Robert Greene: How to Deal with Negative People When They Are in Your Family, Friend Circle or Work

28:04Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50 % and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter, park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. This week on a very special episode of Health Discovered. We're taking a closer look at a condition that affects hundreds of thousands of men each year, prostate cancer. I first found out about my cancer on my birthday at the age of 45. Found out my cancer has spread to my pelvic bone. And from there, life just changed. About one in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime, and the risk increases with age.

28:51Anything with cancer, you just think death sentence. And the only thing I could think about was, who's going to take care of my family? You have to go out there and build your support system. You got to build your team. In this episode, we'll explore the science behind detection along with the practical steps men can take to protect their health. Listen to Health Discovered on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app, search Health Discovered, and start listening.

29:25She's seen Encanto more times than she can count. And she can count to ten. She mentioned Mirabel in every conversation. But the moment she actually met Mirabel, she was speechless. That's pura magia. Find yours at Walt Disney World Resort. Five years, ten months, and two days. That's how long it took to grow the 38 inches to ride on Cali River Rapids. But the moment the wait finally ended, that was Puida Magia. Discover it at Walt Disney World Resort. Over and over again, compulsively, right? And there's probably a purpose behind that. But social media is actually a genius at that. Picking out, putting up things up there, they're going to engage our emotions.

30:07So we have to pay attention. So I always try and every time that happens, I withdraw and I say, it's just a thought. It's not real. It's not who I am. This is a very important part of meditation. Your thoughts are not who you are. They're a separate part of yourself. You are something different from your own thoughts. I don't know if that means anything to you. It does. It does, definitely. And while we are not our thoughts and we are not our mind, our thoughts become our reality. we find that a repetitive thought turns into a habit that turns into a pattern that turns into an action becomes our reality for example i am a unorganized lazy individual usually translates into oh i forgot to send that it didn't happen because now it's a belief that's built up and so it's so fascinating that something that's so not real becomes so real and and i've been really into seeing how thought editing is so useful as an activity and an exercise, because I've found so many of my thoughts become my beliefs that become my life.

31:20And I think a lot of people don't realize because they don't realize that their thoughts are like clothes that you can change. We do believe that our thoughts are real and our reality and whatever we're hearing in our head is exactly what is. And we don't realize that, oh, it's like looking in your wardrobe and saying, I don't like the color green anymore. I'm going to change it for blue. It's as simple as that. Well, there was something I read recently in one of the Buddhist books that I like to read that said, our minds are basically topsy-turvy. They're upside down. So the reality is, I mean, I don't want to get too deep into this, but we don't really have a self.

32:04The self is a construction of our minds. There actually is nothing there. And that kind of emptiness, that egolessness is enlightenment. It's a beautiful feeling. And maybe in your life, you've touched upon it briefly. I know I've touched upon it briefly. It's not the reality I have every day. But that's real. And what's not real are the thoughts. But everything is turned upside down in our worlds. and so these delusionary thoughts about of about people about who i am about my habits etc they become our reality when it's exactly the opposite but you have to be able to to be aware of that and so you know meditation is all about being aware of is becoming aware of these things because we walk around like automatons you know i'm very into this writer named gurdjieff i don't know if you've ever heard of Gurdjieff.

33:01He was this, he's basically from Armenia. He was in the beginning of the 20th century. He was this man who was very interested in mysticism. And he traveled throughout Asia, trying to find the essence of all the different esoteric philosophies. And he created his own philosophy. And it's very interesting, very exciting stuff. He wrote a book called In Search of the Miraculous that I highly recommend people. And it's not woo-woo stuff. He was a very, very practical man. He puts it in very practical terms. But his idea is that we walk around asleep. We're on automatic pilot constantly. We're not really aware that we're breathing, that we're existing.

33:45We're not aware where our thoughts come from. We're not aware of how our body moves, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so it's a process of slowly becoming aware of these kinds of things that is really kind of, I've been doing this 14, 15 years now, and it's really, really kind of changed the course of my life, I have to say. Yeah, I love that. And I can't wait to read that book now. And I couldn't agree more. I feel we're so disconnected from our mind and body that we constantly believe that someone outside of ourself has the answer for how we feel. And while that may be true when you're seeing a doctor or a dentist or something of that professional nature, we don't really know how our body's been feeling for weeks or months until it crashes.

34:36And then we realize that we haven't paid enough attention to x or y or z or a relationship in the same way has to end in order for us to realize that it had lost investment and energy or whatever it may be and we're so far away from the self or at least this version of the self that yeah we're not really aware i love what you just said about the idea of how conscious are we of the fact that we're breathing we're here we're present we're together versus how much are we living up here? And, and it's really interesting, isn't it? Because there's almost two realities that we're always dealing. And if we're getting too heady, I'm happy to move away from it.

35:17But it's, it's almost like I've been thinking a lot about how in one sense, what's out here is real. And in one sense, what here isn't. And at the same time, actually what's going on here is the real because it defines how I interact with everything else. and it can help me be a better filter, a better chooser, selector of the people I'm around and the places I visit. So you say you have to kind of use the mind to be able to become present. It's a process. I would say I'm alluding to that in discovery, not in pushing it, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, it makes sense to me. Yeah, I agree with that, definitely.

35:56Yeah, I've been reflecting a lot recently about how most of what's happening is in the invisible world. That's very interesting. Tell me more about that. I was thinking that in one sense you have reality externally, the visible world, but how I make sense of that visible world is all in the invisible space. And ultimately how I make sense of it is the reality that I experience, regardless of what's happening around me which is why we realize that people who well we all are telling ourselves stories and narratives all day long but how we're processing what we're experiencing is our reality as opposed to the event or what someone said or social media as you gave an example like i can either sit here and say like i know that when i wake up in the morning and I start scrolling on social media, my mind is now moving 10 times, 100 times faster than if I don't do that.

37:01And I know that brushing my teeth and showering is a much more peaceful process if I haven't looked at my phone than if I do. And so that choice is being made in the invisible world. And the visible world is simply something I'm interacting with and taking from or being affected by it well so we mostly live in amid things that are invisible yes right symbols etc yes language is is is a symbol it's not reality and so um things like government and and social behavior they're rules and codes that we abide by but they're not visible they're invisible right yeah definitely and and we're not aware of that and so we're trying to raise our awareness of the invisible world.

37:49I'm always trying to raise my awareness of why do I process this way? Where does this come from? Where's this idea taking root? That's a very, yeah, it's a very interesting process to go through. Yeah, it's hard. It's like, yeah, it's not clear. It's not like a, here's the step-by-step process. It's just something I've been engaging with a lot. Yeah. Yeah. I like to try and go through a thing where I question all of my beliefs and things of why, where does that come from? Why do I believe that? Why has that become something that's so hardened into my brain? I believe that about myself and who I am, about other people.

38:27I continually try to challenge it and look at what might be the source of it. And then maybe say, it could be the opposite, right? And actually, it can lead to a lot of problems because it's like, my mind is always swimming and I never really think anything is certain. I'm always, you know, saying the opposite side of it. but um i think it's in the end it's a very healthy process how do you i i love i love where we're going because it kind of comes back to your same point early sorry your earlier point about how someone of strong character knows how to take criticism which means they know how to deal with the opposite of what they think or feel and so this idea that you're sharing now that it's healthy to be able to question to evaluate to assess our beliefs and values but like you said it's one of the hardest things to do because you get into a space of uncertainty, you question your identity, you lose a sense of direction.

39:20How do we question ourselves without losing ourselves and actually realize that that is the process of discovering and building ourselves? You know, like who really are you in the end? You know, what constitutes you, the essence of you? What were you meant to accomplish in this world, right? Your sense of purpose, you know, to use the title of your show, what is it that makes you an individual, makes you unique, that you alone are meant to accomplish in life? Well, it's not given. We don't know it. And a lot of people really, really struggle with trying to figure that out, right? Because they've been programmed by their parents, by their siblings, by the culture, by their teachers to say, this is who you are.

40:06This is what you should believe in. This is what you were meant to accomplish in life. This is what's cool and what's not cool. Okay. And so you have to question yourself. You have to say, is this really who I am? Do I really, am I really interested in this subject? Am I really interested in this kind of person and getting in a relationship with this kind of person? And so question yourself on that level. You're getting at a deeper and deeper core of maybe who you are at essence. You're cutting away all of the social stuff that has been foisted upon you, that it has nothing to do with you, right?

40:42So in some ways, you're kind of a mystery to yourself and you're sort of trying to solve that puzzle. And you have to ask these questions, is this something I'm actually really interested in? Is this an intrinsically important thing to me? Or is it something that's in the culture or something that other people have told me? and questioning that over and over and over again is not to lead you into this abyss where there's nothing real it's to get you closer to who you are to what really matters to what that essence of you is to what you're meant to accomplish in life and once you reach that that inner kind of gold then you have you have a degree of certainty so i know i knew from a very young age that i wanted to be a writer, right?

41:27I had a struggle to figure out what kind of writing I wanted. But knowing that's who I am, probably about up at the age of eight, it allowed me to go, I'm not interested in that. I don't want to do that. This isn't important. Why am I following this career path? Why am I wasting my time here? And then, so knowing that kind of core, you don't have to keep questioning yourself. So I'm never going to question myself, why are you a writer? Why are you writing books? You should have been a pop star. You should have been a rock singer. You should have written poetry. You should have been a lawyer. No, I'll never go there because I have that firm ground beneath me.

42:07And that's what you're questioning is supposed to lead to, get to the essence of who you are. And once you're there, you have a degree of certainty in your life. Yeah, it does. It does. And I feel like a big challenge, something that I've been thinking a lot about lately is a big challenge of where that comes from is because we care so much about what people think and we're scared of being an unsuccessful version of ourselves because we'd rather be a successful version of what someone else wants us to be. And so we're scared of being an unsuccessful writer if we could be a successful accountant.

42:45We're scared of being an unsuccessful artist because we'd rather be a successful tech person, whatever else it may be, fill in your blank. And because what we think people think of us has such a strong hold on us that we can't pivot to our passions. We can't maneuver to our purpose. We can't accept that maybe I'm not what this person wants me to be. And I've been spending a lot of time in this to try and figure out, and let's dive into it from different perspectives, But I guess, how much, Robert, do you care what people think of you? And how have you made sense of that over your time as someone who obviously writes that a lot of people enjoy your reading?

43:32People may disagree with you. They may agree with you. People, as you said, debate, discuss. But how have you made sense of that? And what's been your process of dealing with how you think people think about you? There's how people think about me who know me personally. And there's how people think about me in the social realm who don't know me personally and who have an idea of who I am, which is often very different from the reality. but naturally as a human being I care that people understand that I'm a certain way that I have a certain character that I actually love jokes and silly bathroom humor and that you know I like stupid movies and that I'm not always you know reading heavy philosophy you know my wife can tell you all about this childish side of my personality so you know it's always been important to me to feel kind of authentic and sincere.

44:30And I've always hated, and that's probably why I wrote the 48 Laws of Power. I hate people who are pretending to be something that they're not. Deeply, deeply wounds me, and I don't know why. I don't know why it's been like that since I was a child. Maybe I suspected that in my parents, the kind of falseness that upsets me deeply. and so I wrote the 48 Laws of Power because I felt people are such hypocrites they pretend that they're not interested in power but that's all they're interested in right they wear this front like oh I just want to help people I just want to make movies and culture and art no you're interested in power so it's always been deeply important to me to kind of reveal what's really going on in someone and to sort of feel that way about myself so when I don't feel like I'm myself when I feel like I'm faking it.

45:20And sometimes, to be honest with you, Jay, being a kind of quote-unquote self-help guru, it feels false. It doesn't feel like who I am. I feel like a bit of an imposter. That's not really what I wanted to be. You can relate to that. I just wanted to write books. I love ideas. I love thoughts. I love expanding my consciousness, right? So the feeling that I'm not being who I am and that other people are kind of glomming onto that is upsetting to me. I don't know if I'm answering your question. Oh, no, that's resonating so deeply with me. I think it's so interesting, isn't it, how your self-perception is so different from people's projection onto you.

46:05And so I can identify with that. I do what I do because I'm just sharing what I love. So I love meditation. I love wisdom books. I love traditions. I love ancient wisdom and modern science and seeing the parallels between the two. And I just love talking about that and sharing that. And I don't think I've ever thought of myself as a guru or a guide or that kind of individual. but we in society, if someone shares or teaches or gives insight or advice, we box them or bucket them as that. So same as you, we'd go in the same bucket, even though we kind of do similar things about very different things.

46:53And we probably have some similar interests and some different interests. And it's interesting how there isn't a space. Like I often say to people, I'm just trying to be everyone's spiritual friend. Like that's my goal. Like I'm that guy who's introducing my friends to cool things that they may not have come across, whether it's Eastern spirituality or wisdom or whatever it may be. Like I'm that guy and that's all I want to be. I don't want to be anything else. But it's hard when you almost get put on a pedestal, even though you didn't ask for that or didn't want that. Well, people's perception of you can almost become how you perceive yourself if you're not careful for sure you know and so um that's why i keep coming back to myself and going is that really who i am yes i don't think so robert you know and also i actually um i'm very i'm a flawed individual i'm a flawed human being i have you know blind spots in my nature i have compulsions that i wish i didn't have And I don't like this idea that people think I'm this powerful person who's figured everything out.

48:01Because I'm not. I have. That's why, you know, I wrote the book, The Laws of Human Nature. It was because I understand that I shared the same flaws, that I have narcissistic tendencies, that I too can feel envy, that I have moments of grandiosity. So I'm not comfortable with the idea like that I'm this somebody that I'm not, that the perception of me is. But that's what happens to a lot of successful, famous people. They become trapped in what other people are thinking. Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50 % and skip the hassle of circling the block.

48:38Park smarter, park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. This week on a very special episode of Health Discovered, we're taking a closer look at a condition that affects hundreds of thousands of men each year. prostate cancer. I first found out about my cancer at the age of 45. Anything with cancer, you just think death sentence. In this episode, we'll explore the science behind detection, along with the practical steps men can take to protect their health. Listen to Health Discovered on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app, search Health Discovered, and start listening.

49:21She's seen Encanto more times than she can count. And she can count to 10. She mentioned Mirabel in every conversation. But the moment she actually met Mirabel, she was speechless. That's pura magia. Find yours at Walt Disney World Resort. Five years, 10 months, and two days. That's how long it took to grow the 38 inches to ride on Cali River Rapids. But the moment the wait finally ended, that was pura magia. Discover it at Walt Disney World Resort. Thinking about them, they become trapped in that image. And I honestly think, I could be way off base, but I'm thinking of somebody like Anthony Bourdain, who committed suicide.

50:03I think he was burdened and weighed down so much by how people thought of himself. And it wasn't who he was. And it kind of made him feel deeply uncomfortable. I'm sure there were many other issues going on. but a lot of times it can make you uncomfortable in your own skin the way people perceive you and it can lead to deep feelings of depression and and eyes and a loss of who you are yeah yeah absolutely i mean could write a new book called the flaws of human nature it's like thank you that's what the book is yeah yeah yeah it's the 18 dark corners of human nature but yeah that's a good idea yeah it's no it's just uh you know a thought of like it is true it's there's a seeking of perfection and there's a sense that we've created in the world of before and after in the sense that if you look at like a workout program and there's nothing wrong with this because it makes sense, but there's a before picture and there's an after picture.

51:03And if someone's wealthy, it's like they were poor and now they're rich and everything's a linear before and after journey. And what we're talking about, and I fully agree with you on this, is that actually all of my challenges are cyclical and they're different. So it's not that I never feel envy anymore. It's that I feel it differently to how I felt it 10 years ago. And hopefully I'm a bit better at dealing with it and understanding it and engaging with it than I was 10 years ago. But it's not that it doesn't affect me anymore. And same with spiraling thoughts. It's not that I don't have anxious or negative thoughts anymore because I'm enlightened.

51:45I still have those thoughts. I just deal with them better than I did 10 years ago. And I probably have more tools to help me engage with them. That's true. That's very true. And I think that cyclical nature is a wonderful thing to accept as an individual and as someone who's learning because you then don't fool yourself to think, oh, there will be one day where I will no longer have a negative or anxious thought like Jay and Robert. Like, you know, they probably never have it. And it's like, well, yeah, you probably have less, but it's not that I never have them. Exactly. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And so that kind of idea of this before and after, I think, is what confuses so many people because it feels like, oh, there is a point at which I never have to go back to being this version of myself.

52:32Well, that life isn't like that. You know, it's weird sometimes because before the 48 Laws of Power came out, I was just this nobody living in a one-bedroom apartment in Santa Monica, rent-controlled, you know, never really made any money, never really had any success in life. And I was constantly giving people advice, but nobody would listen to me because I hadn't written the book. And suddenly the book comes out and I'm supposed to be a different person. You know, it's very strange, but I'm actually the same person that I was when I was living in that miserable one-bedroom apartment, you know, and giving out my advice that nobody listened to.

53:07now people listen to it but the only difference is because suddenly i have this credential yeah which is very strange yeah i can relate to that in so many ways i was i used to be mentoring coaching people in my community i would do these little events in london 10 11 years ago now where like five people would show up and and it was you know i was just doing I would speak at universities for free for years. Like I was, it was, you know, it's been such a big part of my life to just do this. I've always wanted to be someone who's learning and sharing. That's what I enjoy. I enjoy learning and I enjoy sharing.

53:48And I enjoy synthesizing and making things simple and practical for other people. That's what I get my joy from. And I was always inspired by two quotes. One is Ivan Pavlov, where he said, if you want a new idea read an old book and so that's always been something that my work has been inspired by it's always based on ideas that seem timeless but they're and old very beautiful yeah yeah and then there's another thought from einstein which is another part of what inspires my work which is if you can't explain something simply you don't understand it well enough and And so these were the two kind of tenets that what I enjoyed doing in the world.

54:30And again, I don't think they're magnificent, miraculous or brilliant. They're just what I'm meant to do. And there's such a beautiful significance and insignificance in that very understanding. Like it's really significant building because I'm like, I know what I have to do. And it's really insignificant because I'm like, it's just what I have to do. It's not the best or the worst or it's not comparative. right um and i think that's how when you're talking in the daily laws of power that's that's kind of how in different words how you describe like your life's um you know your life's gift your life's work your life's path i've always liked old books myself so um you know i read a lot of books of philosophy etc history but i also read books of famous zen classics the 20th century books but I'd read like something from the 11th century where the thought process is so different but it's timeless, it's human man, it is so beautiful, it so sparks these ideas that he, or this writer, this thinker was dealing with the same things now, a thousand years later but they still strike a truth but it's in this language that's very weird and primitive and barbaric I don't know why that excites me so much it's the same idea that a modern writer might write but put in the words of 70 ,000 years ago it suddenly touches me yeah can you explain that Jay I mean I don't know if I can apart from the fact that you've reincarnated and you had some connection to it but um can I explain it I can't explain it but I can I can reflect on it I mean I find that there's a part of it that that writer or creator may never have known if anyone would ever read it yeah and so that privacy and that secrecy and that intimacy with their work not knowing that it would ever be viewed seen read broadcasted that has some power to it yeah yeah there's a there's a humility to that whereas now people right we're expecting all these people to be reading it we do it for the attention yeah it was much different back then yeah it's very interesting never thought of that yeah i've i've definitely found that i try and wreath yeah i try and sit with ideas for longer now and try and kind of i'd love to know your process for that how have you managed that since that moment of where you became quote unquote successful because externally because of 48 laws How did that change your creative process?

57:08How did you hold on to the roots of this kind of thinking? So after the 48 Laws of Power came out and it was successful, I was at a turning point in my life. And it's a turning point that a lot of people I think have faced was, do I just continue redoing the 48 Laws of Power? It was successful. It worked well. Why don't I just write the 48 Laws of Power part two? It'll bring in money. It'll bring in attention. I'll just riff off what I wrote there. and something about me was not comfortable with that. It seemed cheap, it seemed easy, and it seemed lazy. And I know myself that if I'm not challenged by something different, I grow bored.

57:49So I have to write something that feels like there's energy behind it. There's anger, there's love, there's something powerful behind it. I have to feel it or it won't be in the words. So if I'm just doing the 48 Laws of Power Part 2, it won't be there. It'll have an emptiness. And damn it, a lot of artists and writers fall into that trap. And it's why their books kind of have this sort of hollow ring to them, right? They're just going through the motions, just repeating what worked before. And I can't stand that feeling. I have to feel like I'm off into a new land with this new book. So each book has to represent a challenge, right?

58:29and so the one I'm writing now is completely different from all seven of the other books and it's an incredible challenge but it makes me excited about every day because I know I cannot repeat the same kind of books over and over and over again my soul becomes dead and I have to feel alive with each project am I answering I keep saying I'm not answering you are you're totally answering my question I'm loving these personal answers no no I I can resonate very deeply with that as well. I always try and write about something that I'm working through or struggling with, whether it's personal, whether it's with clients, whether it's with someone in my life, friends, family, like it feels alive.

59:08It needs to feel alive. I can't write from a point of theory or knowing. Like the book has to be a discovery. And I've only just started my job. I've only written two books, but as I'm hearing you, I'm happy that I feel that I'm thinking about it in a healthy way. Because yeah, I was, I was about to write my third book and the topic everyone wanted was so predictable and expected and it made sense. And I was like, I don't want to write about something that makes sense. Like that's boring. Like it's like, I want to write about something that feels like alive in my life and electric and makes me, I'm like now that I've chosen, and I will tell this to you later, but I've chosen my next topic and I've just been like writing notes about it.

59:49I'm reading about it. I'm seeing connections everywhere. That means it's going to be a great book. Yeah. It just, it feels, I mean, it's harder. It's harder because you don't know. So you're spending more time, like we said earlier, you're spending more time with emptiness because there's a sense of, well, I don't know which direction this book is going to go in. So it's, it's that comfortable with discomfort and uncertainty. But there's a joy in that. Yeah, very much so. Yeah. When you're, when you're discovering your process through a book or work, how have you learned to become comfortable in the discomfort of creativity in that, like, you don't know where the path is going to take you, don't know if it's going to land or not.

1:00:31You don't know if it, like, how are you grappling with that process of what we're discussing? Well, it's very strange because I'm dealing with it right this very moment. I'm writing something that's driving me crazy. And it's And the very subject I'm writing about is about what I'm going through. So I'm writing it. This is in my book on the sublime. And I'm writing about the concept of the daemon. Are you familiar with that? It's the idea. It's an ancient Greek idea, but it's in many other cultures that we have a second self. That there's something, there's a voice inside of us that is guiding us to something higher or better.

1:01:11But it can also lead us to something lower and worse. It can be demonic. which is where the word comes from or it could be something and socrates had his daemon there was a voice inside of him and it said it always just said this is the right way to go or this is the wrong way to go nothing more than that right and so when i'm writing it doesn't feel right it's driving me crazy and i'm doing this right now it doesn't feel right it doesn't resonate it's not truth it's not real you got to start over you got to do it again and the back of my mind, I'm thinking, God, I've lost it. I'm getting old and I just don't have my mojo anymore.

1:01:51But then I realized I've gone through this like 85 times every single book. It'll come to you. It'll come back. It isn't right because it doesn't feel right. It doesn't resonate. It doesn't have a reality to it. So I have to go through this process where I write something and it excites me and it interests me and it just flows out of me as opposed to like, I have to pull every word out. And so I learned to trust myself that eventually I'll figure it out. But each time I hit that wall, I go, this is it, Robert, you're finished. The book isn't going to come out. You're done. The wells are dry, you know?

1:02:27Yeah, that's so interesting. I feel like that is every creative's journey. Like it has to go through that, the wells are dry, as you just said, that kind of experience of that's it. It's over. There's nothing else coming out now. And it's almost like, as we know, the cliche of it's on the other side of that feeling. But it's true. There is a sense of when everything is just not making sense. How have you learned to sense whether something feels true to you? Because it obviously felt true to someone. How do you decipher between, oh, this feels true. It feels real to me, even if people don't agree with it.

1:03:07Because it just feels that way. It's purely just a feeling. First of all, I'm always trying to get at what's real and not at what's theoretical. I have a real dislike of abstraction for its own sake, right? It feels like it's a way of eluding something. It's an evasion. I want to get at the core and the reality of what I'm trying to write about. And so when I get it, I feel it and I know that I've done that. and I have the reader in my mind and I know the reader can connect to it. It's going to have a personal appeal. Whereas I have a tendency to be abstract and professorial and theoretical. I cross all of that out.

1:03:51If you saw my notebooks, 95 % of it's crossed out and I don't let the public ever see that side of me because I don't like it. I want my books to feel like I'm hitting something that's actually truthful and real that people don't like to talk about kind of thing. So right now I'm writing about what is our self? What is the sense of self that we have in our world? It's a very limited idea of the self. We have a very limited idea of our consciousness. We have a very limited idea of what it means to be a human being in the 21st century. We're actually much more immense and much more interesting than we think we are.

1:04:31We have these possibilities.

1:04:35a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50 % and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter, park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. This week on a very special episode of Health Discovered, we're taking a closer look at a condition that affects hundreds of thousands of men each year, prostate cancer. I first found out about my cancer on my birthday at the age of 45. Found out my cancer has spread to my pelvic bone and from there life just changed. About one in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime and the risk increases with age.

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1:05:53She's seen Incan the more times that she can count. and she can count to 10. She mentioned Mirabel in every conversation, but the moment she actually met Mirabel, she was speechless. That's pura magia. Find yours at Walt Disney World Resort. Five years, 10 months, and two days. That's how long it took to grow the 38 inches to ride on Cali River Rapids. But the moment the wait finally ended, that was pura magia. Discover it at Walt Disney World Resort. ...these connections, because we're a part of something incredibly vast. And to have consciousness is absolutely an astounding thing, right? So I want to sort of expand what you, the reader, thinks of who you are, what yourself is.

1:06:39It's much larger than you imagine. But I have to convey that in language that feels right to me, that feels authentic, that feels like everybody in Africa, in China, in in india in idaho is gonna be able to relate to it you know yeah no no for sure and that's i think that's what i was alluding to with that invisible world point of like how that's what we don't see like there's so much to ourself that we don't see that we're fully unaware of that we don't have that we don't realize we have access to right and yeah finding the right terminology i find to be such a there's there's one word that i love which is a bit more ethereal, but I guess an astronomer could find some beauty in it.

1:07:27But there's a term in the Vedic literature is called antar akash, which means inner sky. Say it again. Antar akash. Antar means inner and akash means sky. Inner sky? Yeah, inner sky. Beautiful. And it's this idea of how, you know, we're so fascinated by outer space, but there's that same inner sky that exists. So just like the galaxy and the planetary systems and everything else that exists internally too. Oh, I have to. But there has to be a, just as we have to go and do space exploration, you could do the same internally. Oh, for sure. And you discover so much. That's exactly what I'm writing about.

1:08:04That's very interesting. And it's, yeah, it's fascinating. And so, yeah, I find language as well. I find vocabulary so needed. And I feel like I grew up with a smart vocabulary, but not the biggest. and I feel reading, of course, expands that. And especially when you read history and other books. And I found that language is just so powerful. And I worry that social media exposes us to such limited language that the brain and the mind and the consciousness doesn't have the opportunity to be expansive because the words don't allow for it. If we're all reading the same memes and the same trends and the same hashtags, and it kind of just creates this very, very limited space of consciousness.

1:08:48Well, that's why I like looking at other languages. I speak several other languages and I'm constantly learning them. And right now I'm reading a lot about an African culture called the Akan in West Africa and Ghana. And there are concepts of the soul, the spirit, and the body. And they have a word in there called sunsum. and we translate it to spirit. But then I'm reading the African philosophers who actually know that word and they go, it's not the same as the word spirit. And then they go on and describe it. And that one word contains all of these other worlds that are so weird and interesting that the word spirit in English does not convey, right?

1:09:34You know, and other languages have that sense. And so language can have that possibility where it opens up. it's not just this unor this one track meaning it has other valances other possibilities to it right and so yeah we're kind of deadening our language in a way and you know if you study like other cultures you know eskimos had like a thousand words for for snow and we have one word You know, Russians have like 40 words for the color blue and we have one word kind of thing. As the language gets smaller and smaller and more uniform, our thoughts become more and more limited and uniform. So to know here a word like inner sky, it opens up all these other ideas in your mind.

1:10:25Whereas we don't have a word like that in English, you know. and and then because i'm i'm doing things for zen japanese language is so rich with things that we can't possibly even begin to express in english you know so yeah what what have been other ways of people opening up their minds this has been something one of my favorite things to do i remember reading a quote from robin sharma years ago that said um ordinary people have big tvs extraordinary people have big libraries and and it was one of those you know little dreams i had that was like one day i have a home i'm gonna have a big library and and that was one of my most favorite things to kind of put together when i when i moved here and um i started spending more time in when i would travel i've always collected books i've always and and i started also collecting expanding my audio library i realized as i grew when i was growing up we listened to a very limited form of music in my home and even as growing up as a teenager i listened to like one genre of music what was that uh rap and hip-hop like that was and again i love rap and hip-hop i love rap and hip-hop history it's super cool i have no issues with it i just think that my audio library was so limited in my teens that now that i'm in my 30s i'm now listening i'm trying to listen to so many random different things, which again, inspire different thoughts, different feelings, different emotions.

1:11:54And so I've realized that vocabulary was one thing. Audio has been another thing. What are other things that you've discovered that help open up that consciousness in mind? Because as we both keep referring to social media technology is almost making us more limited, more singular, more one dimensional. Well, as I said, it's something I'm writing about right now. So music and the audible stuff is very, very interesting and very exciting. So this is a new phenomenon where musicologists have been able to recreate music from eras that we never could listen to before. So I was writing at one point about a festival in ancient Greece.

1:12:39And to put me in the mood, I wanted to hear ancient Greek music. Well, that doesn't exist. I mean, there are no recordings of it, but sure enough, there are. And the rhythms and the sound is so weird and alien that it makes, music captures the spirit of a time, right? So if we're only hearing these same melodies, you hear cards going by with that same kind of pop song. It's such a limited circle of harmony, such a limited circle of what music can be. But when you open up to African music, to music from ancient Babylonia to Greece, to music in South America, other rhythms, other poetry and music and sounds, it's mind blowing.

1:13:25It's interesting. So that's what I'm saying. The human animal is much more interesting than we think it is. Reading about ancient cultures is a very mind expansive project you can go on. How many books you'd recommend in that regard? You know what's so exciting now is they have these books called The Daily Life In, The Daily Life in Ancient Babylonia, The Daily Life in, I forget which city in India, The Daily Life in Ancient Greece, etc. And you get a feel for not just the grand philosophical issues, but how people ate, what their houses were like. and so um so i was writing i just wrote a chapter about our relationship to time and history and i was trying to take the reader in my new book i'm giving them exercises and i'm saying try to imagine yourself in a world a thousand years ago and you walk out your front door there's no mechanical sounds there's no airplanes there's no cars there's no machines it's just birds, maybe a saw and a hammer is the most you're going to hear.

1:14:37That's a strange thing. There are no signs. There are no advertisements. There's no words everywhere. It's kind of empty, right? You're just wandering around. There are all these kind of rancid, weird, horrible smells because people aren't bathing. But they're very human smells, right? Your whole sensory experience is on another level. But when you live in this 21st century world where things are so sanitized, But we don't smell these things. We only hear these packaged mechanical sounds. Your sensory world is shrinking down and down and down. And you realize, yeah, ancient world, they had some bad stuff.

1:15:15They weren't very good. You know, they had slavery. I understand all of the negatives. So I'm not painting this portrait. But on another level, their realm of senses, their realm of language, their internal worlds were far richer than ours. and by connecting to that by reading these books by reading books not just the daily life thing i said but actually text from those times as i was mentioning when i read a monk a zen monk from the 11th century and the different thought processes it opens my mind to a different way of thinking to a different way of accessing reality but like i'm reading a lot about aztecs because i'm sort of obsessed with the Aztecs.

1:15:57I don't know why. And they had these amazing spectacles. That was the thing about the ancient world, these festivals and spectacles that are far beyond Burning Man or any rock concert, right? You know, I could describe the fire ceremony in Aztec culture that only occurred every 70 years. There is nothing you can ever imagine in your life that would be like that. It is so utterly spectacular. And so I have this 800-page book called Aztec Philosophy. And it's very theoretical. But God, it gives you an entree into a totally different way of thinking about the world, right? Where they have these metaphors that the universe has this energy.

1:16:45Some of the energy is like string that's being wound around in a certain way. It's like weaving, like other things like that, this kind of energy that the world has. Wow, this is fascinating. You know, our ancestors were actually thinking, but they're not our ancestors, they're us. It's a human being. We're all human. We all have those same kind of consciousness. Yeah. You know, I love also finding things in cultures that match, but are in different languages. Like what? So I went to Hawaii a few years ago, which obviously for someone who grew up in London, it's not normal. people in america or la travel to hawaii fairly often i went to hawaii and um well not often it's more accessible but i went recently and my wife and i went on one of the tours there and they showed us uh the paraglifts which are there obviously like markings and storytelling technique and tool and they were showing us how when a child is born they used to place the umbilical cord on the ground and they would then draw a spiral around it and that would be seen as a place that the child could always come back to to feel the energy and reconnect with the earth how exciting and i was thinking that's spectacular i wish everyone felt disconnected to the earth and then we would go out every morning on a canoe i forget their name for it but they had their version for it and they would pay respects to the sun and the ocean and we would take part in this ceremony with them.

1:18:11And in India, there's something known as Surya Namaskar, which it translates to sun salutation, which again, I've talked to Andrew Huberman about this. It's like kicking off the circadian rhythm, but the goal is you pay your respects to the sun for everything it offers to you and the energy that it provides. And so to see that in Hawaiian culture, Indian culture, and then I was in Bhutan recently. I went on a trip to Bhutan, which I'd always wanted to visit. And this is a culture that really feels like you're going back in time. You walk out there and it feels like what you just described a thousand years ago.

1:18:46Where is Bhutan? Is it near Pakistan? Bhutan is landlocked between India and China. India and China. So right in between. Where they're having their tensions, the kind of wars that's going on a little bit. Bhutan doesn't have a war, no. They don't even have a military. It's not part of their culture. Wow. They believe in, they're a Buddhist nation. Is it a Buddhist nation? Yes, yes. And their practices are very protected. Their culture is very protected. Like everyone generally still wears the cultural dress. How exciting. It was spectacular. There's no, there may be a couple of these now, but until very recently, there's no malls, no cinemas, no restaurants, like completely.

1:19:28And it's beautiful because it's just hills and mountains. they believe that the forest will always be 70 % of the landmass because they believe they're sacred. You can't trek up to or ski on any of their mountains because they're sacred. They protect them. So there's a, and you almost, I almost felt like what you just said. There's no signs. You can't hear anything. There's no machinery. Like it really does feel like that. And we all, all of us who were there experienced this sense of slowness that you don't experience anywhere else, not in a bad way. In the mind, the gravity almost of the space was really, really powerful to experience.

1:20:11That's very exciting because, you know, you can go out into nature, into the mountains, and you can feel that. And you can feel like this is what it was like 2 ,000, 100 ,000 years ago. But we don't have that feeling with human things because every city has its Starbucks, its malls, its generic culture that we've transported throughout the world. So to have a place where you can actually go back in time is fantastic. But I wish it wasn't so far away. Yeah, yeah, it's fine, it's fine. It's worth visiting for anyone who wants to. It was a really special trip. But you're right, the generic culture is the right word, actually.

1:20:53Every street looks the same. every area looks the same you you do i know there's a lot of passion behind local businesses and it's healthy people want to support local business we need more of that because the generic culture really takes away from like you expect i mean i was in india just recently on the way back and it's like there was a tim hortons like right there what a tim hortons which i think is like popular in canada or something like that is it popular in the u.s tim hortons no it's canada or my wife was telling me about it but it was just one of the it's it's and then there was a starbucks and then it was the same the same thing and i was like i'm in india like you know like i don't not expect it but it's yeah it's the generic it's what's made the brain so dull it has yeah yeah we're becoming homogenized i mean i i like going to countries like mexico because there's still pockets in mexico right where you can feel something of another of a very different culture you know uh it's only in small little areas but it's very exciting it's something like Bhutan, but you can still get it a little bit, you know?

1:21:58Yeah. Robert, it's been such a joy talking to you today. And as always, I love how we just get lost. And this is what I wanted. I was craving a authentic, real connection of where both of our minds are in this moment. But I want to end with a few fast-paced questions. We call this the fast five. And I probably did it with you last time. So I'm going to change it up this time. I hope my mind is fast enough to keep up with you. So you have to answer the questions. It's more like the final five. You've got to answer the questions in one word to one sentence maximum. So Robert Green, these are your final five.

1:22:33The first question is, what is something you had wished you'd learned earlier? The piano. I mean, I know you were probably thinking about something about life, but I love music and I wish I had learned the piano when I was young. Do you still play? Do you play now? No. No. Okay. Second question, what is something that you used to be sure about, but that you now are less sure about? I guess a sense of right and wrong or good and evil. When I was young, I had a very strong sense of it. That's a great answer. And now I'm not so sure about what it is. That's a great answer. Question number three, if you could go back and live in any age, I'm thinking you're going to say the Aztecs, but where would you like to go and where would you want to live?

1:23:28And what would you ask? I would go back to the Paleolithic era and our earliest ancestors, because I'm fascinated by their world and what they were like. So the Paleolithics, 20 ,000 years ago, okay? and I would like to know about their religion, their spirituality. I'm interested in origins of human consciousness. Have you read any books on that? Yes. What would you recommend if someone's... It's a subject that was just my last chapter I was writing about. Wow. The origin of language is the origin of human consciousness. Wow. It's the same time that there were the cave paintings, right? Famous cave paintings in France, but they're all over the world.

1:24:17aborigines etc and that was the beginning of symbolic consciousness yeah there are all sorts of books written on that subject amazing question number four if you could have three people over at your dinner party any three people you choose living or dead who would they be one would be Friedrich Nietzsche because I'm reading a biography of his right now that's unbelievable um the other would be buddha why not and then the other would be uh it's a very odd mix of people so i don't know if they're going to get along um yeah i i'd say uh okay maybe socrates okay and and let the fur fly a fifth and final question Robert I find these stressful they are they are stressful um something you're trying to learn right now to be more forgiving about myself because I'm extremely unforgiving with yourself yeah not easy it's not been my life pattern where did the pursuit begin and why is it a worthy pursuit well i think because of my upbringing i always had a feeling of never good enough i'm never smart enough i'm not doing enough i'm not a good enough person and i internalize that and so um it's probably partially led to my stroke probably makes me drive myself too hard.

1:25:55And so sometimes I just have to be more forgiving. So instead of thinking, God, I'm never going to write anymore, the well is dry. The forgiving aspect is, Robert, you're tired, you're exhausted, you're doing fine, it's going to come. It will come, just trust it. So it's kind of like being indulgent towards yourself. I can be indulgent towards other people, but I can't be indulgent towards myself. So just learning to forgive myself for not being perfect and for not getting exactly what I want in life does the hardest thing for me. That's beautiful. It would be very good for my health if I could, if I could ever get there.

1:26:39That's beautiful. Thank you, Robert. You're welcome. Everyone, Robert Green. I hope you enjoyed this episode of me and Robert but truly just having a genuine, passionate conversation about things we love. Please share on TikTok, on X, on Instagram, on Facebook, whatever platform you use in the YouTube comments section, what resonated with you, what books you're going to read, what you connected with. Maybe some of the creatives out there who want to shift the way they think or whether you got some great insights on what are strong and weak character points. I want to know what hit you, what resonated with you.

1:27:12And thank you so much for listening and watching. and thank you again, Robert, for your time. Thank you so much for having me, Jay. Your presence and energy. So grateful. As usual, I really enjoyed it. Thank you. That means a lot. Yeah, we go on for hours. I know, truly. If you love this episode, you'll love my interview with Dr. Gabor Mate on understanding your trauma and how to heal emotional wounds to start moving on from the past. Everything in nature grows only where it's vulnerable. So a tree doesn't grow where it's hard and thick, does it? It grows where it's soft and green and vulnerable.

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