The Manipulation Expert: You're Being Manipulated! Use Jealousy To Manipulate People! Robert Greene

you need this skill if there's somebody in your life and you don't know whether they're a snake or they're genuinely your friend approach them from an angle and surprise them and for a second you detect what we call you should become aware of that Robert Green is one of the bestselling authors in history he's an internationally renowned expert on power strategies he's been referenced in songs by Jay-Z Kanye West The Godfather of power seduction and Mastery we have this idea that if I apply myself really hard I should be successful but I kept noticing this

blind spot that people had they were terrible in dealing with people and if you're not careful and constantly misreading people they could manipulate you they can wound you but if you follow the process that I lay out it will be the best defense you could ever have in your life you know all the tricks people are playing on you we have to learn to look behind people's masks being a human being means we lie but you know what doesn't lie body language eyes are hard lie the smile tells you a hundred different things if you

know how to read it but the problem that you have is you think it's a natural skill I'm a human being I know how to read people you don't you're operating in darkness but I do believe everybody has that potential so the first thing you do is Frenemies do we all have Frenemies yes they sabotage you hurt you and you don't want them in your life and one common sign of a friend ofy is there it's absolutely crazy to me that so many of you have decided to watch our show um and so many of

you have decided to subscribe to our show we now have five million subscribers on YouTube which is a number that I just can't comprehend and it's a dream that I absolutely never could have had we started the dire of a CO just over three years ago now and in my wildest expectations we might have had 100,000 subscribers by now so you can imagine how shocked I am that so many of you have chosen to tune into these conversations every week um and spend some time with us so thank you and I made a deal with

you I made a deal that if you subscribe to this show that we would continue to raise the bar and in 2024 we're going to raise the bar like never before I've been working for the last nine months on a surprise for all of you that have subscribed to the show and I'm very excited to deliver that for you the production's going to change we're going to go even further with our guests and we're going to tell even more Global stories so as always if you appreciate what we're doing here simple free favor I'll ask

from you is to hit the Subscribe button let's get on with the [Music] episode Robert you wrote a book about human nature in 2018 called the laws of human nature why did you write that book well it's the fruit of a lot of experiences that I've had um so I wrote the 48 Laws of Power and prior of that book I was somebody never had any power in life I was sort of a failure you know um I had gone through so many different jobs and then all of a sudden I write this one book

and people are coming to me for advice it's kind of shocking right and I started noticing a trend and the trend is we live in this intense technological age where we have so much power at our finger tips right and we it's so easy to get attention and on and on and on and we have this idea that everything in life should be easy it's all about just well if I apply myself really hard I should be successful but I kept noticing this blind spot that people had they were terrible in dealing with people they

were making all of these mistakes everybody wears a mask you wear a mask I wear a mask when we're out in the public realm we don't exactly say what we think right we we're all a bit strategic and if you're not careful you're constantly saying the wrong things you're constantly misreading people you're doing things at your job that you think are going to impress but they have the opposite effect and then something bad happens and you're confused and you're emotional it was like this circle atmosphere of pain around the globe of people suffering because they

don't know how to handle the people in their lives and because we're so virtual and we're so locked in our phones that we're becoming worse and worse at Reading other people at understanding them you know when I sitting across from you I can see your body language I can see your nonverbals I can see all sorts of things I can deal with you as a human but when I spend 95% of my time behind a screen you know and that's even how I date basic human skills of understanding of connecting of empathy of reading they're

getting hopelessly degraded that's my long-winded answer for why I wrote that book if there's someone listening out there and they can relate to certain parts of what you've just said maybe it's a lack of their own self-awareness or maybe they have P sort of awareness of others is there a starting place to reversing that is there maybe a most important skill that we need to master as at the foundation of that transformation yeah it's very simple it's to get down on your hands and knees and realize you're bad at dealing with people the problem that

you have is you think that it's a natural skill yeah I'm okay at it I just kind of wing it I understand what I'm doing I'm a human being I I I I know how to read people Etc you don't you're operating in darkness you're groping around just realize first of all that you need this skill and once you realize that the first thing you do is you look inward you look at your own nature you look at the things that I write about in the book about narcissism about irrationality and instead of searching for

people around you that fit those categories look at yourself so it all begins with self-awareness you are the best subject of human nature so when I was writing this book it was actually quite painful so I'm writing a chapter on narcissism one of the longest chapters in the book because it's a very important subject and I'm telling myself Robert you're quite a narcissist you didn't think of yourself that way but you have all of these classic tendencies that you're writing about in the book it was painful but in order to come to understand narcissism and

other people I had to sort of understand it in myself so step number one is I need this knowledge I'm actually not very good with dealing with people it's caused me problems go back and review the problems and the mistakes you've made mistakes I've made as well many many times and then when you realize that you want this knowledge then you begin by looking inward but if you think that that it's not needed that you're not it's just oh it's kind of interesting or maybe I'll sort of dabble in it it't won't mean anything to

you you have to feel that pain that you've been through in life and it's kind of an ongoing pain it's one that I still have even though I wrote the book where I misread people where I inadvertently hurt them when I didn't mean to hurt them you know and I feel that and I suffer from it and so the pain that you feel the emotions that that this turns up motivate you then to become better at understanding other people what if you find things in yourself like you said that you don't like you find narcissism

in yourself you find darkness in yourself what are we meant to do with that are we meant to heal it resolve it you're meant to look at it you're meant to confront it um I mean I I have in the book a quote from the great writer Anton Czech of that people can't begin to change themselves until they know who they are until they understand themselves right so we all want to change we all want to be better at ourselves but until we know who we are until we realize our flaws and our weaknesses so

the main law of human nature if I could summarize it is we don't like to look at ourselves it's always the other person they're the ones with the problem they're the ones who are aggressive or passive aggressive they're the ones who feel Envy they're the ones who are rational but me no no I'm a paragon of virtue I'm always moral I'm always good I'm always smart Etc so it's the point isn't to beat yourself up and go damn it I'm an awful human being we're all humans come from the same Source we all have the

same ancestors are we all have the same flaws in our brain it's not like you're exceptional it's not like you're the one person that doesn't have narcissism that doesn't have self-absorption so realizing that you're connected to all these people that we all have these flaws and weaknesses is actually not a bad thing it's a good thing and then by examining yourself deeply you can begin to change some of these things you know it's just like you I don't go like oh damn it I'm a narcissist I'm I'm self-absorbed I think a lot about myself I

love talking about myself which is something I'm afraid I do like to do right the point isn't well oh well I'm just depressed there nothing I can do once I'm aware of it I can begin to change it but if I'm always repressing if I'm always thinking no I'm good I don't have those problems then if you can't see them how can you change them how can you deal with them how can you become a better person how can you change those qualities that you don't want one of the most important things in the laws

of human nature is that you have patterns that you are compulsive it comes from your character these patterns that you see in your Intimate Relationships you always fall for the wrong person or you sometimes fall for the wrong person you see it in your work world I make these mistakes I get fired for this reason etc etc and they're good patterns but we tend to repeat over and over and over again and these these s of compulsive Behavior being aware of these patterns being aware of these things you can now begin to you have the

power to change them a lot of people climb the mountain of awareness and they get I was thinking about people in my life that have climbed the mountain of awareness and in my own life hill things that I'm aware of Darkness within me that I'm aware of or challenges or patterns I'm aware of taking the next step from so I think becoming aware is painful and then doing something about it is difficult it's painful because there's a lot of cognitive dissonance associated with figuring out that you're not who you want to be you know and

then doing something about it requires breaking what feels like old neurological Pathways in my brain you know trigger you think about the Habit cycle how breaking that is difficult I look at it very differently I'm afraid so I think actually it's wor wor when you're not aware of who you are when you walk around in this world with all of these false ideas about who you are you you don't even know who you are you're wearing this mask you're not authentic you're behaving in the world as if you're somebody else and you're not aware of

that but it's causing you pain it's making you suffer because you're not aware of of the real person that you are you're not authentic and coming to terms with some of these dark qualities is actually a very enlighten experience it's actually can be euphoric you go I am an animal I'm not this saint I'm not this Paragon that I thought I was I'm an animal with flaws I can Embrace that we're all like that and it's a good thing and feeling like you have this and you're coming to terms with it I have a chapter

on the dark side of human nature everybody has a shadow side I have it you have it right and seeing that shadow side which is something you've been repressing since childhood and dealing with it and confronting with it is actually one of the most wonderful experiences you can have in life because repressing all of these things is what is making you miserable in life but coming to terms with who you are and being aware of it is actually what liberating you know where does it come from our Dark Side what you talk about in chapter

nine of the book well I think it comes from uh childhood so when you're a child when you're three or four years old you're like this complete person I compare it to like this round ball you have good qualities you have loving qualities you love your parents perhaps you love your siblings perhaps but you also have these other darker qualities these kind of aggressive impulses you sometimes you hit people sometimes you say nasty things right but you're a complete person it's natural it's who you are it's how you were born it's like a round ball

and it's complete and then slowly year by year month by month you have to cut off that dark side that back side of yours in school you're told don't ever show that part of you your parents are come on you got to be nice you got to get along we want want to be proud of you all of those aggressive impulses that you have all of those feelings where you were you felt Envy about somebody whatever you wish you had what your your brother or sister had so they all go underground right you force them

down you don't want to deal with them but they're still there because you're a human being those emotions don't leave you they just get pushed down and they go into the back side of your head that round ball now becomes cut off it's like the moon with a dark side and a front side and when you're out in the public and you're in work or in Social situation you're only showing people that bright happy side the good side and you're doing the damnedest to conceal all that dark energy inside of you and then suddenly because

you're not aware of it it comes out in explosions very typical thing is you suddenly get angry and you burst out with an angry email or you yell at somebody you say something kind of nasty and then you look back and you go where did that come from that I didn't that's not really me I'm not really like that I feel ashamed about that but what you must realize is that's part of your Shadow that's speaking it's coming out you're just not aware of it you're trying to control it too much and I say the

best thing in life to do is not to take out this dark side and just throw it around the world and and and be nasty and aggressive that won't work but you have to find ways to take that energy because that dark side contains a lot of energy a lot of power and use it and channel it into ways that are productive so I happen to be someone who has a fair amount of aggression I have to admit I'm extremely competitive right even in card games I don't like losing so I've channeled it into my

books I take all of that energy and I put it into making the best books that I can into ambition so if you're ambitious channeling that energy into becoming the best and beating the competition is is is a productive way of using that dark energy if you feel angry about a cause or something that pisses you off about the world some injustices instead of whining about it Etc you go out and you do something you do something you get involved in a movement or whatever you channel that energy into something productive that's the way to

deal with the dark side and that's you can't go throughout life imagining that you're the saint because you're not you have these qualities in your book about the strategies of war the second strategy of War you write about is do not fight the last war and when I read that what I understood it to kind of mean was about not being rigid you know how does one dismantle their the prison of convention that they live in so for that lawyer or for that person that's working in the financial district who is you know 47 and

they're a lawyer they're a a stock broker and they're miserable um they have somewhat been imprisoned by their own identity which is like a set of ideas from the past and I'm really obsessed with how we get out of the way of our own identity so that we can live our most fulfilling lives because even me you know there's and probably even you I've created this perception of who I am and I'm like following the instructions every day yeah it's a trap you you can't fall into that so one of the laws of power that

I have one I think is very important I think it's law 25 or 26 I don't remember the number is recreate yourself so the moment people start um uh know who you are they they they they identify they create your identity oh Robert Green is this person who writes these dark Machiavellian manipulative books then I'm trapped I'm trapped by their perception of me and I always have to be like a little dog performing for them right and I don't want to fall into that trap you have to recreate yourself you have to use your personality

and who you are as clay that you are molding you're like an AR artist and so you you change yourself for each person that's different so for me it means I don't write 48 Laws of Power part two I write now a book that's not like the 48 Laws of Power at all for you it's doing your podcast but changing it up or maybe you do a different podcast or maybe you do go into a different career set maybe you become a a CEO or an entrepreneur in a different direction I was recently on Andrew

hu huberman's podcast right one of the most successful podcasts besides yours in the world and um he I don't want that's sound like bragging but the book Mastery helped him a lot because he was a professor I believe at Stanford I hope I have it right everything was going well he was on a fast track in in Neuroscience but he was miserable he hated the politicking he hated all the [ __ ] that you have to go through in Academia and then he read the book and he goes I don't know how old he was

he must have been in his early 30s he goes I don't want to do this I want to change I want to recreate myself he decided to go into podcasting to take all of his knowledge about science and Neuroscience and bring it into a different medium and so that's that's extremely powerful because if he had stayed in Academia he would have gone down the path that we're talking about it sounds a little sexier than being in finance in your 47 but being stuck in Academia when it doesn't fit you with all the nasty politics that

go on in universities Etc that is a path for misery if he doesn't fit so you have to kind of go through this process all the time and not let other people tell you who you are in the case of Andrew huberman who transitioned from an academic to a podcaster it's Quite a feat because there's lots of forces that try and hold our existing identity in place a lot of people and to sort of cross the chasm get past all of that force that says no we want you to stay with us Andrew we want

you to be an academic who do you think you are being a podcaster you know that that that Force I'm so intrigued by because everyone regardless of where they are now if they're going to try and venture to somewhere else a better place they're going to encounter that um how does one work through that what is that how do we understand that Force that's trying to keep us down it usually happens when you're successful that people start giving you these identities that kind of Define who you are and if you're okay with it that's fine

you know if it doesn't but I'm a big believer in listening to your own pain and listening to your own frustration so when you feel frustrated in life you have to go through a process you have to look at it and you have to go what is the source of it normally the first thing you'll do is you'll blame other people you'll blame the world you'll blame your your spouse your children whatever right and you won't really look at what it is why you're frustrated and if you look at it deeply enough and you go

I'm really frustrated because I'm not enjoying my work I'm making money I'm going there every day and I'm going through the motions and I'm successful and people admire me but I'm not happy I'm frustrated I'm upset you've got to lean into that pain you've got to lean lean into what frustrates you and go go I can't go on another 5 years like this because the mind and the body are tied in there's no difference they're all we're all one we're all a unity and so when you start having these frustrations these desires that are not

you're not acting upon it creates physical problems you're not aware of why suddenly your blood pressure is rising why suddenly your back is having pain like I'm having right now it's all interconnected and when you're not doing something that you that you're not engaged with your whole being goes out of whack everything doesn't work you've got to listen to it you've got to understand it and you've got to go I want some joy and some excitement in my life I want a challenge it takes some fearlessness because leaving a prestigious job at Stanford where you've

got money I don't know if you had tenure or not or perhaps he did you know it takes some guts because you're leaving something that that that's that you know that's it's a convention that's stable etc etc but you've got to go it's not worth the price it's not who I am I'm going to suffer for it down the road and so you know let's say he decided to go into podcasting and it failed all right so be it then he learns that and he he's somebody who's very smart he would have figured out another

way another direction to go in if my book the 48 Laws of Power hadn't been a success I don't know what would have happened to me but hopefully I would have figured out another way to go you know cuz I also had to drop a career direction that I was going in but you've got to try you've got to be able to try and you've got to go say yourself it's actually a great thing in your 30s let's say to go I need something new I need something completely different I need a new challenge I'm

going to drop this I'm going to start something you won't believe the energy that will suddenly rise up you right you'll suddenly feel invigor you suddenly feel youthful again I'm not stuck in this thing I can try something else I'm so intrigued by two things within that one of them was going back to the case of Andrew who left Stanford and became a podcaster was my brain you said um he's an intelligent guy he would have figured it out if he'd failed my brain also was saying he could have always gone back and there's a

real illusion sometimes I think in most of our lives where we don't realize that if we mess up and this thing as I think Jeff Bezos calls it this is probably a type two decision where we can walk back through the door but it's this sort of Illusion that we're going to really lose something great if we fail that stops us taking that first step and the other thing I was curious about is this idea that pain is is a catalyst for Change and do people need to get to that point in their lives where

they go I'm just so sick of this to change can someone change before they get there unfortunately not sometimes the bottom has to drop out before you realize what you really want and what you really you know need to get in life uh I wish it weren't that way but um feeling like you're suffering and that you need a change and that if you go on this way bad things are going to happen is the greatest motivator of all because if you're moderately discontented with your job you're going to constantly be justifying to yourself going

uh it's all right it'll get better I'll get there'll be a new boss or I can always move from this job to another company similar you'll justify you'll never get out of it and the trap will just close in on you and you'll never get out of it right it's those moments Where damn it I hate this I can't go on you know I'm I'm heading to Suicide I'm heading to depression I'm heading to drinking I'm hitting bottom I don't like where I'm going it doesn't have to be quite so drastic I know I'm exaggerating

but you have to feel a degree of pain and frustration to say I need to make a major change in my life you know the other thing I say is in the same book you were quoting in the in in about Warfare I have What's called the death ground strategy where you feel like so he's going into podcasting and if you go in with the attitude well if I fail I'll just go scurrying back to Stanford that's a recipe for failure in itself already your attitude is already half fast you're already half into it you

go to yourself I've got to I'm cutting my ties at Stanford if this podcast doesn't work I'm not going back it gives you the energy the motivation the desire to actually make it successful but if you're always going through life kind of with half measures going well if I start this business and it fails I'll go back to living with my parents and and I'll and I'll do this other job you're not going to put your full energy into it you're not going to give all of yourself into it and it's probably going to fail

it's really um it's so true um it reminded me of something I was reading in one of the psychology journals about a study they did with participants where they asked them to do a puzzle and offered them a delicious snack as the reward and then in one group they said um this is the only way to get the snack if you do this puzzle and then in the other group they said by the way the same snack is also available in the vending machine down the hall and then the people in the second group where

they had a plan B were less committed to doing the puzzle spent less time trying to solve it and did worse in the puzzle and it's this idea that a plan B actually psychologically does distract you from your plan a yeah we're we're animals right we have we have a certain nature which is what I talk about in human nature and our our earliest ancestors to go back to something I was talking about our Brilliance the power of our species is we are actually very physically weak compared to like chimpanzees and cheetahs and lions etc

etc but we use our brain and feeling the necessity feeling that we're going to die unless we don't solve these problems right if we don't use our birs if we don't create tools if we don't work together as a team we're going to we're going to we're going to die we won't survive is what makes us inventive it's what makes us creative it's almost like a barometric pressure I like that's the metaphor I like to use what's that when you feel that pressure inside of you and it's very heavy like in like weather that's very

you know heavy and thick You're motivated you feel it I've got to get up in the morning I've got to do this I've got to accomplish this when that pressure goes away and and you don't feel any pressure in your life you can do anything and there's no consequences for it you'll just waste time you'll waste Years you'll waste months you'll never accomplish anything you give somebody a dead line right they'll accomplish in two months what it would take somebody two years to do without a deadline it's that necessity it's that sense of there's a

there's a sword at my back I've got to get it done it makes you get things done it gives you the energy it's get rich or die trying to quote somebody yeah you talk about that in the Strate um the book about the strategies of war the chapter four or strategy number four is about creating a sense of urgency and Desperation and when I was reading that I was thinking to be fair I don't know any great leader that isn't a little bit urgent and a little bit desperate and even if they Fain that desperation

to Galvanize people there's something about creating urgency and Desperation in your life that is incredible Tailwind is there any practical ways that you think the average person can create a a the required sense of urgency in their life so they can get things done well it's kind of like a level here so you need challenges in your life that's what that's sort of what the death ground is about you're challenged you better rise up to it if the challenge is too great if you're like I'm I'm 24 and I've never written a book but I'm

going to write the best book ever you're you're going to fail because it's too far above you you're never going to reach it if it's too low you're never going to have the energy it's too easy it's not going to motivate you but there's a sweet spot I don't know I'm just you know just drawing it here be like here where it's a challenge it's above what you're can do can do right now it's not so far above that you can't possibly do it but it's enough of a challenge to mean God I better get

my act together I better get the energy get together I better you know change my habits I've got to get up earlier I've got to work harder it's not like I have to get up at 4 and force myself and work out Etc I can get up at 6 6:30 an hour earlier and I'm going to meet this challenge that's a little bit above my level that's a powerful way of motivating yourself you need challenges you need constant challenges in life or you're going to or you're going to stagnate it's just the law of nature

you talk about false purpose as well yeah what is false purpose and how do we know the difference your purpose in life is something that you're born with it's like your destiny this is what you were meant to accomplish this was what you were meant to be what you were meant to do and we were going through we were talking about that in terms of your childhood Etc right but we humans are not born with that purpose engraved in our heads we don't wake up when we're seven and go that's my purpose if it were

that easy it would be that simple right but because we don't have any direction you know animals don't wake up in the morning if they're not nocturnal and go what am I going to do today I can go here I can hunt for this animal I can un for that animal I could eat this no they don't they operate by Instinct they don't they have a purpose it's it's automatic almost okay we don't have that we have to find our purpose and because it's so deep and and so important that if we don't find it

through this authentic process I'm talking about we'll find it somewhere else because we need a purpose in life we need something to live for what will that be it will be drugs it will be some kind of cult that I have to join it will be some kind of political movement where I can get out all of my anger and vent all of my frustrations you know it'll be on and on and on it's something that has nothing to do with who you are personally but it's something that you can believe in and can give

you a sense of purpose but it's not really who you are it's like a drug it's drugging you into believing that you have a purpose but it's not the real purpose that you were born for that's what I mean by false purpose and when we find our purpose if we are able to and lucky enough to discover it what's the variance and what someone's capable of that's found their P purpose versus someone that hasn't do you think like what's the difference in how they show up how they deliver the results they create the impact they

have when you find your purpose it's like everything falls into place right you don't need to you don't need to almost do anything you'll find whatever you need to find thing good things will come to you I know that sounds woo woo I know that sounds mystical but I definitely believe it right and so it's not like you have to try so hard yes you have to learn skills yes you have to apply yourself yes you have to work hard etc etc etc but things just go so much more smoothly when you have it so

for instance one thing that happens when you have a sense of purpose and I hate it's something that I feels um so I I know my narcissism is coming out again um I know what I don't want that's you don't know the power of that you can't imagine how powerful that is so people come to me all the time with Robert we can make a lot of money doing this we could try this we could let's make a TV show out of the 48 Laws of Power let's do this let's do that let's make a

game I'm not interested it's not my purpose no I don't want it if I didn't have that radar I'd be spreading myself out into eight different venues and I'd be you know all of my energy would be would be scattered I wouldn't have that focus and I'd probably end up being pretty miserable because I would have lost my purpose but when you have a sense of purpose it's like no I don't want to do that I don't want to do that I don't want to I want to do this yeah it can be rigid you

have to be a little bit flexible so if somebody comes to me and goes Robert what about this I'm open to it that sounds moderately interesting all right maybe I'll try it you know and I and I do open things things like that I'm going to be doing in a month I'm going to be recording uh a French version of you know the master class there's a French version of that so you know I'm not so rigid where I can only write books I can try other things because I can see value in it and

it interests me it's a challenge being able to say no is so important and and it's so empowering and that's what a SS of purpose will give you to among other things there's a quote that says something like distractions come dressed up as opportunities and to even know what a distraction is you first must understand what your goal and what your purpose is or else it's impossible to distinguish between a distraction Robert go let's go start a game or an opportunity which is sounds much more like that Mastermind thing and I think about this all

the time you know the more clear I am on the goal and what my purpose is the much easier it is to understand what a distraction is for they do look the when they come into my yes well the other thing I do is I kind of game it out so somebody comes to me they go let's do a television show the 48 Laws of Power and believe me I've been through that about 85 times people come into be that and we have even attempted it but I go I've worked in Hollywood I've worked in

television before before I had my books I know the process I know how miserable it can be I know how you have no power I'm a writer now where I write books and I have all the power I have all the control you go into Hollywood you go into television or film 85 you know 800 other people join in and they all have their ideas and they change this that you have no power and and it's meetings and meetings and meetings and talk talk talk talk talk I game it out and I go I don't

want to get into that trap I don't want to be spending a year having meeting after meeting after meting meeting hearing about this possibility having it changed by this producer I game it out and I go no I don't want to do it can you do that when you're younger kind of 21y old no no takes a lot of takes a fair amount of experience in life because when you're 21 everything looks great and exciting man yeah I'll do that why not yeah it'll be fun I'll meet some I'll meet some hot girls I'll do

this and the other great you know etc etc you know you don't you don't have that radar you everything looks exciting and enticing it takes the pain I keep going back to that of things that you wasted your time in and Things That Failed things that you didn't like to teach you the ability to say no and to save your energy for what you really love should a young person just be saying yes to everything you know the problem that we have is everything is has to be this way or that way has to be

black or white and it's not like that it's kind of in between you can learn to dance in life you don't have to go this way or that way you can kind of do both so the best advice I give people is your 20s the best years of your life actually I think the 30s are but let's just say for for argument sake your 20s you're young you probably look pretty good you're healthy you know you've got all these things going on for you I want you to have some fun and I want you to

have Adventures I don't want you to be 22 and go and get a job at Goldman Sachs for the rest of your life Etc you need fun you need Adventure you need some looseness you know you want some experiences but it has to have some direction to it it can't just be I'm going to write poetry I'm going to do rock and roll I'm going to go learn chemistry I'm going to you know become you know this that the other no connection at all between all of these things just trying everything for the sake of

novelty that's a recipe for not being successful because what you want to happen is you're 30 years old now you've let your 20s are behind you it's usually a time of Reckoning where you go [ __ ] I'm not so young anymore okay you know I'm getting older all right I've had my fun I've had Adventure I'm ready for something serious and I've learned some real skills in life I've for me personally I learned how to write um or whatever it is you didn't just go try 80 different things you you you kind of had

four or five that you did you you experimented with all right now I know what I love now I can go down that path and in Mastery I often tell the story to people of one of the Masters I interviewed was Paul Graham who was the man who started y combinator you probably heard of Y combinator he was somebody who got into AI when he was like 18 19 years old he was like at MIT I believe right back in the late 70s when nobody was even thinking about it okay he was a hacker cuz

his father father was was a scientist who had computers back in the 70s and he learned how to hack early on okay so he went down the process of going into Academia of of of going into programs of Compu computer programming etc etc and he was on a track just like huberman at MIT to become a professor to become proficient in it and he hated it it was soul sucking he didn't like the politics he didn't like dealing with the people he didn't like Academia so he quit and he became a painter because that's he

loved design and he loved visuals he comes back to New York he's living in a loft he's painting he's happy and it but he's not making any money and then he hears an advertisement on the radio for I I think it was maybe Netscape one of the earliest um you know internet whatever you call it and they're saying the future in in for computers is being able to set buy and sell products on the internet he ends up creating the first I think one the prototype for all the things that we have now Yahoo ended

up buying it for like $5 million and then the rest is history he spent his 20s trying something out learning real skills he went somewhere else learning something that he loved and then he's 30 and he combines the two together and he's he's a classic example because he he gets very bored easily so why combinator is worth billions of dollars extremely successful he sells it gets into something else CU he likes writing Etc he's always he's kind of a prototype for a lot of what we're talking about we've spoken a lot about self-awareness and self

and all those kinds of things what about other people you know the only thing that seems to stand in the way of all of our goals in life are other people so if I if I want to become exceptional understanding the human nature of other people and using it in my favor where do I start there what are the the sort of foundations of being great at using other people's human nature to my advantage that sounds very narcissistic and very uh awful but it's it is what it is party as it is what it is

exactly people as I said the main mistake we make in dealing with other people and and it's a common mistake that I make as well is we take the appearances for reality we take their masks for how they appear to us for their politeness for their smiles for their saying oh I Loved You etc for the reality and we have to learn that to look behind people's masks we have to learn what's really really going on behind them and we have to learn some Basics about human nature people like to believe that they're essentially good

you know saintly virtuous however you want to do it people want to believe that they're intelligent they're you never want to feel like I'm not stupid I'm intelligent and the other third thing is that they're that they willpower that they're in control of their lives they do things because they decided to do it to tell to make people feel insecure about their intelligence right to make them feel like they're not moral or they're not good to make them feel like they do things not because they choose to but because they were forced to or because

they they're not aware of themselves they hate that they're going to hate you they're going to resent you they're going to resist you knowing some Basics about people like that gives you the power to use that for influence for persuasion okay understanding Envy in the human world and on social media Envy is just an it's like a nuclear bomb it's just exploded our tendency to feel Envy to compare ourselves to other people you've got to use that for power there's great power in that in a marketing publicity sense virality what getting other people to be

interested in what other people are doing that's how things sell themselves if you try and tell people what they should buy as opposed to look at what other people are doing I want to join in on that right knowing about these basic qualities in human nature about how we like to compare ourselves how we have these certain opinions about ourselves etc etc gives you all of this power to take that human nature and use it for whatever purposes you want for good or unfortunately some people use it for bad do we have to lie to

be successful and I say this because through reading some of your work I I heard sentences such as you should keep your true intentions hidden in social situations um you say a lot about like kind of cloaking yourself in various ways you talk about showing up as an actor that sometimes we do need to show up as an actor in our lives so in order to be truly successful I know it's a little bit of a difficult question but do we have to lie look being a human being means we lie right the moment you

open your mouth and you speak you are essentially not telling the truth you know what doesn't lie body language non-verbal communication the way you smile the look in your eyes you can't lie about that but children three or four years old are already learning to craft what they say to mommy or daddy to get what they want they're very clever they're very strategic right they know that if they if they say that they what they exactly want they won't get it they learn to kind of whine and complain and put a certain tone in their

voice and to be an actor a social animal like we are we are actors in life get over this idea about guilting about about it I'm so sick of that we are actors we are descended from chimpanzees chimpanzees are concept subit actors read the literature on that they know how to deceive incredibly well and they don't even have language to deceive right so we are actors the moment you go out in the public you're not telling people oh you're fat you're ugly your writing sucks you d d d da I don't like what you're wearing

you never do that you're an actor when you see your father you act a certain way when you see a little kid you act a certain way when you see little kitty cat you have a certain tone in your voice when you deal with your boss the person who pays for the for your podcast I don't know if there is such a person you where you act a different way you're constantly changing how who you are and how you are Act One Moment you're Robert dairo the next moment you're I don't know what other actor

you are but you're you're changing your roles depending on who you're dealing with I'm so tired of people not recognizing this fact that we are all actors that we are constantly deceiving yes there are differences there are qualities of lying you know I understand that there's Donald Trump lying and there's the lying of the everyday white lies in which we have to say certain things to get ahead Etc there are degrees I understand that and some lying could be very harmful and and very counterproductive in the end but the moment you enter the world and

the moment you open your mouth you are in some ways already an actor and you are already using forms of deception why can't we be our true selves because it would irritate people because it would gr you know I don't know about you but I appreciate politeness right I go somewhere and I know someone's being polite I know that they're not necessarily meaning it but it's nice right it's kind of smooth it kind of makes everything sort of smooth if people weren't polite it I'll be grading and like two pieces of metal constantly hitting each

other it'd be so annoying you'd want to kill yourself or you want to kill people You' become a k a murderer you know social life depends on that kind of smoothness those interactions so we need that to some degree if we were just always telling people what we really thought our our world would collapse tomorrow what about showing our weakness I've got this quote from you that says if you are weak and ask for little little is what you will get but if you act strong making firm even outrageous demands you will create the opposite

impression people will think that you are confident and that it must be based on something real you will earn their respect which in turn will translate to real leverage well it's it's about certain situations so I don't want you to apply that idea to everything in life and some people make the mistake when they read the 48 Laws of Power they think well I'm going to use that everywhere no it applies to certain situations so let's say you're negotiating and I know I dealt with this myself I'm actually a fairly timid person by nature but

I've learned to cultivate the opposite so if you're negotiating a price for what you want for your time for your services and you're not very confident and you kind of ask for a little that's what you're going to get because people aren't going to they're assuming that you're that you're not really up to the task you say all right $20,000 is enough that's what they'll give you but if you raise your price high and you say it with the right voice and you believe in it they're going to go wow that person is is confident

and if they turn you down that's fine because somebody else will give you that price if you you set your own value by what you believe about yourself if you think that you're worthless if you're not very good at it other people pick that up as you were talking I was thinking about um Adam Newman from Wei work and this conversation I heard with him and the founder of SoftBank in the back of a taxi where Adam Newman's asking for a billion and then the owner of SoftBank this very eccentric Chinese very rich Asian man

goes do you know what Adam the only problem with you is that you're not ambitious enough and he writes him a check I believe for like five or 10 bli million dollars in the back of this taxi after like something like 12 minutes of being with him and I always thought about that and thought Jesus what if I just started asking life for way more if I just multiplied all of these emails that I send and requests I make by 10 what would happen to my life over the course of 10 years well yeah um

probably you probably would have gotten a lot more than you got without asking for that um yeah because we we we we're creatures that as I said before we look at the appearances of things look it's it's very very easy metaphor here you go into a social situation like a party and you go up to somebody who's kind of nervous and insecure and anxious and I'm not criticizing that because we all have insecurities I have many of them myself but you go up to somebody like that and it makes you feel kind of nervous and

insecure right and you're kind of fumbling for words and it kind of goes bit of awkwardness happens reverse that you go up to somebody else and they're kind of confident they look you in the eye you know their voice is strong their body language is strong they connect to you whoa you think it brings out that part of you who is like that you might be intimidated but it also might bring out your own kind of confident self I remember being around 50 Cent who's a very charismatic confident to the point of ridiculousness and it

was very infectious I felt that way after being around him for a couple hours I was with him for several months it rubbed off on me right we have these kind of viral contagious Effects by people so if you project strength and confidence you know and I understand it's a little different for women which is an interesting subject because sometimes projecting that for a woman will rub the wrong way because people will think that and it's a terrible qual thing about us that that women are judged by a different standard where that'll seem like they're

a [ __ ] or something like that so I understand that there are nuances here and that the game is different for women as it is for people of other ethnicities as well you know so it's not just one way or the other but to the degree that even for the woman that you have this air of conf confidence that you believe in what you're doing that you believe you're worth it IT projects itself to other people you don't have to scream and shout you don't have to demand 10 billion dollar but if you feel

confident if you feel you're worth this amount of money it will project outward to other people body language yeah want to talk about that does it you know you said earlier it's one of the things we can't lie about is there anything that you still look for in today when you're trying to read someone their body language are there certain cues is there postures or well you know you you got to in Reading non-verbal communication it's a different form of intelligence it's not algorithms it's not formulaic it's human it's emotional it's empathetic it's a reading

without words it's ATT tuning yourself to other people so I attune myself to people's emotions to the vibe that they give off in an over overall sense a Galt is one thing that I like to do so if I had to give it a word I would say anxious or I would have to say outgoing and extroverted or I would have to say impatient or whatever there's an energy that kind of defines them it's a word and that word is not precise but there is an overall feel that I get from a person and then

I'm always looking at specifics it's not like I'm sitting there consciously in my head going through a checklist I'm just feeling certain things and I'm feeling that the eyes are kind of dead they're not engaging with me and you can't put that into words but you know the feeling so when someone's looking at you but they're not really looking at you you know what that feels like don't you MH and a lot of Psychopathic people a lot of narcissists do that so part of their face pretends to be interested in you they are looking at

you in the eye but they're not really looking at you they're thinking of something else they're seeing in you what they can get out of you they're seeing you as an object right eyes are hard to lie they tell you something now actors very skilled actors can kind of create some of these Impressions but one thing that they can't fake is the tone in their voice and actors will tell you that it's the hardest thing to actually consciously control so the voice of a person tells you a lot about their confidence levels tells you a

lot about you know how just about their General emotional tone about their character about who they are it's very difficult to fake and when it's hesitant when it's like stammering when it's not you know you can kind of sense something from people's voice and it's very hard to fake and then the smile the smile tells you a hundred different things if you know how to read it there's the authentic smile which I'm not going to fake right now but well I just it lights up the whole face you know like you really feel Joy you

can't you don't can't foret your eyes go up your cheeks go up everything kind of connects together right the fake Smiles you know yeah we've all seen the fake just when the mouth goes up and the rest of the face doesn't bother Stephen I really like you you're really wonderful you know most of the time most Smiles are fake but you can kind of when you see the genuine smile and you go that's what caused the genuine smile you should become aware of that and then body language tells you a lot like is somebody when

they're talking to you and you're standing up at a at a party is there body kind of facing another Direction while they're talking to you or they're kind of looking out that way while they're talking to you that means they're not really interested in you they're not really engaged in you right also when you catch people by surprise and they don't have the time to put on a fake smile I often tell people to do this like there's somebody in your office and you don't know whether they're a snake or they're actually genuinely your friend

you suspect could go either way you kind of approach them from an angle right and you surprise them you come up to them you go they look at you and for a second you detect what we call a micro expression of of disdain and then they put on the smile that micro expression which scientists psychologists have studied lasts for like less than a second much less than a second you have to be able to read it but it reveals whether they actually like you or they're totally false they can't fake it so if you come

to straight on they'll oh hi Stephen I love great to see you they come oh they they kind of pretend then they try and act and you you can get Clues like that there's so many ways to read body language it's such a fascinating subject I could go on for hours about it how important is it you know you're talking about colleagues and team members there and earlier you said that people are contagious how important do you think it is to the success of our lives and I paused there because success means it's a personal

thing it's a professional thing to surround ourselves with the right group of people and to be intentional about that it's very important um I have a chapter in excuse me in the 48 Laws of Power about infection and um I think it's an experience many of us have had where you're around somebody who seems at first glance to be very interesting and they they they become your friend maybe they're very dramatic and they have all these stories to tell and they seem almost slightly larger than life and you engage with them and then you become

friends and then slowly slowly slowly it becomes clear that that they're a little bit nuts right they're always talking about how this person screwed them how that person screwed them how this boyfriend or girlfriend was so awful and so nasty you to re you begin to realize is this true or is it maybe there that the pro they the problem but now they're your friend and now you're emotionally attached to them and now they have room to play all these kind of games on you and all of their drama starts infecting you and it's like

God damn it I want to get away from this person but I can't they've infected you with their negative energy and it gets under your skin and so uh you have to avoid people like that you have to read before you get involved with them that they are a drama queen or a drama King because there just as many men out there who have this quality you have to see that they are that they play the victim of all of everybody else but actually they kind of Bring It On to themselves some people are genuinely

unfortunate bad things have happened to them and it's not their fault I'm never saying it's a misconception about that chapter that you should avoid everybody who's unfortunate there are people and a lot of people out there whose circumstances have put made them who you know in their what's going on it's not their fault right but there are other people you have to recognize that the bad things that happened to them are things that they have brought on because they have this infecting power it comes from Deep insecurity you don't want them in your life being

around insecure people will make you insecure being around confident people who kind of know what they're doing who've got their act together who are trying to make things and accomplish things because there's so many people out there who talk and talk and talk but never do anything being around people who do things who get things done who've made a business who've made this that or the other their goal to be around because they'll infect you with their positive energy Frenemies yeah do we all have Frenemies and how do we spot Frenemies well hopefully we all

don't have them but um in the laws of human nature and in in several of my books I talk about the phenomenon of Envy which is very very powerful human trait it has roots very ancient Roots we know that in hunter gatherers societies from thousands of years ago Envy was a real problem and so they create all kinds of rituals to avoid Envy where the moment somebody in a tribe received a gift they had to give it to other members so they wouldn't face Envy because facing Envy you could be murdered for it so you

learned all these rituals and we've noticed that chimpanzees feel Envy you give some one of the higher up chimps because they're very hierarchical a grape and also all the other chimps are very wanting that grape as well and they feel envy and etc etc so it's an extremely human emotion the thing that we don't realize though that the people most likely to feel Envy first of all we all feel Envy we're all comparing ourselves to other people I feel it all the time right now I envy Ryan holiday because he's you know so 30 years

younger he's sold so many books you know he's got all this great stuff I I know I know what Envy is like I feel it we all feel small degrees of Envy but there are people I call it passive Envy but active Envy means people act on it they do something to hurt you they sabotage you and some way Frenemies are the classic scenario so somebody who feels envious of you ends up befriending you and consciously they may not be even aware of that they think well I would do want to like them but unconsciously

they feel Envy they think that you have success that you don't necessarily deserve that you have what they want right they become your friend and they they charm you Etc Etc and then lo and behold you start noticing all kinds of behavior that's very ugly that you weren't expecting cuz you're they're your friend they start saying [ __ ] comments that get under your skin that make you feel insecure they take things from you they act in ways that are hurtful but because they're your friend your first instinct is to blame yourself well maybe it's

my fault that they've done this maybe I'm actually to blame for what for what they're saying etc etc ET so I believe behind the frines phenomenon is this this phenomena of Envy where the person secretly wants what you have and they're becoming your friends so that they can wound you and what's best to do is to recognize that and one common sign of a friend ofy of somebody who's befriending you out of Envy is they're in a rush to be your friend normally we like to take it a little bit slow we just don't let

anybody into our lives we like to vet them a little bit beforehand right we don't trust everybody but the person who feels Envy is like I love you you're fantastic I want to be your friend we got to hang out let's go out for dinner the next night they're in a hurry that's a sign that something else is going on because that's not natural what about when friends become Frenemies because sometimes through the process of US changing yes you might Inspire that Envy yes like your status changes we've all had to deal with that I've

had to deal with that as well you have success and you you came from a background where where you weren't so successful and your friends are still there and they Envy you and they're not very nice to you and uh you know it's it's not a good quality and I've I've I've I've understand the quality I understand where it comes from and I've I wrote about it in human nature where we're all aware of the of this of the what we call sha Freud Shan Freud means you take pleasure in other people's pain so you

hear a friend didn't get the job that they wanted to get and you go oh I'm sorry but deep down inside you're kind of kind of happy you know and we all go through that right the opposite is mitfa it's an expression that n a coin which means you feel Joy for other people I like to try and cultivate some of the higher qualities in life so if something good happens to somebody i' my first thing is I might feel a twinge of Envy but then I go it's great for them I'm actually very happy

I'm excited I share their joy in what has happened right but it's not natural so when somebody that you know and you've known for a long time has success in life your first thing is to be they didn't deserve it they kind of Che their way to it okay as we talked about in the very beginning you confront that ugly emotion yourself and you go that's not who I want to be and you go I'm going to make myself feel the opposite I'm going to make myself feel happy for their success it's not natural and

most people don't go through that and I know personally from people I knew before I had any success in life they're the ones that give me the fewest amount of compliments for my books they never read my books in the first place they're very spare with their with what they say they've got a pinched look on their face whereas people I've never met before in my life give me all kinds of compliments why is that because they're envious they're upset are you are you threatening them because they see themselves like you because they knew you

and you're where you're from where they were from so you're even more threatening you're holding up a mirror to them in a way that makes them feel even more uncomfortable well they're not going to feel that way so what people will go through in that sense is and this is how I I I I I think through oh Robert sold himself out he wrote a book that's evil that's nasty that manipulative I didn't think he was like that I thought he was this nice person oh I don't like this book is ugly they'll go through

that process they'll stay my friend because we've had years and years together it's very very common at least I know that they go they do that with my books even though my later book books aren't like the 48 Laws of Power they still have it in the grain that this guy who used to be so sweet and nice with these nasty evil manipulative mellan books he sold out what is it at the heart of the 48 Laws of Power that some people are triggered by like what is the what what was the single most triggering

concept or the most um controversial or the concept that people just had a surface level allergic reaction to onsite without even really reading it they just no no yeah they read the back of the book they read the names of the laws and they go oh that's that's ugly and a lot of times they've had to deal with ugly people in their lives and so that's when I see I see the authentic disgust reaction I understand it that they had to deal with someone who's very manipulative and they find it disgusting of course when I

get to have a rational discussion with them and I calmed down their emotional reaction I said look if you had the 48 Laws of Power before this person manipulated you they would have never been able to manipulate you that book is the best defense you could ever have in your life it's like a shield once you've read it you know all the tricks people are playing on you right they know they're posing as a friend and acting like a spy right they're concealing their intentions you know etc etc etc it's showing you all of these

tricks okay but that's when they calm down an able to say that but the idea that we're not angels that we don't all have the the best intentions in life that I'm writing a manual that they think for how to manipulate how to deceive how to con people triggers people very much A lot of people who've who've suffered in life who've had a lot of pain understand that there's irony in The Book book they don't read it the same way they read it knowing yeah I've had this happens this is what people are like I'm

okay with it I'm cool with it and I must say I don't know if this will come off wrong but a lot of the readers who responded most positively to the 48 Laws of Power early on were African-Americans people like 50 people in the hip-hop business Etc they didn't have any Illusions about human nature about how good we are because they've seen the side all throughout their lives right 50 said when he got into the record business he was shocked at how political people were how manipulative they were so they weren't having that same reaction

they weren't having the guilty reaction like oh that I don't want to read about that why do we why do we even have to discuss that that's not that's not positive that's not helpful that's I think a lot of what triggered people it's funny cuz I was speaking to a CIA agent recently and he said something at the end of our conversation to me he said you know one of the things I've come to learn from being in the CIA is that I no longer believe that equality is possible and he he said equality equality

yeah because that's just not the way that the human world works and we all pretend we want equality we all pretend we want everyone to be equal but if you look at every game we play whether we're politicians or we're business people or whatever it's all about hierarchies and power and getting ahead even that the sheer nature of being a politician is campaigning to get into a position of you know objective power and I want wanted to know what you thought about that well I mean there's some truth to it in the sense of there's

something in our nature that is hierarchical that has deep roots in us but I do believe in one form of equality um and that is everybody at their birth has the possibility for following the path that I talk about in Mastery for being great for fulfilling their Destiny for being the unique individual that they are at Birth so everybody is born with a a DNA that will never be replicated in the past or in the future right there is a uniqueness about every person and and there's a uniqueness about your parents about your background about

your early years right and that uniqueness is a seed that if you PL if you cultivate it and you and you use it and you know your purpose and you you mine it for power in in in Mastery I interviewed one of the master I interviewed was a woman named Tempo grandon who was born with severe autism at the age of two she was about to be committed to a hospital for the rest of her life she was she was like almost like in a walking coma for some reason they got her a teacher to

teacher language and she started emerging a little bit and then slowly she blossomed and she realized be it was something common to a lot of autistic people that she had an incredible connection to animals a lot of autistic people have that she couldn't connect to people they were so tricky and deceptive she she didn't know how to deal with them but animals give her a horse a dog a cow she felt like she was one of them she ended up following that path and becoming a highlevel animal behavioral scientist who um she was born with

autism about to be committed to a hospital and it she achieved incredible success in life as a scientist I do honestly and I'm not faking I do honestly believe that everyone has that potential but it it's not equal in the outcomes of that there are a lot of PE the majority people don't follow that path but I do believe everybody has that potential is that potential like objective greatness or is it our own subjective greatness I I can become the greatest version of Steven or do you believe that everyone could become great in the context

of you know the very best in the world like you know Steve Jobs or no they're not you don't have to be the very best in in the world I mean I uh when I Mastery came out we were uh the New York Times wanted to do a story about my house in the home section okay well why but all right right I never get any publicity from mainstream media so okay fine so I had to quickly upgrade my house because they were going to come over with photo photographers and we got a man over

to do the tile work on my patio which look like hell and I I told people this guy was a true Master he wasn't like making six figures nobody would ever write an article about him he will die and no one will ever know that but I could see in the quiet quality and how well he understood it and the care that he took in it and how much he enjoyed you know creating a beautiful effect with tile work that he was a master he doesn't have to be the best ever you don't have to

be famous and successful there are grades of this there are degrees of it some people is just being a great parent they are very social they're very empathetic and they're not maybe going to become extreme successful Finance person but they're really good at raising their children and they put to put a lot of effort and Care into it that's fantastic you don't have to be famous you don't have to be Steve Jobs there are levels of it right but the sense of this was what I was meant to accomplish and I'm I'm following it and

I'm happy what I do I feel fulfilled by my work and I can go on doing it I take it seriously I care about it I do believe that that anybody can have that level of power in their life I think I struggle with that if I'm being honest yeah on a personal level I struggle with um enough being enough and also I think I've grown up in the generation where there's so much comparison everywhere we look when we open up our phones and Instagram that you kind of always are led to believe that you're

not quite there yet now I've contended with the idea that maybe that's a good thing because it drives you forward it's that pressure you described it's that creates that urgency that desperation so maybe I should never believe I'm there yet but then also I wonder am I going to defer happiness off into the future because I think it's behind some kind of accomplishment or job title or you know success in my life and you know when I hear about that Tyler I go that person that was tying your um patio I'm really jealous because they

sound contempt with much less than would make me contempt what is the correct correct answer is it to be the happy Tyler who's tiling the patio or is it to be the um impatient Steve Jobs that's striving for the personal computer well it depends on who you are we're all individuals we all have our our unique energies it's the fact that you engage you love that you're emotionally connected to it that it gives you a sense of fulfillment that you're not looking over your shoulder oh I I could be doing this instead I'm fine with

that I doesn't have to be the Steve Jobs who's continually dissatisfied who's fouy and who always has to have more I'm not against that either I don't know why we have to be so judgmental if people are following the path and they are in love with what they do and they have a genuine connection to it I'm not going to judge it because they're not famous or because they're not trying to be the greatest the Michael Jordan of tying or whatever Etc I think it's fine and you you're not happy you want to you want

to crush it you want to be have the number one podcast that's fine as well why can't we have you know that kind of diversity in our world the most important thing for both those types of people the the people that have that sort of insatiable sense of ambition but also the people that are contempt with whatever they're doing in their lives from what I had there is they both love what they're doing uh and they both have those core components that you described earlier like they both feel the challenge in their work still and

that challenge might be okay I'm going to do a bigger patio today or it might be I'm going to launch a billion- Dollar business tomorrow for someone else and it's really about those cool components of like challenge meaning purpose yeah yeah because what you don't want is you don't want to be in your 50s in your 60s she's facing death you know cuz your days are numbered who knows how long you're going to live and you're going to go damn it I could have done something with my life when I was a child I had

these dreams I thought I was going to be really great at it and I never realized it I went off on these other paths I was lost I thought I was happy but but I never really fulfilled any of those childhood dreams or those fantasies you know it's a terrible terrible feeling and I want people to avoid that as long as it's something that engages you that's connected to that child that you were it's something that you love and that you you can create these challenges for you is death a motivator for you well um

it certainly is now you know because um my days are are literally numbered you reach a certain age and you know you can literally count the numbers of the days that might be left you and I nearly died several years ago with my stroke came this close to dying you know I was driving my car and if my wife hadn't suddenly seen something I wouldn't be talking to you here right now either I would have crashed and died or I would have had such bad brain damage that I'd be a vegetable so I know about

death I feel it in my body every day I wake up I do my morning meditation I'm a whereare there's a practice that I have in my meditation where this could be my last thought I could die 10 seconds from now what do I want in my head in those last seconds do I want to have some petty little thought about somebody who did this or said that or do I want to have something else greater in my head I'm constantly aware of my mortality and with the book that I'm writing it's always it's always

in my mind because frankly I'm aware that I might die before I finish the book so now I've written 2third of it if I die tomorrow the book can be published and it's okay I can live with that but uh you know I'm in a hurry to get it done because I know it could happen at any moment you know and it almost happened to me so I'm continually aware of it but not in a bad sense in a way of it kind of makes gives meaning to my life it makes me aware of how

you know valuable each moment is and how things that everybody I look out my window I see people doing things that I can't do anymore and I go they take it all for granted they walk around unaware of their mortality of how their body could break down at any day now I'm aware of it so I'm not going to feel Envy because I my mind is at a different level I'm aware of the of the ephemeral nature of life and it makes everything kind of beautiful to me makes me appreciate everything around I don't mean

to be too sacr about this because it could come off that way because there is a dark side to it and I definitely in my dreams and in my thoughts I have a lot of that Darkness but I believe the awareness of death is is a beautiful beautiful thing it's it's it's it's it makes everything intense and makes everything a glow with that awareness if you were my age I've just turned 31 wow you're a kid Jesus Christ man I hate you I was 31 I was The Biggest Loser that's amazing if I could transplant

that awareness from your head to my head that you've got from the life you've lived but also from that stroke incident and the perspective of your mortality that it gave you and the ephemerality of life that it showed you how do you think I would live my life differently how would you have lived your life differently when you were 31 uh you know I I make a point of I never go through that exercise because I believe in something called aor Fati which means love of your fate everything happened for a purpose I wouldn't have

done anything differently if I I had to go back because it all led to the right things so if I'd been in a hurry when I was 22 to be successful as a writer I would have never been able to write the books that I wrote would have all gone a skew who knows where I would have ended up I'm very very happy with I don't regret anything but if you're young what often happens is because your life the pattern of your life if you think of it as a weaving is only like for you

is only like a third woven right for me it's like 2third woven so I can see all of these patterns that you can't see in your life but at your stage you know you tend to think I've got all of this time ahead of me I'm so young i' I can do this I can I can go travel here I can do this business and that business ET Etc you don't feel that sense of urgency you don't realize that tomorrow you could be hit by a car tomorrow you could suddenly be diagnosed with cancer people

are dying now in their 30s and 40s I read unfortunately when you get older a bad habit is you start reading the obituary pages I don't know why um and you start reading about people a lot of people who are in their 40s and 50s are dying left right and center today for various reasons it can happen and what it does to you is it says I only have so much time I wanted to accomplish this one thing that I've been putting off okay okay you wrote your book maybe there's something else that you've always

wanted to do but you have never done and you're kind of putting it off a sense of urgency a sense that your time is relatively short is a good thing the other thing is it makes as I said it makes everything a little more intense a little more a glow is the word I like to use so I used to swim like three days a week and I would swim long distances and I loved it it was my greatest therapy I just loved getting out of my head and just going being in the water okay

but I never appreciated it until now when I can't do it so I want you to appreciate you going to the gym having your health to being able to do these things don't look at it like take it for granted and it pisses me off that young people take all the stuff for granted they think that I'm privileged because I have this success Cent when you're young you have all those privileges you have your health you have other things that are could be taken away from you don't take for granted these things in your life

that you have that are not going to last forever think in those terms and think of of how more intense everything around you becomes when you have that mindset one of the things I think I worry that I take for granted is my romantic relationship with my partner and you know hearing your story of being in that car that day it's literally evident that your romantic partner can save your life she did and um yeah uh you know we've been together for a while I'm not going to say how many years because she doesn't like

hearing that because um so you know we have a a a deep rich past and it and it's a wonderful thing and she saved my life and saving someone's life man it really is important it really means a lot of ch of changes things and in my book that I'm writing now I wrote a chapter on love which is something I've never written about obviously written about seduction Etc but I've never written about love and I wrote about the in the incredible the sublime quality that you can have when you allow yourself to go deeper

and deeper and deeper into that falling process where you get rid of your your ego you get rid of your defenses you get rid of all the resistance and you just let yourself fall fall fall fall fall and you connect to someone on that deeper deeper level it's as I say it's it's a chapter on the sublime because it is a very Sublime experience and the reason I wrote it is I feel like people are missing that now because they're so they don't want to be vulnerable they don't want any pain and falling for another

person and letting go of your defenses opens you up to pain right and we just want to we don't want to experience that we want to be invulnerable and it's like cutting off all the richest experiences in life and so I wrote that chapter addressing that and say let go of your defenses let go of your resistance let yourself go into that process of falling let feel what it feels like to have your ego dissolved in the presence of another person and care more about them than you care about yourself you mentioned a second ago

dark thoughts and dark dreams we all have dark thoughts our dark thoughts are our own how do you go about dealing with dark thoughts and what are those dark thoughts that you're able to share well you know um in my dreams I'll be doing all kinds of weird things uh a lot of times there'll be guilt like like did I actually murder that person are the police actually after me damn it what's going to happen what's going to happen to my reputation then I wake up you know so all that kind of stuff happens but

also doubts about myself and depression and about I've I've dealt my whole life with feelings of like not being very worthy like even doubting My Success doubting that my work work is any good doubting that I deserve it I had you know a lot of periods in my life where I I wasn't successful and um I kind of had it ingrained in me that I could do better I could do better I could do better I wasn't a good parent to myself I was very tough on myself and a lot of my dark thoughts are

I'm still very tough on myself and it's like you know the other dark thoughts that I have is I can't do the things that I used to be able to do is life even worth living when you can't like hike when you can't swim when you can't go out on your bicycle when you can't travel normally do do I is it really worth it you know maybe maybe death wouldn't be so bad compared to that I go through that and then I go yeah I talk myself out of it again and again and again but

my dark thoughts are about about myself and my doubts and about the state of my body as it is right now kind of thing if I said to you that I had those same doubts about you know if I was if we were identical in every way and I said Robert I'm having a lot of doubts about I can't go out on my bicycle I can't do the things I used to do I'm wondering if life is worth living and I asked you for advice I said I don't know what to do about the self-doubt

I have about these books that I've written and what would you say to me well um I would say um there's a lot of people we talk a lot in life who [ __ ] their way who say they've accomplished this and the other and they've never done anything you have a book out there that you can be very proud of that you can die tomorrow and it's like a momento that we live on forever and you've accomplished that you've accomplished this stuff with your podcast you've actually made things so focus on that focus on

the fact that so many people never get out of bed and and amount to anything so you've built things you've accomplished things focus on that and then about your body well you know when you're dead it's it's all gone who knows what lot what there is on the other side but just think of of the insanity of what it means to be alive and that's another chapter in my in my new book the odds against you Stephen of ever being born are absolutely insane and I describe those odds in the book and I go through

from the very first cells that ever from Life forming a planet Earth to the evolution leading to us sitting here is unbelievable so that you are alive is an incredible astounding thing and you have to think about that and you have to think about just seeing the sky just being aware is is an amazing thing so I often think about people who are suicidal there are a lot of people like that in life particularly nowadays and I know because I went through that period most strongly in my early to mid-30s as I was contemplating the

lack of success in my life um you know and what kept me going was I still believe that I could accomplish something so even in my darkest moments I managed to pull myself out but then I I think of people who maybe don't have that energy who are kind of going down that hole and I know from my own experience that hearing somebody tell them that life is is incredibly amazing fact won't have any effect on them right because it's it doesn't connect to them emotionally and I often think how could I connect to them

emotionally how could I make it clear to them that there's something there that that's worth preserving I don't have the answer here today but I think about that all the time like how would I deal with somebody who is suicid and I get people writing me like that and we've had I've had relatives in those situations before so that's something I think a lot about it's it's a difficult question to answer what You' have to say to that person in that situation to get them to believe in the sublime to get them to believe that

there's life is worth living I Ponder whether what maybe you need to do is to get them to take the first step to create evidence for themselves somehow whatever that small first step is I think that's great I think that's I think that's spot on that's exactly what you have to do they they have to come to to the realization themselves and through some action that you get them to do which makes them gives them a little bit of an ounce of belief in thems then the spiral can turn around so I think you're right

it has to be come from them and it has to come through something that they actually do all the talk in the world won't really help them what that is is something that I you know I would like to think about and it's and it depends on the individual but that I think that is the way to do it you're writing this book at the moment called the sublime right are you writing that book because of the situation you found yourself in after having the Str and and going through that journey of saying why is

life worth living and going in search of the sublime that we all have inherently well to be honest with you about 20 years ago I had the idea for the book I read a book on the subject and I got excited about it because they were explaining it as it's a kind of experience that's very hard to verbalize that goes outside of what we normally experience and I got very excited by the idea and I planned to write that book and then around after war that was going to be my fourth book and my agent

was getting all prepared to sell it and then I got hooked on 50 Cent and I did that book instead and I put it on the back burner and then Mastery came up and I got hooked under that and suddenly it kind of got pushed aside and then in in human nature first of all the last chapter in the 50 Cent book is on the Sublime it's about death and and what 15 and facing it then the last chapter in human nature is about the sublime it's about death and mortality and the irony is that

two and a half months after finishing that chapter in the book I I nearly died but what I had planned originally was I was going to go to the goby desert and and and walk across the goby desert I was going to go swim with w Wales you know literally Wales in New Zealand I was going to go to Tierra del fuo I was going to have all of these Sublime experiences and write about them and now I can't do any of that right all I can do is sit in my my little room in

my house at my desk and write the book it's all in my head the book is so much better because of that so it's changed I can't go to the GOI desert I can't swim with well or I drown I can't go to Tiara Del fuo I can only sit in my office look at the birds go through the books that I'm reading and write the book keeping in mind other people and what's going on in the world in their life and my limitations so ironically the book has become better because I had to go

through this experience but nearly dying was going little bells were going off in my head all right it's time to write that book you're not putting it off any longer and has it forced you to find the sublime in the everyday life well obviously I mean um I'm writing right now a chapter on what I call the deont which is an ancient Greek concept that all of us are born with like a guardian Spirit right I know it sounds very mystical but a lot of psychologists contemporary psychologists have written about the dayon phenomena theide that

you have a second self a kind of higher self that in some way is guiding you and it has a lot to do with some of the things we've talked about purpose Etc and I have to think about it I have to think about it in terms of my own life I have to think about is there something else inside of me that's communicating to me what does that mean how does that connect with other ideas about the Universe I get to read books about it it's a very very exciting process it's it's keeping me

alive right now and then you know I write a chapter about animals and what's Sublime about interspecies communication and now I get to look at my cat I don't look at my cat or I don't look at the birds the same way as I did before I wrote that chapter so it's changing me and it's Lifting me out of the kind of people who have strokes we all have to go through terrible diseases all of us unfortunately unless we die by an accident cancer Etc Strokes the number one thing that happens is is terrible depression

to suddenly lose your body and what you could do and so this has kept me out of that depression I have to say you said that all of your books have been kind of focused on different subjects and that's very much the case there's sometimes three lines between the different books but they're all very much focused on a variety of different subjects if there was a message that kind of brings all of your work together if this was your last day on Earth what would the message that you would want to leave the world with

be wow that's a really good question um a lot of my books have to do with um the reality of our life and and what not not what we want to believe not our our our fake ideas about it not our Illusions Etc but what life is really really like this is the human animal this is how they behave this is what will seduce them this will was what will turn them off this is how strategies will get us what we want in life this is how you can master your subject not the [ __

] thing that people tell you about master where you can take a drug where you can hack your way to Mastery this is the truth this is the reality so all of books the through line is this is what the world is really like it's not ugly it's not beautiful it just is and it's great to just relate to the world as it is to see things as they are it kind of is liberating and in a way it is kind of beautiful to just connect to the reality and not being inside of your wishes

about why can't people be more like this why can't somebody tell me this why can't they give me this why can't I be successful blah blah blah blah getting rid of your Illusions and just looking at the way life is is sort of I guess would be the through through line of all of my books do you see Life as a bit of a game and is that a healthier way to view Life a game where we need to learn the rules and then play the game versus fight against um the Injustice of the rules

of the game yeah it's all a game um definitely uh there was a great um uh man on the left named Saul Alinsky who wrote a book called Rules for Radicals he was a strategist for Union organizing and he hated he would hate the world today with people with all of their virtual signaling and everything he said if you want to change life if you believe that there's Injustice you have to be a strategist it's Warfare you have to organize you have to understand the rules that will lead to actual change in this world and

whenever you enter the realm of rules and strategy it is like a game you know and so yeah I believe that I believe people with all their moralistic ideas who think just because they believe something is right that it that it it it will get get what they want they're just living in it fools you have to strategize if you don't you're just bullshitting you're just pretend you're just virtue signaling you want people to see you as a saint if you're not willing to get your hands dirty and to organize and to say I've got

to take this A B C D I have to figure out the process of getting there then all you're doing is just playing a game of appearances as opposed to the real game of getting things done in life what is the opposite of that strategy you're talking about so I'm trying to figure out there the average person that is currently not strategizing in their life what are they doing well um you know everybody I guess you could say everybody has a strategy but their strategies are extremely ineffective their strategies are full of Illusions so human

beings have to strategize because to wake up in the morning and to go I've got to make breakfast you got to strategize how you're going to cook and what you're going to make and what you're going to do the day and what you're going to wear you know it's human it's Human Nature it's just people do it very very badly and they do it badly because they're so emotional now I'm not against emotions and emotions play a huge role and I'm writing a lot about it in my new book but the ability to get things

done you have to be in control of your emotions you have to take a step back and you have to go I'm not going to react this person is pressuring me they're saying these things my natural tendency is to react get my back up and bite back no I'm going to step back and I'm going to go what's going to make them shut the [ __ ] up what's going to make them get out of my life what's going to make what's going to get rid of them what's going to defeat them if they're an

adversary all right I made that decision not to react to get emotional all right now I have to think if I do this they're going to react this way but if I surprise them with this angle they won't know what to do and then they'll they'll react in a different way and I'll be in control of the situation I strategize I go through a process of of gaming out the possibilities here and that's to be a strategist the opposite is a book that I meant to write after seduction which is a book about human stupidity

to not be strategic is to be stupid and and PE stupid stupid people create more damage in this life than anybody else with their bad strategies their bad Wars the bad things they lead people into to their bad politics Etc so that's the opposite of strategy stupidity I also heard within there that sort of emotion being emotionally driven is very much it doesn't allow you to have effective strategies because you'll get caught up in yeah you'll get personal things personal things and yeah and things that probably don't matter that ability to rise above though I

think we all want to master that I would love to master the ability to rise above in all situations at all times well you can when you're younger it's harder because because you've got your hormones you've got all that energy got all that adrenaline it's harder you get older gets a little bit easier do you have a A system that you use just to detach yourself from the emotion sometimes well I'm not always good at it um so I've learned to not react emotionally when people say something that I think is going to be triggering

I just don't do anything I go into my zen mode oh it's just it's just life it's just words it's just verbiage doesn't matter doesn't mean anything to me I'm neutral I'm unaffected I'm in my Citadel goodbye fine it's okay if I get angry and I write that email which I still do I don't send it I put it in my draft box I look at it a weekly what the [ __ ] was I thinking about I'm glad you didn't send that you know you delay your reactions but mostly I've trained myself and I

must say my meditation practic has helped me to not react when people say things that are so annoying that that get under my skin I just go that's them it's not me they're another human being they have a bad idea I don't care it's not my bad idea it's their life as you know whoop are a sponsor of this podcast and I'm an investor in the company and last month I had the chance to sit down with Kristen Holmes she's a VP of performance at woop and I learned so much from our conversation about circadian

rhythms and things like sleep study show that for every 45 minutes of sleep debt that you acrew that your decision- making ability will drop by up to 10% and when you're chronically underslept you'll only be a fraction of the person the fraction of the boss partner friend manager that you can be that's why I'm obsessed with whoop which not just tracks but coaches you on how to get better at sleep so you can bring your best to everything that you choose to do if you're not convinced you can try whoop for 30 days completely risk-free

with zero commitment just by going to join. whoop.com CEO that's join. woop.com CEO and let me know how you get on if you don't like it there's no commitment join. woop.com CEO earlier you mentioned the opposite of strategy with stupidity so let's talk about politics it's a really interesting time in politics at the moment I'm really obsessed with us politics in particular because it's it's more like a reality show over here than um in the UK it's quite boring it is very boring over there I must admit this year Trump is running for re-election against

Biden the country seems to be very divided for a number of different reasons it feels I don't know I just feel like it's more divided than ever I do feel like the left has moved further left than ever before to the point that I I struggled to resonate with that side and I still don't resonate with the the right so I kind of feel a bit trapped what what do you think of everything that's going on and how does your kind of work in form what's happening and everything in between well U we all have

biases and um I've come from more of the the liberal side the left side uh I was actually rather extreme when I was younger so I have that bias um so I'm not really going to be objective so let's get that out of the way right you know I have my emotional reactions my triggering by what I see but um I'm very concerned about the overall Spirit the overall Zeitgeist so I worked as um I know this will sound like I'm going in in a tangent but bear with me I was on the board of

directors of a publicly traded company American Apparel and I was brought on there because I was friends with the CEO but he thought of me as a strategist because he loved the 48 Laws of Power and I started Ed seeing that things were kind of going downhill and I sort of had my finger on what the problem was the problem was our our demographic was basically young women at the ages 18 to 24 it's a very difficult demographic to deal with because their tastes change very quickly they're very viral etc etc and so what worked

early on with American Apparel it was sudden slowly becoming a cliche right and it wasn't going to translate well to a new generation coming up which ended up being gen Z so I had the idea of like we need to have these Retreats these yearly things where we step back from the day-to-day business and we think about the brand where we're going how we're going to adapt we're not going to change it but we're going to adapt etc etc I presented to the CEO no we don't need anyah what I came away with was that

the reason businesses are so awful large businesses why they suck why they're never successful why they're so damn annoying is because they're always dealing with the quarterly report at least for publicly traded businesses right they can't have a long-term Vision because they can't afford it they have to deal with what Wall Street will say to that quarterly report and and you know what what what what the investors are how they're going to react to sit there and step back and think about where you're going to be in a year or two we might not even

exist in a year or two so forget it well politics is the same thing you've got to win elections you're facing every couple of years every four years you don't have the luxury of thinking of the larger picture and that's what we're suffering from right now because if you look at the political situation in America nobody has any loyalty to anything so in my age when I grew up you were a Democrat you were a Republican and you had kind of roots and you believed in that because well the Democratic party was for the working

class we were for the unions we were for the common guy the little guy the FDR mentality even to some extent Kennedy and Johnson the Republicans we were for big business for lower taxes blah blah blah blah blah blah blah you had a sense of connection to it now people have no connection at all to any particular party which is fine I don't I don't but what that means is it's so volatile so somebody will vote for Obama then they'll vote for Trump then they'll vote for Biden and then they'll vote for Trump again and

there are plenty of people in that situation they have no roots they're not connected to anything and it's not people's fault it's our politics fault they're not creating a sense of what it means to be an American what is it can you give us a story a myth about what it means to be an American in 2024 that will connect us that will kind of give us a sense of what is beautiful about our country because there are beautiful things about it it's possible it's very possible to create that kind of a vision if you

can step back and you can think in longer term all right maybe it's hard to do that for America but what is it for the goddamn Democratic party what does it mean to be a Democrat what does it mean to be now to be a Republican it just means to be a lap dog for Donald Trump to believe everything he does but the Democrats have their own problems their own issues it doesn't you can't have a party that's just against everything what are you for I often tell people I'm sick of hearing what you hate

I'm sick of hearing what you're against I'm sick of hearing what you're complaining tell me what you want tell me what you're for tell me your vision of what a great country would be like but you can't they can't do that because they're only in this bubble of what I hate what I'm against what I'm trying to protect etc etc so there's got to be a a politician that rises up at some point that has a vision that's not just a demagogue that's not just a charismatic that's looking out for themsel they can connect the

dots that can say this is what it means to be in this party this is our vision this is what connects this is the glue yeah they're going to be little separate parts of it okay but we're the party of the of the work class right we're the party that's going to protect people protect make life easier for them or we're the party of business etc etc I don't care what it is but create a vision a sense of who you are of what it connects to hit people in their heart in their you see

Trump succeeds because he has an emotional visceral effect on people and he's very good at it the Democrats can't learn that it's all always about a laundry list of we're going to do a b c d and e we're going to hit the numbers we're going to reduce inflation we're going to get create this amount of jobs Etc it's all in the head it's not in here you've got to create you got to connect to people viscerally emotionally you have to create a myth that will connect people even within their disperate little niches and it's

possible because to believe it's impossible goes against the grain of History somebody will emerge I might be dead when it happens who will go through that some process that because otherwise everything will fall apart Robert we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest oh I remember not I I didn't prepare it's okay I'm sure I'm sure you can come up with one about the sublime maybe I don't know we'll see the question for you is okay and you're not allowed to say nothing if you

could change one thing from your last 10 years what would it be and why well um I would have I would have prevented my stroke um I would have uh realized that I was burning myself out writing the law of human nature I would have taken it slower I would have realized that my body has limits and I would have uh I would have been easier on myself and not put myself CU that book was very stressful and very difficult I would have taken it slower I would have gone in a different pace and I

wouldn't have had my stroke and I'd be so much happier do you think you could have pre prevented your Stoke yeah definitely I mean um it was a weird set of circumstances um but the stress of writing the human nature kind of ground ground me down and then I had kind of high blood pressure already and then I took a trip to New York where I forgot my blood pressure medication and then I was hiking in a park and a wasp stung me here and 5 days later this whole area got inflamed turned red I

was itching I couldn't stand it went to the doctor they prescribed me basically a steroid which raised my blood pressure to the roof and then when I had the stroke my blood clot was exactly where that wasp sting was in my neck so if I hadn't worn myself into the ground if I hadn't forgotten my blood pressure medication if I hadn't if that doctor hadn't prescribed to me that nasty pronone if I had just been more careful like that I probably wouldn't have had stroke are you able to forgive that sequence of events and the

people involved yeah I have to I forgiven the WASP you know that wasp maybe died because of me because I don't know if wasps die when they sting you bees do but I forgiven the WASP um I've walked past that spot where the wasp stung me and given my little prayer to it and said I'm sorry about your little life Etc and yeah I've I've forgiven uh I I've gotten over that and I've made my peace with it you know what it was meant to happen amorti it was my fate and probably probably it happened

for a good reason I mean I'm right now contradicting my answer to that person's question but so was so life because the way I think about it is I was kind of Reckless with what I thought I could do and probably if I hadn't had my stroke I probably would have something else bad would have happened because I I didn't realize my physical limits I probably would have and so I'm alive I have my brain and I'm writing this next book so it happened for a reason if that bee wasn't there that day wasp sorry

correction if that was no no preas please if that wasp wasn't there that day and I say this because I've been reading a few books recently about how throughout human history these tiny little events like the Nagasaki where they dropped the bombs and all of these tiny little events with a a cloud that flew over a butterfly effect all of the little butterfly effect things is there anything from the how these tiny seemingly insignificant chance events can have massive consequences you're gon to make me cry cuz what if there was like a little bit of

wind and the WASP didn't come directly in my path yeah I know it's horrifying but is there anything CU that's the nature of the world we live in where tiny little things that we cannot predict can determine our lives in huge ways can sway our lives in huge ways is there any anything that we can do about it no there's nothing you can do about it you you know it's it's it's Ryan holiday we'll talk to you about it you what you can do is the stoic philosophy is how you react to it mentally you

can't change the physical circumstance but you can change how you think about it and how you react Robert thank you so much for your time and your wisdom and I'm so very very excited for your upcoming book because if it's anything like your past books it's really something worth waiting for and that's nice to hear thank you before we started recording you told me about the process you've going through You' spent four years writing this upcoming book Sublime so far it's been four and a half and it'll be another year and a half so that'll

be six total years yes pouring I it's so incredibly it's so inspiring to me well keep this in mind Stephen I can't type so um my I used to be a fast typist and I can't go up take a hike to clear my head so everything it's not like double takes like it's like one and a half times more I have to write things out by hand I have to edit by hand I have to dictate into the computer I have to edit with one hand I have to clear my mind without hiking so everything

takes one and a half times more that's probably so probably would have been like a four or five year book but as you said about your cycle when you slow things down sometimes you enjoy the more and you make better things yes I think you're right and and probably the slower cooking will make a better book exactly right I can't wait I hope everyone has your existing books cuz they're all um as everyone's witnessed today they're all based on challenging but important enduring wisdom every single one of them and I think we need more challenging

wisdom in our society these days well thank you so thank you so much Robert you're a real um you're welcome hero to many thank you so much okay thank you stev thank you for inviting me [Music] back [Music] oh