"Our Brains Are Turning To MUSH!" Robert Greene on Power, Artificial Intelligence & Israel

25:25Piers Morgan:Well, I love the quote from Wayne Gretzky, the ice hockey legend, the greatest ice hockey player in history, Canadian. And, you know, he has this great quote, you'll miss 100 % of the shots you never take. And then there's also the Michael Jordan one where he talks about all the shots he's missed. People talk about the great shots he made, but they don't talk about the shots he missed thousands and thousands of times. He took a shot and missed, right? But because of the ferocious work ethic, ferocious backing of himself, he also made more shots than he made. And that's how greatness is done, right?

26:04Yeah. Yeah, I talk in my book about a man I interviewed for the Mastery named Cesar Rodriguez, who was the last American Air Force pilot who's been decorated for his fighting in the Iraq, the first Iraq war, Desert Storm. He was an ace, the last ace in the American Air Force. And Cesar is very short. He's not physically talented. And when he went to the academy in Arkansas, wherever, to become an Air Force pilot. He was not one of those golden boys, as portrayed in like Top Gun, those people who were destined to be the best fighter pilots. He was one of the worst, right? And he was out of the 80 people in his school, he was ranked like number 79 or something.

26:54Through sheer hard work, through sheer practice, because he loved flying planes and because he knew that this was what he wanted to be, he turned himself into the best fighter pilot at the school. But what he did was he spent hours and hours and hours in front of the simulation and he practiced and practiced and practiced while the golden boys who thought that they were destined to be great fighter pilots were lazy. They didn't put in the practice. and he became a much superior fighter pilot, right? So, you know, when I did the book with 50 Cent and you see celebrities, you see your Michael Jorans, your Tiger Woods or your Cristiano Ronaldo, you only see their success.

27:37You only see the glory. You only see all the fame that they achieve and all the glamour and glitter around them. And the same thing with 50. But when I was around 50, I saw how incredibly hard he worked, right? He was one of these people like Tiger Woods. He was putting in hours and hours and hours and hours, not just in learning music, but in learning the music business and what would create success in the music business. He'd also...

28:04Piers Morgan:I was going to say, I interviewed him, actually, for CNN once and really liked him. I thought he was very thoughtful, very interesting guy. But I remember asking you, he was shot point blank in the face. And I said, what was that like? and he just looked at me and after about three seconds he said, painful. Well, I remember thinking that must give you that kind of experience again, the kind of fearlessness that someone like him developed. I mean, partly it's probably surviving something like that. A lot of people who have that slightly fearless strength. I mean, look at Trump now, Mark II as a president.

28:40Piers Morgan:I think that I've known Trump a long time, long before he was a politician. But I think surviving an assassin's bullet has given him a real impetus to make his mark, to leave a legacy that matters. And he feels like he's got another chance of life and the presidency and so on. But without that, I wonder if we would be seeing the kind of Trump that we're seeing at the moment. In other words, there's lots of stuff that will test you, right? I mean, you know, I always bore my kids with the Rocky quote to his spoiled brat son when he says, you know, life's really tough. It's not about how hard you can hit.

29:15Piers Morgan:It's about how hard you can get hit and get back up and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done. I bet every single person that you've written about in your books, at some stage, that has been what they've had to do. Everybody gets whacked over. It's just how you deal with it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, a lot of young people now, they complain about how hard they've had it with all the different crises that we mentioned and COVID and all this stuff. But then I try and point out, look at the generation that grew up in the early 20th century and they had to deal with World War I and then the Great Depression and then Hitler and World War II.

29:57I mean, think of all the things that they had to deal with and all the blows that hit them. I'm thinking of my parents' generation. So the idea that somehow I have it harder, oh my God, I've had to suffer so much, I'm the victim. When you start thinking of yourself as a victim, you become the victim, right? It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. You feel like you have no agency. So a lot of people now are talking about the crisis among young men, right? And young men are having a crisis in the United States. They're falling behind in a lot in sciences, in school, et cetera.

30:33Piers Morgan:Same in the UK, yeah. Yeah. And then I say, my advice is, look, this is the culture that you live in. You don't get to choose when you were born or what the culture is like. And yes, there are things that are working against you as a young man. Things like masculinity are no longer seen as a virtue, right? Okay, but you can't change that as an individual. You can't change your culture. That's just the way things are right now. They'll shift back at some point. But you can't think of yourself as a victim. You can't think of yourself, oh, my God, I feel so sorry for myself. The world hates me. It's all about women.

31:11It's not about men. Oh, me, oh, my. Then you're going to become passive, and you're not going to feel like you have any agency in this world. And I advise young men to not think that way. You have agency. The masculinity that you feel is inside of you. It's not going to come from the culture. It has to come from inside of you. It has to come through your own skills and through your own thinking, right? So the moment you start getting passive and thinking that, oh, my God, I'm a victim and I have to complain and I have to get on social media and blame this person or other people, you're already putting yourself three steps behind everybody else.

31:46You're creating your own failure in a way.

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32:31Piers Morgan:With an A-plus rating, with the Better Business Bureau and tens of thousands of happy customers, Birch Gold lets you take control of your savings today. Text the word peers, that's P-I-E-R-S, to 989898. You know, it's interesting, as you were saying that, I was reminded of one of my favourite poems, it's Tiny. I think it's a D.H. Lawrence poem called Self Pity, and it's about how a wild thing will never feel sorry for itself. I'm paraphrasing. Will never feel sorry for itself. A bird will die frozen to the bow before it feels sorry for itself. I can't remember the exact word. It was something like that.

33:07Piers Morgan:And the point being that in the wild animals, they don't have self-pity. It doesn't exist as a characteristic. Humans have become more and more self-pitying. And we've also, oddly as a society, you've begun to celebrate failure and weakness and all these things, with everyone now almost competing to tell the world about their failings and about how bad they are at things. And, you know, like I see people, I joke about this, but you see people on Instagram saying, I just passed my driving test of a tenth attempt. I'm so proud of myself. And it's like, if I had taken ten attempts, I would not be boasting about that at all, right?

33:45Piers Morgan:And then you get all the people saying, oh, proud of you, babes. You've done great. But really? You're obviously an absolute menace on the road. You shouldn't be allowed to endear it. But again, it comes back to this whole... It's why, in a way, people like Andrew Tate, who I think are genuine examples of toxic masculinity, why they have such a grip on young men, because young men who are anxious and fearful and confused and don't really understand their place in the world anymore, they're always going to gravitate to strong people like Tate, who, for all his faults, and he has many faults, but also the kind of chest-beating, believe in yourself, work out, get fit, be strong, be a man, all that stuff resonates with young men because they're not really hearing that anywhere else.

34:28Piers Morgan:All they're hearing elsewhere in their heads are, you're a failure, we don't like you anymore, society's better off without people like you. Yeah, I mean, what I always think of as masculine virtue, growing up basically in the 60s and the 70s was kind of a quiet quality, an inner strength, a security about who you are. You didn't need to put other people down to feel that you were a man, that you were masculine, right? It was kind of a quality that was quiet. You cared about other people. You respected women. You didn't get to feel superior by disrespecting women and seeing them as inferior, you felt secure about yourself.

35:14And there were icons like that in movies. I remember like Gary Cooper and Montgomery Cliff. Claude Gable. Kind of in Westerns, you know, that kind of quiet inner strength. To me, I grew up, that was sort of like what it meant to be a man, to feel secure in yourself and not feel like you have to put other people down. So when I see that kind of performative masculinity of an Andrew Tate, all I see is a lot of inner weakness. I see a child screaming out for pain. I see a child that feels very insecure about themselves. And the only way they can feel powerful is by putting other people down. And to me, that's not what strength is.

35:55That's not what it means to be masculine in this world.

35:57Piers Morgan:Yeah, I completely agree. You've talked a lot about powerful people from history, many of them very malevolent in the way they had their power. Who, when you think back in history, is a great example of good power? In other words, somebody that had a lot of power and utilised it in a really impressive and good way. Well, there are fewer. There are more of the malevolent variety. But I think, to me, one of the icons would have to be Abraham Lincoln. Yeah. Now, Lincoln is a very interesting man. He's a lot stranger and weirder than people realise. You know, he was very depressive. He was very melancholic as a young man.

36:37He thought a lot about death. He had a very kind of poetic soul for it to become a president. And so when he did become president, you know, he obviously faced the worst crisis that we've ever had in the history of our country. And he was very wise in the sense that he understood that the power that he had, he had to think longer term. He couldn't just react to things in the moment. So he had a vision. He had one idea, which was very simple. Maintain the union of the United States. I will do everything to maintain the union, even if it means offending some of the people in the North who think I'm being too soft in dealing with the South, right?

37:22And so his idea of maintaining the union, he kept throughout all the early years of the war, which were going very badly for the North. And people were losing faith in him. And they were saying, he doesn't know how to prosecute this war. He needs to change. He needs to do something else. He stuck to what his original belief was, which was, I will, everything is governed by the need to maintain the union, even after I'm gone, even after I'm no longer the president, I can't crush the South so deeply that their soul is created, that they're, that they're, that they're going to try and get revenge.

37:56right? People criticized him. He could handle the criticism. He didn't let it change him. He was flexible enough, but he didn't let anybody kind of sway him from this one path that he had. And he was so strong, but it was a kind of an inner strength where he didn't have to boast. He didn't have to tell people how great he was. And to me, he is an icon of how to use power correctly, of how to understand that the things that you do have consequences and that you can go too far, you can prosecute the war so far that you create other problems in the wake of the success that you have. So to me, he's one of the icons of it.

38:38And I could choose others, but he'd be the one that stands out the most.

38:41Piers Morgan:Yeah. And I actually love Daniel Day-Lewis's performance as Lincoln in the movie. I thought he captured him brilliantly. I mean, I would say that the two for me I would counter with, one I never met, sadly, but wished I had. He died about two months before I was born, Sir Winston Churchill, who, a bit like Lincoln, prone to depression, drank way more than he ought to. Yes, very much. Incredibly poetic again, used to write extraordinarily poetic prose and stuff, but also had an absolute inner conviction, an unwavering conviction that we would defeat Hitler and the Nazis when many were ready to literally throw in the towel.

39:22Piers Morgan:So I think he's a good example of someone who actually, you know, had been sent to the wilderness of politics, really. You know, people were... Deliberate and all of that. Yeah, he was a laughingstock before the war and then suddenly, bang, his moment arrived and he took it. And the other one is someone I did meet and did interview, Nelson Mandela, who when he came out of prison after 27 years, The idea you could do 27 years in a six-by-six cell and come out as a true peacemaker, who rather than preach all-out war on the white population, as so many of his own supporters were willing him to do, he went completely the other way and preached unity and peace.

40:04Piers Morgan:And I thought that was an extraordinary inner strength for the greater good of his country. And as it turned out, the greater good for him too and his reputation and everything else. But first of all, he did it because it was going to be great for South Africa. So I think that was true greatness and a great utilisation of power when he got it. I wonder what makes somebody like Mandela. Why did he come out of prison not bitter and not seeking revenge, whereas anybody else would have? What was unique about him? I don't know. I just don't know the answer, but I think it's what makes him so special in history.

40:39Piers Morgan:and I think Churchill's resolve is what makes him so special in history because so many others, most people, I think would have just caved and done a deal with Hitler and to him he just wasn't going to do it. Yeah. Well, it's hard to be a leader these days because you're listening to so many voices and you have to deal with the media, social media and so it's hard to have that kind of resolve. I don't know if we could have a Churchill or a Lincoln anymore with so many forces, so many voices in their ear, worrying about this or the consequences of that, it's hard to have that kind of inner strength anymore.

41:18Piers Morgan:I think it's possible, but I think you've got to trust your gut instinct. Yeah. Robert, there are just two things quickly I just wanted to ask you before we finish. One is you were raised Jewish in the United States. You've got family members and friends who were impacted by the Holocaust. but you've also had many interactions with Palestinians that had a big impact on you. What do you make of where we are with the war in Gaza? Hey, Chicago, class it up with Crocs. You know back to school is coming in fast. So why wait to find your new fave footwear? Step into a local Crocs store and step into your new look.

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42:17Well, it's horrifying for me because as I've said before, I can kind of see both sides. I'm Jewish. I grew up, when I went to Hebrew school, Israel was just sort of this young nation. It had so idealistic, the idea of the kibbutz and the kind of egalitarian society that was evolving. It was kind of infused me with this sort of sense of idealism. But then later in life, I've never been to Israel. I never considered myself a Zionist, but I had those kind of sympathies. And then later in my life, I've met Palestinian people. And I listened very deeply to them and to their sense of sadness. from what they have lost.

43:02And I remember I met one woman who I will never forget when I was in Dubai for a festival of literature. And she described to me in depths the incredible pain she was feeling of this beautiful country that she had grown up in, and that there seemed to be no options, right? That it was hopeless for her. She'd spent her whole life trying to create peace. Her whole idea was a one state solution. She tried to tell me how that was like the only answer. And I think obviously at this point in history, the one state solution is not possible. But she had a sense of hopelessness that their whole life devoted to this cause was going to lead to nothing.

43:44And then I helped somebody who wrote a book about his experiences growing up in Palestine. And so the idea of losing your country and losing this land that meant so much to you, that's so beautiful. And the Palestinian people are extremely well educated in the Middle East, right? And this is not fair. This is not just. This is not the ideals of Judaism that I have grown up with the ideals of Israel. And so if you're a logical, rational person, the only possible thing that could happen is to create a two-state solution, that you can live in peace with these people, right? Because if you don't, it's just like a gnawing wound that's going to go on year after year after year after year.

44:33You're going to be dealing with another Hamas that's going to come up, another Palestinian authority that fails. It's never going to solve itself. And when you take a large, when you pull back and you look at the larger picture, we're both Semitic. We both come from the same part of the Middle East. We're the same blood, essentially. And what divides us is only in our heads. It's completely irrational, right? We are related to each other. We are Palestinians and Israelis. We are actually brothers and sisters. So this madness has to stop. And there has to be somebody else that comes to power that realizes that the only ultimate peace for Israel, okay, it helps now that Iran may not longer be such a threat, but the only hope for ultimate peace is to create a state for the Palestinians where they have their own power, their own independence, their own land, and that you solve it for good.

45:27And then Israel will be able to live in true peace. It seems intractable now, and maybe when Netanyahu's gone, there will be somebody else who will actually put this into practice. If somehow in all the madness going on right now in the Middle East and Iran, if that could be part of the solution, where not only is it about Iran agreeing to de-arm itself to not have a nuclear program, but it also is about finding a solution for Gaza, then there will finally be some hope for that region.

45:59Piers Morgan:I completely agree with everything you just said. I just want to end quickly. You suffered a serious stroke in 2018. Yes, I did. Triggered by a wasp sting that gave you a blood clot, put you in a coma. It seems a totally bizarre thing. I'm actually allergic to wasps, so I have a lot of sympathy and consider myself very lucky given what happened to you. You still have, I think, some mobility issues, but I'm just curious, really, as somebody who's spent your writing life giving so much advice to people. In that moment of incredible adversity for you personally, what was the thing that you sort of miss most about normal life?

46:40Piers Morgan:And what was the great lesson that the whole experience gave you moving forward? Well, it's kind of hard for you to describe because it's so emotional. But I was somebody who was very physically active. I'm not an athletic person, but I love exercise. I was swimming every third day and long distance swimming, mountain biking, hiking. Every single day of my life, even if I was sick, I was always exercising and moving. It was my way of overcoming stress. And suddenly, you know, I have a stroke and it totally kind of knocks out the left side of my body. I can't do any of that, right? It's all taken away from me overnight.

47:21It was horrifying for me. It was absolutely horrifying for me. And it took years of, you know, you talk about self-pity. I could have felt very sorry for myself then. Why me? If that wasp had just, if a wind had come up and just gone like past me, none of this would happen. Why? Why, God, why would this happen to me? I could have fallen into that. But fortunately, my brain wasn't affected. I had, yes, a little bit of brain damage, but not enough so that I can't write another book or appear. on Pierce Morgan's show right now. So thankfully, I could write this other book and I put all of my energy and all of that self-pitying into writing something else, into being productive.

48:07And I'm writing a book now that I think is extremely important for the world and for people. And it's kind of my mission in life. And it's based on my near-death experience because I was driving a car in Los Angeles when I had my stroke and my wife noticed something and she forced me to pull over, I came very close to getting in an accident. It would have been the death of me, right? And I was just, I went into a coma, but if anything had gone wrong, if I'd been delayed by 30 seconds, I wouldn't be here talking to you. And so the lesson I tell people is, if only when I, before my stroke, I had realized what could be taken away from me, I would have appreciated every single moment when I was in that pool swimming, when I was hiking, when I was riding my bike.

48:56I wouldn't take it for granted. And I look out my window now and I see people running and biking and doing all the things that I cannot do. And it's very sad for me. And I go, they don't understand. They don't appreciate. They don't know that you're going to get older and it's going to all be taken away from me. So every moment of your life, you have to have this incredible gratitude about your body, about what you can do, about what you have, the powers that you have, because they can be taken away from you in a moment like it was taken away from me. So please don't take any of this for granted.

49:30It's my main message and my main lesson.

49:32Piers Morgan:What a great message. I think my ex-bio is my favourite quote, which is live every day as if it's your last because one day you'll be right. Yeah, yeah. That is a great quote, yes. Robert, I could talk to you for hours and hopefully another time I will, but we've run out of time. I've absolutely loved that conversation. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you. I very much enjoyed it, Piers. Yes, I'd love to be on again any time. You just let me know. I will. Thank you very much. Piers Morgan on Sensor is proudly independent. The only boss around here is me. If you enjoy our show, we ask for only one simple thing.

50:09Piers Morgan:Hit subscribe on YouTube, and follow Piers Morgan Uncensored on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. And in return, we will continue our mission to inform, irritate and entertain. And we'll do it all for free. Independent, uncensored media has never been more critical and we couldn't do it without you.

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