotional regulation and the rejection of repression. Greene clarifies that while emotions are essential for rational decision-making and creativity, they must be managed with a degree of detachment rather than suppressed or acted upon blindly. He describes his own practice of visualizing thoughts as external entities located two feet away, allowing him to observe them like characters in a theater before the "lizard brain" takes over. This technique requires daily patience and awareness, particularly when facing psychological pain from bad social interactions or media outrage designed to trigger anger buttons. Greene suggests that by analyzing why we feel certain emotions—asking questions about their roots rather than simply reacting—we can develop mental flexibility and avoid making decisions driven solely by fear or hostility. The dialogue also addresses the detrimental effects of modern conditioning, particularly through social media, which prevents genuine self-reflection by forcing individuals to compare themselves with others' curated lives. Greene explains that true individuality arises from listening to one's "impulse voices"—the primal inclinations formed in early childhood regarding what we love and hate—which are often drowned out by the noise of societal expectations. To reclaim this inner voice, he advocates for a process of hitting bottom or admitting when current circumstances are unsustainable, as deep motivation is required to begin rigorous self-analysis. He introduces the concept of *amor fati*, derived from Friedrich Nietzsche, which means loving one's fate; instead of resisting uncontrollable events like pandemics or personal failures, one should accept them and look for opportunities within them, thereby turning adversity into a tool for reassessing career paths and relationships. Ultimately, Greene defines power not as the Machiavellian manipulation seen in fiction but as the ability to guide oneself through a dangerous world by mastering knowledge and understanding human nature. He warns against wasting one's potential on rage or conformity, urging listeners to take ownership of their lives by accepting that every outcome is a reflection of choices made rather than blaming external factors. Drawing from his own near-death experience with 50 Cent and the stroke he suffered himself, Greene highlights how confronting mortality can strip away fear and foster a Zen-like calmness where nothing seems capable of ruining one's life. He concludes that if individuals do not want to waste their potential or face death with regrets over an unfulfilled existence, they must commit to this daily process of self-mastery, acknowledging the darker parts of human nature within themselves as facts rather than flaws, ultimately becoming a master of their own destiny through relentless observation and acceptance.
Read the full video transcript
Life is a series of facts. Life is what
it is. Awareness will spark everything.
It means all right now, instead of
reacting, I'm going to think and I'm
going to study. What makes you different
and unique is your source of power. So,
the power to see inside yourself, power
inside to see other people, see the
world.
You know, you're Superman if you can do
that. If you can have a degree of that,
the world is at your feet.
Today's guest is the legendary number
one New York Times best-selling author
of a string of books on the nature of
power itself. He's been referenced in
songs by Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Drake to
name but a few. The godfather of power
dynamics himself, Robert Greene.
Admit you have a problem. Admit you
don't understand the people you deal
with.
Even your spouse or your children,
they're mysteries to you. You don't
really know what they're thinking. So,
admit that first.
When you admit that, now you're
motivated to try and learn. There there
little steps you can take. I won't go
through all of them. But, the first
thing is
if you take your your your wife or your
husband, if you say to yourself, I don't
really understand them. I think I do,
but a lot of the times when you think
you understand them, you're just simply
projecting your onto them your own
emotions. Step back and say, "Today, I'm
going to observe her her, let's just say
from my point of view, in a different
way than I normally do. And I'm going to
look at her nonverbal communication cuz
I'm a big believer in nonverbals. And
today, I'm going to glean one truth
about my wife or spouse or partner
that I had never noticed before. And I'm
going to try and see, perhaps get to the
point where I can begin to understand
her perspective. So, if for instance,
there's an argument or a disagreement,
here's another instance where you step
back and you go, "Stop being so
self-righteous
and maybe try and take the step of
understanding her point of view. So, you
know, so these are sort of baby steps
that you take in in life. You can use
this in your office where you think you
you know your colleagues, but you don't
know them and they might be having
thoughts about you that aren't very
pleasant that you don't want to
confront. Step back and start observing
them. And I have many many examples in
the book about how lessons on how you
can start observing people, observing
their body language, seeing the subtext
behind their words, you know, seeing
their patterns of behavior.
You know, for instance,
you'll notice sometimes, we all go
through this,
that when we see our boss, we get a kind
of body language and a nervousness
that's it's unusual. But, when we see
somebody else like a friend, suddenly
our face lights up and we're much more
relaxed and happy. All people are like
that. So, you want to see how somebody
reacts to you when you meet them when
you come up to them and how they react
to other people. And notice that there's
a great difference when they see you and
suddenly they're very nervous around you
or they're very excited. That will tell
you a lot about yourself and about them.
You're not being observant. I have a
chapter on your attitude in life. How
you can change your circumstances by
changing your attitude. Your attitude
towards life will determine what you
get. If you're avoidant and hostile
style towards people,
a hostile person will tend to create
hostility around him.
So, how can I alter my attitude?
And it's a struggle every single day. I
have to be incredibly patient and I'm
not a patient person. You don't try and
repress your emotions. You can't write a
book. You can't start a business. You
can't make a decision about what you
want to do
without the richness of emotions. The
brain is an organic thing. Everything
works together. So, people who have had
that damage where they can't
feel the emotion that the that the
emotions are blocked, and there are
brain damage that causes that.
It's been shown that they can't make
rational decisions because they can't
decide they can't feel what is what is
good or what is bad, what is an
opportunity, what is dangerous.
So, you want your emotions, you need
them. You're not trying to repress them.
Repressing emotions will lead to other
problems. What you want is this that
tiny little bit of distance, that
ability when you're feeling it to go
back and go, "Hmm,
why am I really feeling this? What are
the roots of it?" That's very powerful
ability that you can use that you can
develop through practice. Just like
exercise will develop your muscles.
Through being able to think
before you react, it will slowly become
natural to you, but you have to practice
it. You have to be aware of that's the
source of your problem.
Do you have a a method for how you
practice that?
Well, the main thing is to be aware of
it.
Because
you know, we're we're creatures that
definitely don't like anything kind of
painful. We want our lives to be
pleasurable.
We've had painful experiences in our
life. Generally, in social situations, I
maintain the most pain is psychological
and it comes from
bad social interactions. Okay, so you
don't want pain in your life. Obviously,
everyone's going to answer that, right?
So, you don't want to make bad
decisions, you don't want to have your
emotions dragging you along and causing
all kinds of havoc. So, if you
understand that that's the problem,
you're now motivated to then try and
tackle it. So, I could give you the best
techniques in the world, but it won't
matter at all if you don't feel that
need for it, that that hunger for the
ability to have a slight degree of
control over your own actions. I try and
picture it like
my thoughts and my emotions, they're out
there. They're like 2 ft away from me.
They're not inside my head. They're over
there and I can watch my mind create
this little theater of all these little
problems and dramas.
And that's a beautiful thing. I catch
myself now because I'm not perfect. I'm
very human and I have the same problems
that I'm talking about. But I catch
myself.
Maybe 50% of the time now.
Wow, you're reacting here. That
emotional idiot part of you, that lizard
part of you is taking over and I can
step back. Having just gone through an
election cycle, the the like
absolute sense of urgency with every
message and all like it's life and
death. Like, ah, pay attention. And
everybody's like fighting and it really
feels sort of terrifyingly divided right
now.
And so thinking about, okay, people are
splitting into camps. They're
conditioning themselves more and more B
team players thinking the the right way.
How can people begin to unwind that so
that we can be
more open-minded, more mentally
flexible, finding a way to um find a
common ground for it. I'm not sure. My
real question is around conditioning.
How do we recognize it and how do we
recondition ourselves?
Well, the process is always sort of the
same. I'm going to sound kind of
monotonous in it, but it's all comes
down to awareness.
Which is the key to all of the things
that I talked about in the laws of human
nature. You know, we're So let's assume
then that we go, okay, cool. I'm aware
of the fact that this is happening. Now
how do I take control of that process?
Like are is it be careful about the
books you read, be careful about the TV
shows you watch or is there something
beyond that? Awareness will spark
everything. It means, all right, now
instead of reacting, I'm going to think
and I'm going to study. Okay? And it's
actually you know, we we humans, we want
things to be fun and pleasurable. But
trust me, the process of analyzing
things instead of reacting is one of the
most fun pleasurable mental exercises
you can ever go through. Because now,
whenever I will see a television show,
whenever I see an outrage talking head
on television or whatever, I'm going,
"Hmm, I'm studying their body language.
I'm going, "What are the non-verbals
they're communicating? Where are their
ideas coming from? Is this something
real?" And stepping back and analyzing
is incredibly exciting and it's more
entertaining than just getting all
emotionally involved in it.
So, if you know that you're conditioned,
if you know that for instance,
um and they've I think it was I can't
remember who it was that wrote an
article recently about how social media
and media in general is designed to hit
those anger buttons, right? That's how
they've been met That's how they've
they've been navigating these whole four
years of Trump. You know, and that's why
their ratings have been through the
roof. So, you know that that's what
they're doing. You know that that's
what's happening. Now, it's exciting to
actually see how they're doing it.
Wow, I can Okay, I pressed on that
button that Zuckerberg wants me to press
on not Zuckerberg, but the technicians
there.
Okay, why? Why did I do that, Robert?
Why am I getting sucked into that, you
know? This episode is sponsored by
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the episode.
If we saw completely into ourselves, we
would hate ourselves so thoroughly that
we wouldn't get out of bed. We'd all be
killing ourselves. You do need a degree
of illusion. You do need a degree of
self-esteem and confidence, right?
And what happens is, you know, it's kind
of like an internal
And so, you have like people who are
what I call deep narcissists
who have no kind of sense no
anchor inside of them no real sense
self-esteem to hold on to. And when that
self-esteem starts going down down down,
they have no way of dealing with it and
their only way of dealing with it is
acting out in the way that narcissists
act out. So, we all have if we're not a
deep narcissist, we have that thermostat
where things start hurting us a little
bit and we bring ourselves back up
through the self-esteem mechanism so we
don't get too depressed and too down.
There's an element of unreality to that,
but it's very valuable and I would never
ever ever want to burst that. You need a
degree of illusion in your life. It's
very important.
But, if you really want change, if
you're really fed up, if you're not
kidding yourself, if you're not going
through this [ __ ] process, "Yeah, I
kind of want to change my life." but you
don't really mean it, then nothing you
no words, no no therapy will ever get
you to that point. You almost have to
hit bottom.
You al- almost have to tell yourself I
can't take this anymore. And now the
motivation is so deep that you're able
now to go through to begin the process
of going through that kind of
self-analysis
because that's the only way you're going
to get out of it. It's the only way.
You know, a lot of the uh of of our
culture is making this worse in a way.
Unfortunately. I mean, there's good
things in our culture now, but there are
bad things. Give me some of the bad.
Well, I think
social media
for all the good that it does makes it
very hard to be self-reflective.
Interesting. I I thought for sure you
were going to say just leads us to
compare ourselves. Why does it make it
hard to be self-reflective?
Well, it does Well, comparing yourself
is not self-reflective.
When you compare yourself, your standard
is always what other people are doing,
right? They're on these great vacations.
He's got a great job. Tom has this
amazing house where I'm living in this
hovel in Los Feliz, right? That's not
looking at myself. That's always having
the other person as the standard. It
makes us so
out in the world, in other people, what
other people are saying, what other
people are doing. It makes us
continually think in the social sense
and not able to turn inside and look at
how who we are, what makes us different.
We're so attuned to what's cool, to what
other people are doing out there, what
other people are saying, that we lose a
kind of unintuitive grasp of who we are.
Right? So,
the psychologist Abraham Maslow talked
of impulse voices.
He said that a child of 1 year's old has
this impulse voice that says,
"I like this fruit. I don't like this
fruit. I'm going to throw it away."
Right?
And then And then other things. These
These voices inside that make them that
individual. This is what they like and
what they hate. Right? These are very,
very important as you develop later in
life. You know that this is what you
love. These are the subjects that
interest you. These are subjects you're
not interested in. These are the people
you like. These are the people you don't
like. It's who you are in the deepest
sense of it. It's your what I call your
primal inclinations. It's you at its
core.
And if you're so attuned to what other
people are saying and doing and telling
you and thinking, that voice gets
drowned out by a million other voices.
And you're not able to hear yourself
anymore. And it's very hard to take a
step back and actually look at yourself
and analyze yourself. So, the power to
see inside yourself, the power inside to
see other people, to see the world,
you know, you're Superman if you can do
that. If you can have a degree of that,
the world is at your feet, basically.
So, you know, I don't think there's any
counterargument to that where you don't
want that kind of realism.
And it's not this ugly thing. It's
incredibly sexy cuz it's incredibly
powerful, right? So, we've now come to
the point you and I we agree that that's
what you want.
The person out there is going, "Yeah, I
want that as well. Okay, Robert, that's
fine. How do I get there?" Aha. Well,
you have to be patient. You have to know
it's a process.
You can't get ahead of yourself. You
can't get ahead of your skis. It's going
to take a day by day by day by day. You
have to build it up. You're working
against your own nature. You're working
against the times. So, be patient, be
compassionate with yourself, and learn
to take these baby steps. And in the
book Daily Laws, I have a lot of
different ways of attacking that. The
main way of attacking it is uh learning
the ability, as we talked about earlier,
to be able to detach yourself from the
immediate events going on and to be able
to look at yourself with a degree of
dispassion and say,
"This is what I did really did.
Uh what really happened here?" So, just
a simple example.
Something kind of doesn't go the way you
want it to, which will happen almost
every day or every week, you know, with
your children, with your spouse, with
your boss, wherever.
Okay, what is your normal reaction?
Every single human, including myself,
blame that person.
"They're not caring. They're not
empathetic. They're an [ __ ] They're
They're They're narcissistic. Blah blah
blah." Stop it. Stop it right now. Don't
do that again.
Step back and say, "What did I do?"
Okay, if that person is toxic, why am I
involved with them? There's something
wrong about me. If that person got
reactive and resentful and they had a
bad tone of voice, something that I
said,
maybe there was something in me that was
projecting kind of negativity. Maybe my
own mood wasn't really was kind of
creating this atmosphere that made them
react that way.
Look at yourself instead of blaming
other people.
You know, these are parts of the
process. There are many others, but
yeah. Dude, that is so huge.
People always So, I have a saying that I
like that most people [ __ ] hate,
which is everything is my fault. I love
it.
It's so useful. So,
uh
fault is a word that gives people, I
don't know, emotional distress or
something, and so they don't like when I
use that phrase. Um but what I like to
remind myself is that if I did something
different, I could get a different
outcome.
Right. And that's so powerful to me. To
not by blaming somebody else, by making
it their fault, I give away all my
power, and there's nothing I can do
about it, and now I'm sort of a victim
of circumstance. But man, when you take
100% ownership, and you look at your
life and say, "My life is an exact
reflection of choices that I've made."
Yeah. Now, if I want it to be different,
then I just need only make different
choices.
Completely And And And one of the things
that that's like that is
if something went wrong,
maybe And I'm to blame. Just accept it.
Just accept the fact that it happened.
Don't try to change it, but just say
that this has happened, and I'm not
going to fight it, and this is just my
fate in life, you know, it's okay.
Right?
So, the ability to accept things is also
taking ownership of them. So, if
something bad happens, and you can't
really control it, because let's be
honest, there are times that you can't
control things. It's just going to
happen. Who predicted a pandemic? You
can't control that, right? So, your
first reaction is to get all pissy and
go, "Damn it, why did it happen? [ __ ]
[ __ ] [ __ ] I'm a victim, blah blah
blah."
Well, okay, that's just going to make
you more depressed, more inward, more
harder to act in the world. Whereas, if
you say, "Okay,
I can't control the pandemic. It's a
terrible thing, but I'm going to roll
with the punches. I'm going to accept
the way things are. I'm not going to
fight it. This is the way the world is.
What can I get out of it? What kind of
benefit? Well,
maybe I can reassess my career. Maybe
before the pandemic happened, I was just
headed in this path and I wasn't I was
kind of blind. Maybe I'm not really
happy with what I am. I'm not happy with
my relationships, with my career. Maybe
I need to reassess it. Maybe it's time
for me to be alone and read books and
and study and and learn new skills, etc.
So, the ability to to accept things that
you can't change and to see some benefit
from them is also part of that.
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What mechanisms do you use to reset
every day?
I meditate every morning. I've been
doing that for several year for 8 years
now religiously.
Um and in those meditations, I confront
myself.
So,
I'm sitting there meditating and my
meditation is all about emptying the
mind, but it's impossible to empty the
mind. So, as you're meditating, thoughts
come to you, anxieties, worries,
resentments.
I've trained myself to question where
they are.
Each time I feel anger at my sibling or
my mother or or friend for saying
something that I misinterpreted, I go,
"That's your ego speaking. You're These
people weren't saying something that was
personal. You just have your ego, which
is always getting in your way. Question
it." So, question my impatience, my
frustrations, etc. The meditation has
really helped me.
Then
a friend of mine
wrote saying about the stroke, "Well,
look at it this way,
that it's kind of an adventure,
that you're having to experience things
you've never experienced before."
I go, "Wow."
You know, I think I'm so brilliant, but
I'm not. Sometimes people other people
have the best ideas. I'm always stealing
their ideas.
That was a great idea. This is an
adventure. This is something new. I'm
having to learn it. It can be exciting.
Although really I'm feeling kind of
bitter and angry, I have to confront
that and move past it.
Amor fati. Yes, exactly. Tell people
what that means.
Well, it's a Latin expression that
literally means love of fate.
And it's
it was created by the German philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche, who's one of my
great icons in life, one of my favorite
writers.
And basically his idea was
that we humans normally go through the
life
kind of
not accepting things. We want things to
be different from the way they are.
We want to have a better
wife or husband. We want our children to
be better. We don't like the political
system. We want this sort of utopia to
suddenly come about. We want people to
be different. We want this, we want
that. And to Nietzsche, that meant you
are anti-life.
You are against life because life isn't
like that. Life is a series of facts.
Life is what it is. We've evolved a
certain way. Your reality is a certain
way. It is what it is. And by
pushing against the
you hate life.
You want love life.
You want to love fate.
And what fate means
things happen to you can't control.
You didn't control who your parents are.
You didn't control what city you were
born into, what school you went into.
You didn't control whether you were born
rich or poor.
Right? There's much you can't control.
That's fate. Accept it for what it is.
Stop whining and stop going, "I want
something else." Embrace your world,
your life. The Our fear of death is
probably the greatest influence on our
behavior
throughout history. We're the only
animal that's conscious of our
mortality.
And it's caused an incredible reaction.
We're avoidant. We're anxious. We invent
an afterlife, a heaven where we'll all
go, right? Or today, we never see death.
We never see people die in hospitals. We
never see the animals that we eat being
killed. We have no confrontation with
death personally in our life. Completely
disconnected from it.
It makes us anxious and fearful, and
that controls everything about our
behavior. We become anxious and fearful
about everything.
So, the ability to accept death and look
it square in the eye and accept this is
your reality, that you're not going to
live forever, is very liberating. So,
amor fati is a step from turning your
back, let's face this way going, here's
life and oh, I hate it. I don't want it
and
to turn around and face it going, I
accept it. I love it. I embrace it. And
it has a very powerful effect. We humans
naturally want power. We want a degree
of control over our our lives. So,
imagine the scenario where you can't
control anything about your children.
They just run wild. You can't influence
them.
You can't control any of the behavior of
your spouse that's irritating the [ __ ]
out of you. You can't control your
colleagues who are plotting all these
things. You have no And your boss is
making you crazy. You have no control.
That's a recipe for incredible not only
misery, but depression, for turning into
all kinds of health problems, for
turning to drugs and alcohol, for going
off the deep end by the time you're 40,
right? So, you want power in your life.
Power is
I have goals. I have a fate. I have a
destiny in life. I want by the time I'm
40 to reach them. The ability to reach
that, to have control over yourself and
your and to a degree of your emotions,
not repressing them, but some control,
right? Will help you realize those
goals. That is power. Power isn't like
some politician up there kind of weaving
all these Machiavellian things to hurt
and destroy people. That's the cliche.
If you've been watching House of Cards
for too long. I don't know if anybody
watches that anymore, but whatever the
new show is. So, that's not power. Power
is the ability to guide yourself in a
through a very dangerous world, very
competitive world where every where
almost all having to kind of
work for our ourselves, where we don't
get much help or cooperation from the
world. We're thrown out of the
university if we go to college. And here
we're in this world where there are no
rule books telling us how to navigate
it. It's very complicated and very
difficult and you make mistakes that you
can suffer for, and power is knowledge,
is ideas, is understanding how to
navigate a very dangerous world. Okay,
so you want that. To get back on track
to what I was saying.
So you want that, right? You want to be
and this is something that I talk about
in mastery. The idea of wasting your
potential, of never realizing your
goals, of never being able to to to
create that business you wanted to
create, or make that film that you think
is in you, or start the business that
you're starting, Tom. You know,
that's what you want in life. And if you
don't want that, there's nothing I can
say that will help you, right? I'm
starting with the assumption that you
want that, and I think most people do
want that. Okay, so your your rage, your
you're constantly being wasting time on
the internet, you're constantly being
affected by the emotions of other
people, is wiping away day by day,
second by second, all of your own power,
right? Because what is your power? Your
power as you, Tom, is to be able to
realize what makes you different, what
makes you unique. You had
I don't quite remember the full
trajectory of your career, but I
remember you early on with the health
company that you had started. And all
this and then you had a plan. Your plan
is to create this kind of empire. I'm
not trying to reveal your secrets here.
But you had I'll reveal away.
Okay. You had this idea of creating a
new kind of empire, sort of the new
Disney, right? And that comes from
something within, I'm assuming, that
there's something of the child in you
that wants that, that you've wanted that
for a while, that it it represents
something that's unique about you. It's
not something that comes from social
media or the people around you. That
could
play a small role, but it's mostly
something from within you. It's you,
okay? And that's
you what makes you different and unique
is your source of power. And the days
you spend getting angry about things
that aren't have nothing to do with your
day-to-day life. They're where they're
corroding that uniqueness of you and
they're making you a conforming
Pavlovian dog that's just like everybody
else out there in the world. If you look
at the people who are truly successful
and powerful, see them as kind of models
or icons to reach.
Okay?
And it's not to say that we all have to
be incredibly successful to feel
fulfilled. I'm not saying that. I know
people who are who are really great
carpenters, who are great at that and
that's is really fulfilling. And I know
people who
who just want to be parents and that's
their life's task and it's tremendously
fulfilling. But the people who are
really successful even at those things,
we could say that they're that they're
unique, that they're one-of-a-kind, that
there's nobody else like them. And that
is the source of your power. Right? So,
you want that. If you don't want that, I
can't help you. But if you do want that,
you're the time you're wasting in
getting enraged and being manipulated
and feeling all these things and just
getting into that lizard part of you is
time you're wasting and and your life is
is a lot shorter than you think it is.
I did a book with 50 Cent called the
50th Law.
And I hung out with 50 for several
months. He's a great guy. We're still
friends.
50 had an even worse near-death
experience than I was. He was shot nine
times very close range. Well, it went
through his jaw. He came this close to
dying.
And
he said, and I've noticed it in him
since then,
that nothing can phase him after that.
How can he be afraid of anything in life
once he came that close to death? So, he
has this kind of Zen calmness that I've
witnessed. You don't think of 50 as
being Zen and calm. You think of him as
this angry kind of thug-like rapper. But
in real life, he's incredibly calm
person who never seems to get riled by
things.
Well, I have I've had a little bit of
that effect myself.
Um so, I've noticed the people around me
like my mother or other people, they're
all freaking out about what's happened
to me. My God, you got to keep you might
fall, you might do this, got to
And I I don't care really. I don't I
feel calm.
I feel more calm than I felt in a long
time. So, that was kind of a
counter-intuitive thing that I wasn't
expecting. Now, is that because you feel
like there's nothing left to take away?
Now, every day is a gift or
um what is it what is the calmness born
of?
It's definitely that.
And then it's definitely it helps the
fact
that I've written this is my sixth book.
The Laws of Human Nature was sort of
like my ultimate I like vomited out of
me everything that I had built over the
last 20 years into this one book, all
the things I've learned. All my anger, I
got it out into this one book.
So, if I die,
I don't have to I don't have any
regrets.
You know, I yeah, I'd like to write a
seventh and an eighth book. I have other
ideas, but I could die and I I'm okay. I
lived a great life. And I talk a lot
about that in Mastery and in this book
that the worst feeling in the world is
to be facing death and to think
damn it, I've wasted my life.
And I want people out there to realize
that if your 20s and your 30s, you don't
want to reach that point. You don't want
to waste your time and become 55, 58,
have a stroke, face death, and what have
you done? Nothing. You've moved from job
to job, you tried this, you tried that
with half an energy, you really have
nothing to look back on. That's the
worst feeling.
So, you know, I don't have that problem,
I don't think.
So, that's part of how I'm able to stay
calm.
But the other thing is you
"Bring it on. What worse can happen?
I've already experienced it."
You know?
I'm somebody who has a great deal of
fear of death. And now I had to deal
with it. So, eh, it's all right. It's
not that bad. I can handle it.
Read everything this man has ever
written. I'm telling you he is
absolutely right. These are books that
get under your skin. They will change
the way that you look at the world. They
will change the way that you look at
human nature. And most importantly,
if you let it, they will change the way
you look at yourself. And we didn't even
get into some of the extraordinary stuff
that he talked about in the book about
how you develop self-esteem, the story
that you tell yourself, how you
construct your sense of self, how it's
used both as a mask and as a way to
reflect back on yourself. It is
incredibly extraordinary. And as you go
on the journey of reading the book, if
you're open to it, you will see yourself
in many of the darker elements of human
nature. I am sad to say that I think all
of us will see bits and pieces of
ourselves through all of the 18 laws of
human nature. Not all of them are
flattering. But if you're willing to
really get that level of understanding,
like he said, from there you can change
yourself. But if you don't first
understand yourself, then that is
absolutely hopeless. And that has really
been the extraordinary journey that he's
taken us on as readers thus far through
all six of his books
is to just understand, as he called
other people facts of nature. I think
that's so interesting. And to see
yourself in that pantheon as well, to
understand that there are parts of you
that are just facts of nature. And to
really come to understand those is to
come to understand yourself, is to be a
master of yourself. And that journey is
something that I'm extraordinarily
grateful to him for laying out in this
book so eloquently. I think it is worth
every second that you will spend on it.
I cannot highly recommend it enough. I
have a new website. It's at
robertgreeneofficial.com.
I hope I have that right. I'm really
Robert Greene Official? Yeah. Your
socials are at Robert Greene official.
Yes. And there you will find Instagram.
I have TikTok, believe it or not.
Yeah.
That's good. That's good. This new
generation needs to know.
Okay. So I have Tik If I have TikTok,
Instagram, Facebook, Twitter,
and then website where you can get links
to all of my books and some of my
ancient blog posts and things like
interviews and my YouTube channel.
All right, guys. If you haven't already,
be sure to subscribe. And until next
time, my friends, be legendary. Take
care.
Robert, that was amazing, dude.