Robert Greene On How To Stop Feeling Empty Inside & Finding Your Unique Purpose

we don't really have a self the self is a construction of our minds there actually is nothing there and that kind of emptiness egolessness is Enlightenment it's a beautiful feeling one of the bestselling authors of the last 20 years Robert Green if you're dealing with your own weaknesses and your own emptiness inside you're going to be drawn to people who fill that up people's perception of you can almost become how you perceive yourself if you're not careful hey everyone I've got some huge news to share with you in the last 90 days 79.4% of our

audience came from viewers and listeners that are not subscribed to this channel there's research that shows that if you want to create a habit make it easy to access by hitting the Subscribe button you're creating a habit of learning how to be happier healthier and more healed this would also mean the absolute world to me and help us make better better bigger brighter content for you in the world subscribe right now the number one Health and Wellness podcast Jett J shett the one the only Jett hey everyone welcome back to on purpose the place you

come to become happier healthier and more healed today's guest is one of your favorites someone who's been on the show before you absolutely loved our first episode together and so I had to have him back he's also one of my favorite author is someone that I've been rereading recently especially when I fell out of love with learning and I'll tell you about that in a second today's guest is Robert Green the author of The New York Times Best Sellers the 48 Laws of Power The Art of Seduction the 33 strategies of war the 50th law

Mastery the laws of human nature and most recently of the daily laws I am so excited to welcome back to the show Robert Green Robert thank you for being here thank you so much for having me J thanks for that great introduction of course grateful to have you back in the sea and as I was just saying to you offline over Christmas I spent last year touring I was on stages we did nearly 40 cities across 90 days my book had come out I was really pouring out externally and whenever that happens to me I

always kind of after that get a feeling of I need to grow again I need to learn again I need to nourish myself and I really believe that last Christmas the daily Laws of Power became my daily read and I have recommended it to so many people my wife started reading it my closest friends have started reading it and it was just such a great book for anyone who's either stuck with reading someone who's kind of like not sure what to read someone who's trying to figure out their Direction in life the daily Laws of

Power is a great starting place I'd say thank you thank you very much and uh I've always been a your books and you sent me this beautiful Limited Edition version which I'm getting to show off on the show uh but the 48 Laws what a what a phenomenal book so thank you for being such a big part of my Learning Journey for having me you're a rock star but what a tour youve been I've never been on a tour like that that sounds like fun it was fun it was fun we went to Sydney and

Melbourne and Brisbane we went all over India I went to Dubai I went to W amsterd Paris Berlin it was phenomenal like it was amazing would you consider yourself more of an extrovert or introvert that so that's a great question and I'm going to let you define the two for me because you'll probably have some wisdom to share with us I energize alone but I enjoy connecting with small groups of specific people so I assume I'm overall an introvert but 99% of people would say Jay you're an extrovert but if I was in a big

group of people I would find the one person who I share values with to have a deep conversation I wouldn't be Milling around introducing myself everyone so if that makes any sense but do you need to be alone do you feel I I crave alone time a lot yes a lot so you're a mix yeah you're a mud ambiv yeah yeah if that's what it's called yeah am exactly yeah uh but I've so many questions for you Robert that I want to di into and I'm really coming to you with questions that I know a

lot of my community and audience repeatedly ask and I think you're specifically positioned to answer a lot of these the first one I have is one of the biggest things I get asked is Jay how do I deal with negative people how do I deal with negative people in my family how do I deal with negative people in my friend Circle how do I deal with negative people at work in close intimate circles I feel a lot of people feel they're dealing with negativity well you know it all depends on the details the kind of

negative person you're dealing with there there are several kind of ways of looking at it some kind of micro in some kind of much larger the larger picture is we all have negative traits we all have dark traits right and so you kind of if you have this idea that it's just humans human beings are like this it's like a a flower or a rock or a tree it has its nature you know I just accept it I accept people for who they are and I deal with them on that level I don't judge them

Etc now of course when you're dealing with negative people it can be very difficult because negative people like to stir up a lot of drama around you around them and that's the kind of power that they get they like the attention that they get from making people upset from pulling on your emotions right so you have to have you have to have this kind of larger look at them where I it's not about me right they're dealing with their own issues their own problems there's a history behind behind it it could be their parents it

could be their family it could be their spouse their children whatever and they're venting it on me in this particular moment but it's not personal I tell people don't take it everything so personally right but then you know so there all these different levels and it's it all really depends on the specifics because a lot of people come to me for advice but a lot of times you're in meshed with a negative person like it's your boss it's your spouse etc etc and it's very difficult to do what I'm talking about right and so you

have to try and get a little bit of distance from them you have to be able to to say to yourself um they're not me right they have their own problems I'm separate from them the sense of being separate from them is very liberating right so they have issues and they're trying to drag me into it and they're trying to drag me down but I'm not them I have my own life and I'm not going to get involved sometimes you need to have empathy but sometimes you need to shut that off and so the best

thing in life though is that's why I say there's just so many angles to approach this from is if they're like a deep narcissist and um that's probably the most common type of negative person you deal with in the world today and we all have come across this the power that you have is to recognize people like that before before you get involved with them and to not get involved with them right and so they have signs things that you can pick up in advance people who are toxic I don't know if we're going to

toxic and negative are the same here they don't show it immediately they're good at deceiving you they can be very Charming they can be very dramatic they pull you in with their great stories they have sometimes they're even charismatic a lot of important CEOs in the world people like Elon Musk are raging narcissists they appear very exciting and you want to get to know them but you have to recognize that these are people that are probably going to use you right they don't see you as an individual and the people you associate with we're very

um as as humans we're very open to the emotions of other people right and so the people you associate with have a huge role on who you are and the energy you have you know your daily life etc etc and so you have to be very very careful who you let into your life right and um God Jay I don't know there's so many different angles to approach it from no that's I tell I tell people that don't judge people as far as who are you going to let into your life don't be um deceived

by the appearances don't judge people based on their Intelligence on their charm on whether they're good or bad Etc judge them on their character whether they have a weak or a strong character what are some of the signals the signs we can look out for because I think what you just said is so true that we naturally get attracted to people's appearance intelligence Charisma access because we haven't really been trained to view character yeah so I remember when I lived in the monastery the highest quality or character trait that was considered the epitome of internal

emotional Evolution was humility and so when you met someone who was humble and you met someone who didn't have false ego they were considered of High character and we were trained in order to understand that but in the modern world that isn't how the material world Works we're almost attracted to people who can come off arrogant and showboy and and even if we sense we don't like that we still believe that person has power and so what are things that we have to look out for well also there are people who appear to be humble

but they're not really humble there's a lot of people now who feain humility because it's seen as a positive trait yes so humans are born actors and you have to kind of look behind the mask so I tell people I I view it as strong or weak character a strong character is a person who can take criticism right who can work with other people right who can deal with stressful situations who can handle responsibility and if there something goes wrong they take I am to blame for they don't look at other people there's somebody you

can rely on you lean on them and there's something there to lean on you can rely on them in situations a weak character is somebody who cannot take criticism that is probably the number one characteristic the worst trait I think in people and a definite trait of of negativity is somebody who can't take any kind of criticism right they're so defensive so that means they can get away with anything they can say anything they want and there there's there just like a wall a shell around them right so the ability in a work situation in

a relationship to um to take criticism and not and be able to use it constructively is an incredibly useful and Powerful trait to me that reveals strong character how people handle stress is a really good sign of their character so in a work situation people are good at faking it and and pretending that they're very strong but when it gets really stressful and there's a lot of pressure on it the mask falls off and they reveal that they can't handle it they're too weak they're reacting to everything they can't get out of the moment they're

so impatient you know and fragile and so the ability to handle stress shows that somebody has something strong inside of them right how they handle power right so when people are kind of climbing up the latter in in a group or in a job they they generally wear they generally try and pretend like they're they're they're with with the group but once they have power that all falls off and they can become abusive and they feel like they can get away with any things that they couldn't get away with before they treat people below them

miserably Etc so when people have power how do they handle it are they responsible do they suddenly become somebody different or do they maintain the character that they had beforehand right what kind of Partners do they choose do they choose a spouse a husband a girlfriend Etc somebody that they can push around somebody that's inferior to them so they can feel better about themselves how do they look when they're playing like a game or they're in outdoor activities or something that has nothing to do with work are they so competitive they have to win at

everything even when it's like outside of that kind of environment you know that those these are kind of traits that help me sort of Judge a person's character yeah and these are often the things that we either ignore or we actually let them kind of Fall by the wayside or or don't pay enough attention to them because we think oh no but they're so smart and they're so this and I wonder how much of that is also like what what does that say about us that we often get attracted to the wrong things within people

what does that say about us does that make us of strong or weak character I know that uh I tend to be I tend to get involved with narcissistic people it's a weakness of mine right um and maybe it's because of my upbringing and maybe it's because I feel a kind of emptiness inside of me and that their charm and the attention that they tend to they pretend to give you is kind of enchanting or casts a spell on you and it draws you in yes so if you're dealing with your own weaknesses and your

own emptiness inside you're going to be drawn to people who fill that fill that up or you're going to be drawn to causes and charismatic leaders that pretend to give you a purpose in your life because you don't have a purpose but they have it for you kind of thing so a lot of it has to do yeah with ourselves and we're attracted to to we're even attracted to negative people and uh there are people who have patterns in their life where they deliberately choose the wrong the worst kind of person for them right and

uh over and over and over again because at least that makes them feel alive at least the pain of it you know gives them a sense of Something's Happ something dramatic and so they deliberately bring on those kind of that kind of pain so it's complicated yeah um yeah when you said that often we feel an emptiness inside and you were saying maybe because of your upbringing you felt that emptiness inside as well have you tried to fill that emptiness or is there another solution well uh to me uh it's why I wrote the book

Mastery um the way I feel my emptiness and how I've done it for since I was a kid is through my work and through my ideas and my thinking and and how I'm constantly looking for uh new thoughts and new ways of looking at the world so um I I I find that if I don't if I didn't have my work as kind of some people think of work as something that you just have to do right it's just a way to get money but for me it's a way to to feel like I'm I'm

a human being that I am who I am I was destined to write these books and it gives me every day I wake up and I know this is what I need to accomplish etc etc um and so I that's why I read so many books that's why I'm so intrigued by ideas that's why I'm writing a book right now about a subject that very much captivates me because it does feel that inner kind of emptiness but on the other hand um as someone who meditates and practices a form of Zen meditation there is a

purpose to emptiness right there it's it's not necessarily good to be always having to fill things up in your brain like you're just pouring food into your system you know there is something actually kind of intrinsically beautiful about the idea that there that there is emptiness that that I don't really have a self that there is actually not that there is no such thing is a mind actually it's it's an illusion that we create right it's something it's a lang something through words that we have so that sense of emptiness that you know I'm I

don't have an ego or that I'm confronting the world and I'm just hearing and seeing things as they are is actually a beautiful thing so you have to I have to kind of struggle against this idea of always having to fill myself up what's something you were saying you like observing humans and Humanity what's something that you've observed about humans over time that surprised you well nothing really surprises me because um I read a lot of history and I see that things just keep repeating over and over and over again I know though um since

I had my stroke and since I've physically weak and there things I can't do anymore I've actually noticed that people respond to me differently and it's actually very positive so sometimes I can be very negative about people that's kind of my inclination that's how I'm my mind tends to work which is not necessarily a good thing we all have these attitudes that make us look at the world a certain way I tend to have a negative bent towards human nature but I must say people have been very very kind to me since I've had my

stroke and it's a it's sad that you have to have an accident like that to be able to perceive it but I've seen another side where everyone wants to help me they kind of empathize with the fact that I'm a little bit helpless in these situations and um it's also made me kind of feel differently about other people who have disabilities or things that they can't help in their lives but the sense of I'm a little bit helpless and people are really eager to try and help me actually is something that has kind of surprised

me in a way yeah I I liked what you said there that it's it's sad that someone has to go through something for us to then show that sides of ourselves which means that it's always there it means that it exists inherently within us yeah do you think it's because we why why do you think that is why why do you think that is that if it's inherently there we don't display it at all times to all people I don't know um I mean we're all born with a capacity for empathy it's something that interests

me a lot because uh the feeling that I'm connecting very deeply to another person let's say my wife Etc is a very overpowering emotion it me gets me out of myself and I'm seeing the world through her eyes as opposed to me always projecting myself onto her it's a very moving experience and sometimes you go to a movie and you find yourself getting inside the characters you're getting outside of yourself and you're feeling this empathy for them you're identifying with them these are all very powerful emotions right and we all have the capacity for that

but the world we live in is actually a Machinery to deaden those those emotions that sense of empathy right it just puts so much emphasis on ourselves on our individuality on who we are our needs you know our the attention that we want that we deserve we're so focused on ourselves that that natural feeling of wanting to get inside of another person and you know it's very strange Jay because if you think about it our inner lives are actually quite boring the same thoughts repeat over and over and over again the same emotions the same

preoccupations the same anxieties and other people they're so different they have their own worlds right they're like a it's like traveling to another country so we should actually be much more Ori oriented towards other people we should have a natural interest in their world because it takes us out of ourselves it's like therapy but it's been deadened by so many things in our world by social media by the pressures we're under by just modern lifestyle and so that empathetic muscle that everybody has is kind of atrophying and yet there'll be moments where it kind of

Sparks to life and you feel like God I want that I want more of that in my life more of that in my world how do I get it what what would you say is your most repeated thought on a daily basis like um what do I need to do today what's on my schedule you know so like I'm meditating in the morning and I'm trying to empty my mind and I'm going into what's known as a Coan right and um then these thoughts keep P bubbling up and they're so annoying and it makes you

aware of what how the Machinery of your own mind and so as to answer your question it's always like oh did you remember that you have to uh call this person this afternoon did you remember you have to change that reservation do you remember that you have to do this that the scheduling things so unimportant so trivial where I'm trying to open my mind up to something vast and important it's little things like scheduling and stuff like that then there'll be other thoughts that'll be repeating you know like if I saw a movie from it

images will keep popping up from that and such it makes you aware that you're not in control of your own mind right how have you found over time with meditation and other practices what have you used in order to start quietening emptying whatever the right word is for you releasing those thoughts so that you can connect with vastness be creative or self-express wow it's uh it's not easy and it's an ongoing process and I could say I'm maybe 10% of the way where I'd like to um but first of all uh you recognize you go

through a thing where a thought pops up and it's like why am I thinking about that I don't like it you you realize that it's just a thought and what is a thought now I know we're getting really weird and metaphysical here I like it but it's not it's it's not real it's a phantom right it has no reality reality is your body the present moment the birds outside the sky where you are sitting the fact that you're alive that your blood is pumping these are real but that thought in your mind is a shadow

it's a phantom it doesn't exist it has no reality and so I go to this process where don't engage with it and it's really weird because then my mind plays tricks on me and it pulls up a thought that's definitely going to engage me right because it wants that it's it's like a sugar rush and so I go okay no I'm not going to engage with it and it made me realize as I went through that process that this is what social media is based on social media has mirrored the human brain on a large

scale we have thoughts that are designed to grab our emotions and make us think about them repetitively over and over again compulsively right and there's probably a purpose behind that but social media is is actually a genius at that picking at putting up things up there they're going to engage our emotions so we have to pay attention so I always try and every time that happens I withdraw and I say it's just a thought it's not real it's not who I am this is a very important part of meditation your thoughts are not who you

are they're a separate part of yourself you are something different from your own thoughts I don't know if that means anything to you it does it does definitely and while we are not our thoughts and we are not our mind our thoughts become our reality we find that a repetitive thought turns into a habit that turns into a pattern that turns into an action becomes our reality for example I am a unorganized lazy individual usually translates into oh I forgot to send that it didn't happen because now it's a belief that's built up and so

it's so fascinating that something that's so not real becomes so real and and I've been really into seeing how thought editing is so useful as an activity and an exercise because I've found so many of my thoughts become my beliefs that become my life and I think a lot of people don't realize because they don't realize that their thoughts are like clothes that you can change we do believe that our thoughts are real and our reality and whatever we're hearing in our head is exactly what is and we don't realize that oh it's like looking

in your wardrobe and saying I don't like the color green anymore I'm going to change it for blue right it's it's a simple as that well there was a something I read recently um in in one of the Buddhist books that I like to read that said our minds are basically Topsy Turvy they're upside down so the reality is we don't re I mean I don't want to get too deep into this but we don't really have a self the self is a construction of our minds there actually is nothing there and that kind of

emptiness that egolessness is Enlightenment it's a beautiful feeling and maybe in your life you've touched upon it briefly I know I've touched upon it briefly it's not the reality I have every day but that's the real that's real and what's not real are the thoughts but everything is turned upside down in our worlds and so these delusionary thoughts about of about people about who I am about my habits Etc they become our reality when it's exactly the opposite right you have to be able to to be aware of that and so you know meditation is

all about being aware of is becoming aware of these things because we walk around like automatons you know I'm very into this writer named GFF I don't know if you've ever heard of G he was this um he's basically from Armenia he was in the beginning of the 20th century he was this man who was very interested in in mysticism and he traveled throughout Asia trying to find the the uh the essence of all the different esoteric philosophies and he created his own philosophy and it's very interesting very exciting stuff he wrote a book called

in search of the miraculous that I highly recommend people and it's not woo woo stuff he was a very very practical man he puts it in very practical terms but his idea is that we walk around asleep we're on automatic pilot constantly we're not really aware that we're breathing that we're existing we're not aware where our thoughts come from we're not aware of how our body moves etc etc etc and so it's a process of slowly becoming aware of these kinds of things that is really kind of I've been doing this 14 15 years now

and it's really really kind of changed the course of my life I have to say yeah I love that and I can't wait to read that book now and I I couldn't agree more I feel we're so disconnected from our mind and body that we constantly believe that someone outside of our s has the answer for how we feel and while that may be true when you're seeing a doctor or a dentist or something of that professional nature we don't really know how our body's been feeling for weeks or months until it crashes and we've

realized that we haven't paid enough attention to X or Y or Z or a relationship in the same way has to end in order for us to realize that he had lost investment and energy or whatever it may be and we're so far away from the self or at least this version of the self that yeah we're not really aware I love what you just said about the idea of how conscious are we of the fact that we're breathing we're here we're present we're together versus how much are we living up here yeah and and

it's really interesting isn't it because there's almost two realities that we're always dealing and if we're getting too heady I'm happy to move away from it but it's it's almost like I've been thinking a lot about how in one sense what's out here is real and in one sense what here isn't and at the same time actually what's going on here is the real because it defines how I interact with everything else and and it can help me be a better a filter a bit a a Chooser selector of the people I'm around and the

places I visit so you say you have to kind of use the mind to be able to become present it's a process I would say I'm alluding to that in Discovery not in pushing it if that makes sense yeah yeah it makes sense to me yeah I agree with that definitely yeah I I've been reflecting a lot recently about how most of what's happening is in the invisible world and that that's very interesting tell me more about that so I've just been I was thinking that in in one sense you have reality externally the visible

world but how I make sense of that visible world is all in the invisible space and ultimately how I make sense of it is the reality that I experience regardless of what's happening around me which is why we realize that people who well we all are telling ourselves stories and narratives all day long but how we're processing what we're experiencing is our reality as opposed to the event or what someone said or social media as you gave an example like I can either sit here and say like I know that when I wake up in

the morning and I start scrolling on social media my mind is now moving 10 times 100 times faster than if I don't do that and I know that brushing my teeth and showering is a much more peaceful process if I haven't looked at my phone then if I do right and so that choice is being made in The Invisible world and the visible world is simply something I'm interacting with and taking from or being affected by well so we mostly live in amid things that are invisible yes right symbols Etc yes language is is is

a symbol it's not reality and so um things like government and and and social behavior they're rules and codes that we abide by but they're not visible they're invisible right yeah definitely and and we're not aware of that and so we're trying to raise our awareness of the invisible world I'm always trying to raise my awareness of why do I process this this way where does this come from where's this idea taking root that's a very yeah it's very interesting process to go through yeah it's hard it's yeah it's not clear it's not it's not

like a here's step-by-step process it's just something I've been engaging with a lot yeah yeah I like to try and um go through a thing where I I question all of my beliefs and things of why where does that come from why do I believe that why has that become something that's so hardened into my brain I believe that about myself and who I am about other people I continually try to challenge it and look at what might be the source of it and then maybe say it could be the opposite right and actually it

can be it can lead to a lot of problems because it's like my mind is always swimming and I'm never really think anything is certain I'm always you know seeing the opposite side of it but um I think it's in the end it's a very healthy process how how do you I I love I love where we're going because it kind of comes back to your same point early sorry your earlier point about how someone of strong character knows how to take criticism which means they know how to deal with the opposite of what they

think or feel and so this idea that you're sharing now that it's healthy to be able to question to evaluate to assess our beliefs and values but like you said it's one of the hardest things to do because you get into a space of uncertainty you question your identity you lose a sense of direction how do we question ourselves without losing ourselves and actually realize that that is the process of discovering and building ourselves you know like who who really are you in the end you know what what what constitutes you the essence of you

what were you meant to accomplish in this world right your sense of purpose you know to use the title of your show what is it that makes you an individual makes you unique that you alone are meant to accomplish in life well it's not given we don't know it and a lot of people really really struggle with trying to figure that out right because they've been programmed by their parents by their siblings by the culture by their teachers to say this is who you are this is what you should believe in this is what you

were meant to accomplish in life this is what's cool and what's not cool okay and so you have to question yourself you have to say is this really who I am do I really am I really interested in this subject am I really interested in this kind of person in getting in a relationship with this kind of person and so question yourself on that level you're getting at a deeper and deeper core of maybe who you are at essence you you're cutting away all of the social stuff that's been foed upon you that it has

nothing to do with you right so in some ways you're kind of a mystery to yourself and you're sort of trying to solve that puzzle and you have to ask these questions is this something I'm actually really interested in is this an intrinsically important thing to me or is it something that's in the culture or something that other people have told me and questioning that over and over and over again is not to lead you into this Abyss where there's nothing real is to get you closer to who you are to what really matters to

what that essence of you is to what you meant to accomplish in life and once you reach that that inner kind of gold then you have you have a degree of certainty so I know I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be a writer right I had a struggle to figure out what kind of writing I wanted but knowing that's who I am probably about about the age of eight it allowed me to go I'm not interested in that I don't want to do that this isn't important why am I following

this career path why am I wasting my time here and then so knowing that kind of core you don't have to keep questioning yourself so I'm never going to question myself why are you a writer why are you writing books you should have been a a pop star you should have been a rock singer you should have written poetry you should have been a lawyer no I'll never go there because I have that that firm ground beneath me and that's what your questioning is supposed to lead to get to the essence of who you are

and once you're there you have a degree of certainty in your life yeah it does it does and I feel like a big challenge something that I've been thinking a lot about lately is a big challenge of where that comes from is because we care so much about what people think and we're scared of being an unsuccessful version of ourselves because we'd rather be a success version of what someone else wants us to be yeah and so we're scared of being an unsuccessful writer if we could be a successful accountant we're scared of being an

unsuccessful artist because we'd rather be a successful Tech person whatever else it may be fill in your blank and because what we think people think of us has such a strong hold on us that we can't pivot to our passions we can't maneuver to our purpose we can't accept that maybe I'm not what this person wants me to be and I've been spending a lot of time in this to try and figure out and I and we let's let's dive into it from different perspectives but I guess how much Robert do you care what people

think of you and how have you made sense of that over your time as someone who obviously writes that a lot of people enjoy your reading people may disagree with you they may agree with you people as said debate discuss but how have you made sense of that and what's been your process of dealing with how you think people think about you there's there how people think about me who know me personally and there's how people think about me in the social realm who don't know me personally and who have an idea of who I

am which is often very different from the reality but naturally as a human being I care that people understand that I'm I'm a certain way that I have a certain character that I actually love jokes and silly bathroom humor and that you know I like stupid movies and that I'm not always you know reading heavy philosophy you know my wife can tell you all about this childish side of my personality so you know it's always been important to me to feel kind of authentic and sincere and I've always hated and it's probably why I wrote

the 48 Laws of Power I hate people who are pretending to be something that they're not deeply deeply wounds me and I don't know why I don't know why it's been like that since I was a child maybe I suspected that in my parents the kind of falseness that upsets me deeply and so I wrote the 48 Laws of Power because I felt people are such Hypocrites they pretend that they're not interested in power but that's all they're interested in right they wear this front like oh I just want to help people I just want

to WR make movies and culture and art know you're interested hidden power so it's always been deeply important to me to kind of reveal what's really going on in someone and to sort of feel that way about myself so when I don't feel like I'm myself when I feel like I'm faking it and sometimes to be honest with you Jay being a kind of quote unquote self-help Guru it feels false it doesn't feel like who I am I feel like a bit of an impostor that's not really what I wanted to be relate to that

I just wanted to write books I love ideas I love thoughts I love expanding my Consciousness right so the feeling that I'm not being who I am and that other people are kind of glomming onto that is upsetting to me yeah I don't know if I'm answering your question no that that's I mean that's resonating so deeply with me I think it's so interesting isn't it how your self-perception is so different from people's projection onto you and so I I can identify with that I do what I do because I'm just sharing what I love

so I love meditation I love uh wisdom books I love Traditions I love ancient wisdom and modern science and seeing the parallels between the two and I just love talking about that and sharing that yeah and I don't think I've ever thought of myself as a guru or a guide or a or that kind of individual but we in society if someone shares or teaches or gives Insight or advice we box them or bucket them as that so same as you we'd go in the same bucket even though we kind of do similar things but

very different things and we probably have some similar interest and some different interest and it's interesting how there isn't a space like I often say to people I'm just trying to be everyone's spiritual friend like that's my goal like I'm that guy who is introducing my friends to co things that they may not have come across whether it's eastern spirituality or wisdom or whatever it may be like I'm that guy and that's all I want to be I I don't want to be anything else right but it's hard when you almost get put on a

pedestal even though you didn't ask for that or didn't want that well people's perception of you can almost become what how you perceive yourself if you're not careful for sure you know and so um that's why I keep coming coming back to myself and going is that really who I am yes I don't think so Robert you know and also I actually um I'm very I'm a flawed individ I'm a flawed human being I have you know blind spots in my nature I have compulsions that I wish I didn't have and I don't like this

idea that people think I'm this powerful person who's figured everything out because I'm not I have that's why you know I write the wrote the book the laws of human nature it was because I understand that I shared the same flaws that I have narcissistic tendencies that I too can feel envy that I have moments of grandiosity so I'm not comfortable with the idea like that I'm this somebody that I'm not that the perception of me is but that's what happens to a lot of successful famous people they become trapped in what other people are

thinking about them they become trapped in that image and I honestly think I I could be way off base but I'm thinking of somebody like Anthony Bourdain who committed suicide I think he was burdened and weighed down so much by how people thought of himself and it wasn't who he was and it kind of made him feel deeply uncomfortable I'm sure there were many other issues going on but a lot of times it can make you uncomfortable in your own skin the way people perceive you and it can lead to deep feelings of depression and

and is and a loss of Who You Are country yeah yeah absolutely I mean could write a new book called the flaws of human nature it's like thank you it's that's what the book is it's the 18 dark corners of human nature but yeah that's a good idea yeah it's no it's just a you know a thought of like it it is true it's there's a seeking of perfection and there's a sense that we've created in the world of before and after in the sense that if you look at like a a workout program and

there's nothing wrong with this because it makes sense but there's a before picture and there's an after picture and if someone's wealthy it's like they were poor and now they're rich and everything's a linear before and after journey and what we're talking about and I fully agree with you on this is that actually all of my challenges are cyclical and they're different so it's not that I never feel Envy anymore it's that I feel it differently to how I felt it 10 years ago and hopefully I'm a bit better at dealing with it and understanding

it and and engaging with it than I was 10 years ago but it's not that it doesn't affect me anymore right right and same with spiraling thoughts it's not that I don't have anxious or negative thoughts anymore because I'm enlightened I still have those thoughts I just deal with them better than I did 10 years ago and I probably have more tools to help me engage with them that's true that's very and I think that cyclical nature nature is a wonderful thing to accept as an individual and as someone who's learning because you then don't

fool yourself to think oh there will be one day where I will no longer have a negative or anxious thought like Jay and Robert like you know they probably never have it it's like well yeah you I probably have less but it's not that I never have them exactly uh right yeah yeah and so so that kind of idea of this before and after I think is what confuses so many people because it feels like oh there is a point at which I never have to go back to being this version of myself well that

life isn't like that you know it's weird sometimes because before the 48 Laws of Power came out I was just this nobody living in a two one-bedroom apartment in Santa Monica rent controlled you know never really made any money never really had any success in life and I was constantly giving people advice but nobody would listen to me because I hadn't written the book suddenly the book comes out and I'm supposed to be a different person you know it's very strange but I'm actually the same person that I was when I was living in that

miserable one-bedroom apartment you know and giving out my advice that nobody listened to now people listen to it but the only difference is because suddenly I have this credential which is very strange yeah I I can relate to that so many ways I was I I used to be mentor and coaching people in my community I would do these little events in London 10 11 years ago now where like five people would show up and and it was you know I I was just doing it I would speak at universities for free for years like

I was it was you know it's been such a big part of my life to just do this I've always wanted to be someone who's learning and sharing that's what I enjoy I enjoy learning and I enjoy sharing and I enjoy synthesizing and making things simple and practical for other people that's that's what I get my joy from and I was always inspired by two quotes one is Ian Pavlov where he said if you want a new idea read an old book and so that's always been something that my work has been inspired by it's

always based on ideas that seem Timeless but they're and old very beautiful yeah yeah and then there's another thought from Einstein which is another part of what inspires my work which is if you can't explain something simply you don't understand it well enough M and so were the two kind of tenets that what I enjoyed doing in the world and again I don't think they're magnificent miraculous or brilliant they're just what I'm meant to do uh and there's such a beautiful significance and insignificance in that very understanding like it's really significant building because I'm like

I know what I have to do and that's really insignificant because I'm like it's just what I have to do it's it's not the best or the worst or it's not comparative right um and I think that's how when you're talking the daily Laws of Power that's that's kind of how in different words how you describe like your life's um you know your life's gifts your life's work your life's path I've always liked old books myself so um you know I read a lot of books of philosophy Etc history but I also read books of

famous Zen Classics the 20th century books I'm not so but I'd read like something from the 11th Century where the thought process is so different but it's Timeless it's human man it is so beautiful it so Sparks these ideas that he or this writer this thinker was dealing with the same things now a thousand years later but they still strike a truth but it's in this language that's very weird and primitive and barbaric I don't know why that excites me so much it's the same idea that a modern writer might write but put in the

words of somebody a thousand years ago it suddenly touches me yeah can you explain that Jay I mean I don't know I can apart from the fact that you've reincarnated and you had some connection to it but um can I explain it I can't explain it but I can I can reflect on it I mean I find that there's a part of it that that writer or Creator may never have known if anyone would ever read it yeah and so that privacy and that secrecy and that intimacy with their work not knowing that it would

ever be viewed seen read broadcasted that has some power to it yeah yeah there's a there's a humility to that whereas now people WR we're expecting all these people to be reading it we do it for the attention yeah it was much different back then yeah that's very interesting I never thought of that yeah I've I've definitely found that I try and wreath yeah I try and sit with ideas for longer now and try and kind of I'd love to know your process for that how have you managed that since that moment of where you

became quote unquote successful because externally because of 48 Laws how did that change your creative process how did you hold on to the the roots of this kind of thinking so after the 48 Laws of Power came out and it was successful I was at a turning point in my life and it's a turning point that a lot of people I think have faced was do I just continue redoing the 48 Laws power was success uccessful it worked well why don't I just write the 48 Laws of Power part two it'll bring in money it'll

bring in attention I'll just Riff Off what I wrote there and something about me was not comfortable with that it seemed cheap it seemed easy and it seemed lazy and I know myself that if I'm not challenged by something different I grow bored so I have to write something that feels like there's energy behind it there's anger there's love there's something powerful behind it I have to feel it or it won't be in the words so if I'm just doing the 48 Laws of Power part two it won't be there it'll have an emptiness and

damn it a lot of artists and writers fall into that trap and it's why their books kind of have this sort of hollow ring to them right they're just going through the motions just repeating what worked before and I can't stand that feeling I have to feel like I'm off into a new land with this new book so each book has to represent a challenge right and so the one I'm writing now is completely different from all seven of the other books and it's an incredible challenge but it makes me excited about every day because

I know I cannot repeat the same kind of books over and over over again my soul becomes dead and I have to feel alive with each project am I answering your I keep like I'm not answering you are you're totally answering my question I'm loving these personal answers no no I I can resonate very deeply with that as well I always try and write about something that I'm working through or struggling with whether it's personal whether it's with clients whether it's with someone in my life friends family like it feels alive it needs to feel

alive I can't write from a point of theory or knowing yeah like the book has to be a discovery exactly and I've only just started my I've only written two books but as I'm hearing you I'm I'm happy to that I feel that I'm thinking about it in a healthy way yeah because yeah I was I was about to write my third book and the topic everyone wanted was so predictable and expected and it made sense and I was like I don't want to write about something that makes sense like that's boring like it's like

I want to write about something that feels like alive in my life and electric and makes me I'm like now that I've chosen I will tell this to you later but I've chosen my next topic and I've just been like writing notes about it I'm reading about it I'm seeing connections everywhere that means it's going to be a great book yeah it just it feels I mean it's harder it's harder because you don't know so you're spending more time like we said earlier you're spending more time with emptiness because there's a sense of well I

don't know which direction this book's going to go in yeah so it's it's that comfortable with discomfort and uncertainty yeah but there's a joy in that yeah very much so yeah when you're when you're discovering your process through a book or or work how have you learned to become comfortable in the discomfort of creativity in that like you don't know where the path's going to take you you don't know if it's going to land or not you you don't know if it like how how are you grappling with that process of what we're discussing well

it's very strange um because I'm dealing with it right this very moment I'm writing something that's driving me crazy and it's this and the Very subject I'm writing about is about what I'm going through so I'm writing it this is in my book on the sublime and I'm writing about the concept of the dayon are you familiar with that it's the idea it's an ancient Greek idea but it's in many other cultures that we have a second self that there's something there's a voice inside of us that is guiding us to something higher or better

but it can also lead us to something lower and worse it can be demonic which is where the word comes from or it could be something and Socrates had his Dame on there was a voice inside of him and it said it always just said this is the right way to go or this is the wrong way to go nothing more than that right and so when I'm writing it doesn't feel right it's driving me crazy and I'm going through this right now it doesn't feel right it doesn't resonate it's not truth it's not real

you got to start over you got to do it again and the back of my mind I'm thinking God I've lost it I'm getting old and I just don't have my mojo anymore but then I realized I've gone through this like 85 times every single book it'll come to you it'll come back it isn't right because it doesn't feel right it doesn't resonate it doesn't have a reality to it so I have to go through this process where I write something and it excites me and it interests me and it just flows out of me

as opposed to like I have to pull every word out and so I learned to trust myself that eventually I'll figure it out but each time I hit that wall I go this is it Robert you're finished the book isn't going to come out you're done the wells are dry you know yeah that's so interesting I feel like that is every creative's Journey like it has to go through that the wells are dry as you just said that kind of experience of that's it it's over there's nothing else coming out now I'm you know and

and it's almost like we as as we know like the cliche of like it's on the other side of that feeling but it's but it's true there there is a sense of when everything is just not making sense how have you learned to sense whether something feels true to you because it obviously felt true to someone how how do you decipher between oh this feels true it feels real to me even if people don't agree with it because it just feels that way it's it's purely just a feeling first of all it it like I'm

always trying to get at what's real and and not at what's theoretical I have a real dislike of abstraction for its own sake right it feels like it's it's it's it's a a way of eluding something it's it's it's an evasion I want to get at the core in the reality of what I'm trying to write about and so when I get it I feel it and I know that I've done that and I and I have the reader in my mind and I know the reader can connect to it it's it's going to have

a personal appeal whereas I have a tendency to be abstract and professorial and theoretical I cross all of that out you if you saw my notebooks 95% of it's crossed out and I don't let the public ever see that side of me because I don't like it I want my books to feel like I'm I'm hitting something that's actually truthful and real that people don't like to talk about kind of thing you know so right now I'm writing about what is our self what is the sense of self that we have in our world it's

a very limited idea of the self we have very limited idea of our Consciousness we have a very limited idea of what it means to be a human being in the 21st century we're actually much more immense and much more interesting than we think we are we have these possibilities these connections because we're a part of something incredibly vast and to have Consciousness is absolutely an astounding thing right so I want to sort of expand what you the reader thinks of who you are what yourself is it's much larger than you imagine but I have

to it convey that in language that feels right to me that feels authentic that feels like everybody in Africa in China in in India in Idaho is going to be able to relate to it you know yeah no no for sure and that's I think that's what I was alluding to with that invisible World point of like how that's what we don't see like there's so much to oursel that we don't see that we're fully unaware of that we don't have we don't realize we have access to right and yeah it finding the right terminology

I find to be such a there's there's one word that I love which is a bit more ethereal but I guess an astronomer could find some beauty in it but there's a term in the viic literature is called anash which means inner Sky say say it again an Akash an means inner and Akash means Sky inner Sky yeah inner Sky beautiful and it's this idea of how you know we're so fascinated by outer space but there's that same inner sky that exists so just that like the Galaxy and the planetary systems and everything else that

exists internally too oh I have to but but there has to be a just as we have to go and do space exploration yeah you could do the same internally oh for sure and you discover so much that's exactly what I'm writing about that's very interesting yeah and and and it's yeah it's fascinating and so yeah I find language as well I find vocabulary so needed and I feel like I grew up with a smart vocabulary but not the biggest and I feel reading of course expands that and especially when you read history and other

books and I found that it's language is just so powerful and I I worry that social media exposes us to such limited language that the brain and the mind and the Consciousness doesn't have the opportunity to be expansive because the words don't allow for it if we're all reading the same memes and the same Trends and the same hashtags and it it kind of just creates this very very limited space of Consciousness well that's why I like looking at other languages i' I've Speak several other languages and I'm constantly learning them and I'm right now

I'm reading a lot about an African culture called the aan um in West Africa in Ghana and they their concepts of the soul the spirit and the body and they have a word in there called sunum and we translated to Spirit but then reading the African philosophers who actually know that word and they go it's not the it's not the same as the word spirit and then they go on and describe it and that one word contains all of these other worlds that are so weird and interesting that the word spirit in English does not

convey right you know and other languages have that sense and so language can have that possibility where it opens up it's not just this un this one track meaning it has other valances other possibilities to it right and so yeah we're kind of deadening our language in a way and you know if you study like other cultures you know Eskimos had like a thousand words for for snow and we have one word you know Russians have like 40 words for the color blue and we have one word kind of thing are as the language gets

smaller and smaller and more uniform our thoughts become more and more limited in uniform so to know hear a word like inner Sky it opens up all these other ideas in your mind whereas we don't have a word like that in English you know and and then because I'm I'm doing things with Zen Japanese language is so rich with things that we can't possibly even begin to express in English you know so yeah what what have been other ways of people opening up their minds this has been something one of my favorite things to do

I remember reading a quote from Robin Sharma years ago that said um ordinary people have big TVs extraordinary people have big libraries uhuh and and it was one of those you know little dreams I had that I was like one day I have a home I'm gon to have a big library and and that was one of my most favorite things to kind of put together when when I moved here and um I started spending more time in when I would travel I've always collected books I've always and and I started also collecting expanding my

audio library I realized as I grew when I was growing up we listen to a very limited form of Music in my home and even as was growing up as a teenager I listened to like one genre of music what was that uh rap and hip-hop like that was and again I love rap and hip-hop I love rap and hip-hop history it's super cool I have no issues with it I just think that my audio library was so limited in my teens that now that I'm in my 30s I'm now listening I'm trying to listen

to so many random different things which again Inspire different thoughts different feelings different emotions and so I've realized that vocabulary was one thing audio has been another thing what are other things that you've discovered that help open up that Consciousness in mind because as we both keep referring to social media technology is is almost making us more limited more singular more onedimensional well um as I said it's something I'm I'm writing about right now so m music and the audible stuff is very very interesting and very exciting so this is new phenomenon where musicologists have

been able to recreate music from eras that we never could listen to before so I was writing at one point about um a a uh Festival in ancient Greece and to put me in the mood I wanted to hear ancient Greek music well that doesn't exist I mean no recordings of me but sure enough there are and The rhythms and the sound is so weird and alien that it makes it music captures the spirit of a time right so if we're only hearing these same Melodies you hear cards going by with that same kind of

pop song it's such a limited circle of Harmony such a limited circle of what music can be but when you open up to African music to music from anent Babylonia to Greece to music in South America other rhythms other poetry in in music and sounds it's mind-blowing it's interesting so that's what I'm saying that the human animal is much more interesting than we think it is reading about ancient cultures is a very mind expansive um project you can go on any books you'd recommend in that regard you know what's so exciting now is they have

these books called the daily life in the daily life in ancient Babylonia the daily life in um I forget which city in India the daily life in ancient Greece Etc and you get a feel for not just the grand philosophical issues but how people ate what their houses were like and so um so I was writing I just wrote a chapter about our relationship to time and history and I was trying to take the reader in my new book I'm giving them exercises and I'm saying try to imagine yourself in a world a thousand years

ago and you walk out your front door there's no mechanical sounds there's no airplanes there's no cars there's no machines it's just Birds maybe a saw and a hammer is the most you're going to hear that's a strange thing there are no signs there no advertisements there's no words everywhere it's kind of empty right you're just wandering around there are all these kind of rancid weird horrible smells cuz people aren't bathing there's no but they're very human smells right your whole sensory experience is on another level but when you live in this 21st century world

where things are so sanitized well we don't smell these things we only hear these packaged mechanical sounds your sensory world is shrinking down and down and down and you realize yeah ancient world they had some bad stuff they weren't very good you know they had slavery I I I understand all the negatives so I'm not painting this portrait but on another level their realm of Senses the realm of language their internal worlds were far richer than ours and by connecting to that by reading these books by reading books not just the daily life thing I

said but actually text from those times as I was mentioning when I read a monk a Zen monk from the 11th century and the different thought processes it opens my mind to a different way of thinking to a different way of accessing reality but like I'm reading a lot about Aztecs because I'm sort of obsessed with the Aztec I don't know why and they had these amazing spectacles that was the thing about the ancient world these festivals and spectacles that are far beyond Burning Man or any Rock concert right you know I could describe the

fire ceremony in azc culture that only occurred every 70 years there is nothing you can ever imagine in your life that would be like that it is so utterly spectacular and so I have this 800 page book called Aztec philosophy it's very theoretical but God it gives you an an entree into a totally different way of thinking about the world right where they have these metaphors um that the universe has this energy some of the energy is like string that's being wound around in a certain way it's like weaving like other other things like that

this kind of energy that the world has wow this is fascinating you know our ancestors were actually thinking but they're not our they're us it's a human being we're all human we all have those same kind of Consciousness yeah you know I I love also finding things in cultures that match but are in different languages and so what so I went to Hawaii a few years ago which obviously for someone who grew up in London it's not normal people in America or La travel to Hawaii fairly often I went to Hawaii and um well not

often it's more accessible but I went recently and my wife and I went went on one of the tours there and they showed us uh the paragsachania on the ground and they would then draw a spiral around it and that would be seen as a place that the child could always come back to to feel the energy and reconnect with the Earth how exciting and I was thinking that's spectacular I wish everyone felt disconnected to the Earth and then we would go out every morning on a canoe I forget their name for it but they

had their version for it and they would pay respects to the sun in the ocean and we would take part in this ceremony with them and in India there's something known as sua namashkar which translates to Sun salutation sure which again I've talked to Andrew hubman about this just like kicking off the Circadian rhythm but the goal is you pay your respects to the Sun for everything it offers to you and the energy that it provides and so to see that in Hawaiian culture Indian culture and then I was in Bhutan recently I went on

a trip to Bhutan which I'd always wanted to visit and this is a culture that really feels like you're going back in time like you walk out there and it feels like what you just did described a thousand years ago where is B landlocked between India and China India and China so right in between where they're having their tensions the kind of Wars that's going on a little bit or Bhutan doesn't have a war no they don't even have a military it's not part of their culture wow they they believe in uh they're a Buddhist

nation is it a Buddhist Nation yes and their practices are very protected the culture is very protected like everyone generally still wears the the the cultural dress ex um it was it was spectacular there's no there may be a couple of these now but until very recently there's no malls no Cinemas no restaurants like completely and it's beautiful because it's just hills and mountains they believe that the forests will always be 70% of the land mass because they believe they're sacred you can't Trek up to or ski on any of their mountains because they're sacred

they protect them so there's a and you almost I almost felt like what you just said there's no signs you can't hear anything there's no Machinery like it really does feel like that yeah and we all all of us who were there experienced this sense of slowness that you don't experience anywhere else not in a bad way in a in a the mind the the gravity almost of the space was really really powerful to experience that's very exciting because you know you can go out and into nature into the mountains and you can feel that

and you can feel like this is what it was like 2,000 100,000 years ago but we don't have that feeling with human things because every city has its Starbucks its malls its generic culture that we've transported throughout the world so to have a place where you can actually go back in time is fantastic but I wish it wasn't so far away know yeah yeah it's F it's fine it's fine it's worth visiting for anyone who wants to it was a really special trip but you're right the the generic culture is the right word actually there's

there's a every street looks the same every area looks the same you you lo I know there's a lot of passion behind local businesses and it's healthy people want to support local business we need more of that because the generic culture really takes away from like you expect I mean I was in India just recently on the way back and it's like there was a Tim Horton like right there what a Tim Horton which I think is like popular in Canada or somewhere like that is it popular in the US Tim Horton no it's Canada

all my wife was telling me about it but it was just one of the it's it's and then there was a Starbucks and then it was the same same thing and I was like I'm in India like you know like I don't know expecting but it's yeah it's the generic that's what's made the brain so dull it has yeah yeah we're becoming homogenized I mean I I like going to countries like Mexico because there's still pockets in Mexico where you can feel of of a very different culture you know it's only in small little areas

but it's very exci it's nothing like Bhutan but you can still get it a little bit you know yeah Robert it's been such a joy talking to you today and as always I love how we just get lost and this is what I wanted I was I was craving a authentic real connection of where both of our minds were in this moment okay yeah um but I want to end with a few uh Sol uh fastpaced questions we call this the Fast Five uh and I probably did it with you last time so I'm going

to change it up this time for you I hope my mind is fast enough to keep up with you so you have to answer the questions it's more like the final five you've got to answer the questions in one word to one sentence maximum so uh Robert Green these are your final five the first question is what is something you had wish you'd learned earlier the piano I mean I know you were probably thinking about that's beautiful something about life but I love music and I wish I had learned the piano when I was young

do you still play do you play now no no okay uh second question what is something that you used to be sure about but that you now are less sure about I guess a sense of um right and wrong or good good and evil mhm when I was young I had a very strong sense of it that's a great answer and now I'm not so sure about what it is it's a great answer uh question number three if you could go back and live in any age I'm thinking you're going to say the azex but

uh where would you like to go and where would you want to live and what would you ask I would go back to the Paleolithic Era and our earliest ancestors because I'm fascinated by their world and what they were like so the Paleolithic 20,000 years ago okay and I would uh like to know about their their religion their spirituality I'm interested in origins of human consciousness so have you read any books on that that yes what would you recomend if someone's a subject I was just my last chapter I was writing about W the origin

of language is the origin of of human consciousness wow it's the same time that there were the cave paintings right famous cave paintings in France but they're all over the world Aborigines Etc and that was the beginning of symbolic Consciousness yeah there are all sorts of books written on that subject amazing question number four if you could have three people over at your dinner party any three people you choose living or dead who would they be what would be friederick nche because I'm reading a biography of his right now that's unbelievable um the other would

be Buddha one odd and then the other would be U it's very odd mix of people so I don't know if they're going to get that's a good pie that is um yeah I I'd say uh okay maybe socres okay and and Let The Fur Fly uh Fifth and final question Robert I find these stressful they are they are stressful um something you're trying to learn than right now to be more forgiving about myself because I'm extremely unforgiving with yourself yeah not easy it's not been my life pattern where did the pursuit begin and why

is it a worthy Pursuit well I think because um of my upbringing I always had a feeling of never good enough I'm never smart enough I'm not doing enough I'm not a good enough person and I inter inter aliz that and so um it's probably partially led to my stroke probably me drive makes me drive myself too hard and so sometimes I just have to be more forgiving so instead of thinking God I'm never going to write anymore that the well is dry the the forgiving aspect is Robert you're tired you're exhausted you're doing fine

it's going to come it will come just trust it so it's kind of like you know being indulgent towards yourself I can be indulgent towards other people but I can't be indulgent towards myself so just learning to forgive myself for not being perfect and for not getting exactly what I want in life it does the hardest thing for me that's beautiful it' be very good for my health if I could if I could ever get there that's beautiful thank you Robert you're welcome everyone Robert Green I hope you enjoyed this episode of me and Robert

truly just having a genuine passionate conversation about things we love please share on Tik Tok on X on Instagram on Facebook whatever platform you use in the YouTube comment section what resonated with you what books you're going to read what you connected with maybe some of the creatives out there who want to shift the way they think or whether you got some great insights on what are strong and weak character points I want to know what hit you what resonate with you and thank you so much for listening and watching and thank you again Robert

for your time than so much presence and energy so as usual I really enjoyed it thank you that means a lot yeah we go on for hours I know truly if you love this episode you'll love my interview with Dr gabo mate on understanding your trauma and how to heal emotional wounds to start moving on from the past everything in nature grows only where it's vulnerable so a tree doesn't go where it's hard and thick does it it goes where it's soft and green and vulnerable