Turn Your Flaws Into Your Strengths | Robert Greene EP 813

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes, and welcome to The Daily Motivation Show.

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0:42Everybody has a dark side. It comes out in ways that you're not even aware of. You know, as a child, we had a lot of powerful emotions that we couldn't control. We'd be kind of mean and aggressive, but also we'd be very loving, which is true as well. We'd be a full range of things. And then you learn as you get older, Robert, you can't hit people in school. Stop that. Don't be like that. Don't play those practical jokes. It's bad. People don't like it." And you get older and older and you start repressing those feelings that are very natural to you. Because we all have aggressive impulses. We love our parents, but there's also a side of us that doesn't like them.

1:20We resent them. It's natural. But we have to repress all that because we have to be good social animals. We have to be good little kids. We have to be little angels at school. You have to be angels at work. All this pressure, like, I've got to repress all that. I've got to be this perfect person. I have to be someone who pleases, who's very nice, blah, blah, blah. And then when you're 28, you start becoming addicted to alcohol and you don't know why. You start getting really angry, have anger issues. You yell at people. You don't know why. You're like a 45-year-old person with a very steady profession.

1:53You leave your wife and you run off with a 19-year-old destroying everything that you've built. the dark side has come out because you've repressed it instead of dealing with it so the idea was you need to understand your dark side confront it and make it work for you and i have a dark side in writing the book i kept having to say i wrote a chapter on narcissism robert you're a narcissist i read a chapter on the dark side i go robert you have a dark side the same thing with the chapter on aggression and like what is my dark side and you know i had to analyze it and deal with it and think about it and think about how any success I've had in life is because I managed to use those dark emotions in my work and channeled them because they have tremendous energy to them.

2:41They power you forward. So I had anger coming out of working in Hollywood. I kind of hated the environment. I hated people's hypocrisy. I hated all the sycophancy and all that. I was really angry but I didn't let the anger turn inward I channeled it into the 48 laws of power so I used my dark side and I really liked that law because it showed me that I'm a victim of this but I also unconsciously learned how to use what I'm what I'm writing about so I kind of drew on my own experience sometimes those dark energies have more kind of you know power behind them and and love love doesn't necessarily make you want to write a book it wasn't love that made me want to write a book it was anger and bitterness right and the reason why that happens is people in our day-to-day life are so repressed we have to be so politically correct yeah we have to be so pleasant and smiling etc that when your work expresses anger or expresses pain people love it they're drawn to because finally someone's expressing what I'm feeling, but no one else is talking about.

3:55It wasn't about making fun of all those Hollywood executives who I disliked. Then it wouldn't have been the book that it was. It was, I want to help people. I want to use my energy, my frustrations, to show people that they don't have to suffer the way I suffer or other people suffer in the work world. You don't have to be so naive. You can understand that you don't need to ever outshine the master. There's a lot of injustice in this world, particularly nowadays. A lot of things are just wrong in this world today. And if I were young, my anger would be exploding because there's so much that's wrong.

4:28Channel it into a worthy cause, into justice, into leading some kind of movement. That's a brilliant way to take your dark energy and metamorphize it into something really positive. A lot of social movements and revolutions, if you want to call it, or reform movements, They peter out because they lose energy. They lose a drive. The initial impetus sort of isn't quite there. And you've got to be able to keep it alive. I mean, look at someone like Martin Luther King, what he had to put up with constantly. Constant failures, constant rejection. Everybody, he dealt with so much envy. It was insane.

5:06Even people within the movement were constantly belittling and criticizing him. But he kept his eyes focused on the greater prize, the ultimate goal. is what you want to focus on. But you have to use that energy or it's going to peter out because life will wear you away. You'll get older, you'll relax. You know, you don't want to have to spend so much time doing this. You get soft and the energy dries up and you need that energy. Every time I write a book, I'm starting from ground zero and I'm going, okay, Robert, what's going to motivate you? What's like something that really irritates you and it makes you angry?

5:43because now feeling that you're going to get over that mountain of writing the book and you're going to feel every time you write a chapter, you're going to feel that emotional kind of thing in your gut and you're going to express it. But I'm not doing it for me because I know it's going to help people. The world is this insanely awesome thing to be alive. Do you know what it means to be alive? You know, go back to the Big Bang and all the little pieces that had to fall into place for life, even to begin on the earth. and then for animals and then for a giant asteroid to hit Earth, you know, some 70 million years ago, so the dinosaurs are wiped out.

6:16None of this happened. You wouldn't be here. Lewis wouldn't be here if your parents hadn't met. So your life is like this insanely unlikely thing that ever happened. You know how awesome it is? Do you know how awesome it is to look out and see stars in the sky or things around you? And people are not. They're locked in their little bingo worlds of social media, etc. They're not opening their minds up to what it means to really be alive. And it makes me angry. You know, when you were a child, you were curious about so many things. You were open, so many experiences. Things were constantly wowing you.

6:47And then you become blasé and kind of cynical. You don't want new experiences because they kind of mess with your familiar patterns. And then your life kind of closes and closes and closes. And the sublime is opening your mind up as far as possible, as wide as possible. and opening your mind and your spirit like that makes you more creative, makes you more energized, makes you a better human being, etc.

7:16Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. that will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on the School of Greatness. And if you are loving the daily motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

8:12Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.