Mastering the 48 Laws of Power | Robert Greene

29:03But one thing you do that's different from him, as you mentioned, The Prince is a very short book. Part of the idea of your book is that there are so many stories and so much history and so many examples of each of these 48 concepts that that in itself, you could drown in this book. Like there's so much material. What gave you the idea to, I mean, I've seen other people now mimic your style over the years where they talk about some historical concept and they give stories like, oh, so and so. Back in 1765, George Washington was having a problem and blah, blah, blah. But you really are able to get so many concise stories in here.

29:45What was the thinking there in terms of the quantity? Well, it's quantity and it's quality. Of course, the quality is assumed. Well, the quantity comes from the fact that here I am, a person, 38 years old, when I start writing the book, more or less. I've never had power in my life. I've always been kind of on the middle level. I never held a job more than 11 months. I was always the guy outside looking in, observing people with power. I was not Henry Kissinger. I was not a famous movie producer or anything like that. So how can I write a book about power? People might laugh at me. They might say, what are your qualifications?

30:31My father would say, Robert, you don't have a PhD in this. You sure you can write that book? Well, my dad was a very nice person. So he was on to something though. So it was a concern. So I had spent many years being a researcher in Hollywood and I had honed those kind of skills in journalism and in college, et cetera. And so I'm very adept in using libraries for research. So my idea was to ground this book in reality so it's not just some 37-year-old who's never had a position of power, who's just spewing nonsense. I had to ground it in reality. So that meant ancient cultures to show that these things are timeless.

31:16I had to include Asia, stories from China and Japan. I had to include stories from Africa. I had to include stories from the Arab world. I had to make it international, all periods of time, all cultures, et cetera. That's a massive task. But when you put all that together, then you have to say, this is something that's human. It transcends the moment. And it's 20, it's 1998 when the book was out, but it's also something that was real 600 BC. And then you see it's also universal, it covers all cultures. So having that pastiche of all those different cultures and periods of all stories, also from every particular angle.

32:03So I have artists, I have generals, I have political leaders, I have criminals and con artists. You know, I have art dealers, I have chess players. So coming from all these angles, all those periods, all those cultures says, this book has the feel of reality, you know, and that was sort of the task that I gave myself. Now, I was younger and I had more energy then. So I was able to do, now I still do the same thing, but it takes me so much longer to do just like your chess problem. But it's interesting because I think with age, the ability to recognize common patterns in different historical situations probably increases.

32:46You know, it's not a math problem. It's kind of an experience problem. And so the way you weave in, you know, like in one chapter, the same chapter will include some story about Roosevelt, some story about Cleopatra, some story about Borgia, all to make the point that these people cleverly used, manipulated other people to do what they wanted, because if they had done it, they would have been perceived negatively by the population, as opposed to the way they ultimately did it. This is in the chapter on basically using other people to do your, be as clean as possible. Don't get your hands dirty.

33:24And which is one of the 48 chapters. But there's this sense of validity when you show all these stories. I feel like I'm getting smarter. And so part of the reason I like the book is you're making me think I'm smarter by reading it. Well, yeah. And, you know, some of the most satisfactory feedback that I've gotten is I remember maybe 15, 20 years ago, So a librarian at the Dade County Library in Miami wrote to me, and it's in an inner city area. Most of the people that go to that library were African-American. He said there were kids there, like 10 years old, who would come in, or probably a little bit older, and they would read the book.

34:08And suddenly they were getting turned on to history, and they wanted to read about Julius Caesar, and they wanted to read about Haley Selassie, and they wanted to read about Cleopatra, et cetera. so I've had a lot of people who aren't normally readers of history get excited and become students of history and a lot of it comes from the fact that history can be a very dry subject it can be very dull subject because academia generally kind of deadens anything that it touches I believe whereas and I'm writing right now for my new book a whole hit a chapter on my relationship to history. But history shouldn't be like that.

34:49History was people who were alive, who were facing dramatic moments, who were living in everyday situations, who had insecurities. It could be just as neurotic as people in the 21st century. They had problems. They were narcissists. So they were living in the moment. They were alive. And history doesn't, a lot of books don't come from that. They don't express that. They describe it as if they're just these dead people. They have facts and theories, et cetera. But we humans aren't theories. We're not just these grand patterns in history. We're living individuals. So when I write about Roosevelt, or I write about Borgia, or I write about Julius Caesar, I'm trying to say they're human beings.

35:33They're not necessarily these legends. They're facing dramatic situations in which they could lose and loss for them means death. And I wanted to draw you into the drama of history. And history to me should be the most exciting subject of all, to just realize that our past includes some of the most insane things that have happened, things that just absolutely blow your mind. I'm describing in my current book, the conquest of Mexico of Aztecs by Cortez. And I'm describing when they first arrive there, arrive at the city of Tenochtitlan, which was what Mexico City was, the Spaniards are going, oh my God, this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life, this city.

36:21I'm like dreaming. I don't believe that it's real. And these are the actual accounts of the conquistadors. And I go on to describe what that city looked like. It's like something from a fairy tale. It's like something from a dream. History has all of these kinds of stories into it. It's not a dead subject. It's something incredibly sexy, incredibly seductive, incredibly alive. So that's sort of the attitude I bring to it. I think also what makes it really stand out in this book is that the book is not called a history book. It's called The 48 Laws of Power. So I pick this up and I think, oh, well, I'm going to be a powerful person after I read this.

37:01But I'm learning about how to have power in my own life, how to have more agency in my own life by reading about some guy named Cao Cao and, you know, 6 ,000 BC China or whenever it was and all these incredible historical stories that I had no idea about. And I think, oh, that applies to me. I'll let Jay do my dirty work instead of me doing it. Or get other people to do the work and take credit for it, law number seven. Yeah, well, that was interesting too. Like there's a very keen sense that you always have to know where you are in the hierarchy to know which, how to use different laws. Like Henry Kissinger wasn't the president.

37:45And if he out, there's a lot of warning in this book. If you outshine the person higher in the hierarchy, you're dead. Yeah. Yeah. You know, people often say a criticism of the book, and I'm open to criticism of anything that I write. But one thing they'll say is some of the laws contradict each other. You say court attention at all costs, and then you say other laws have to do with kind of disguising yourself and not being so out there. Is that a contradiction? Well, as you rightfully point out, everything depends on context, who you are. I'm writing a book for everybody. So some people, if you're 23 years old and you've just entered a workplace, you don't want to outshine the master.

38:32You have so much to lose. You're going to be fired. It's a common mistake. But if you're 38, 39, you're ahead of a company, et cetera, then you're in a much different circumstance. And I make that point in the book that the problem with people with powers, they think in these large general terms and everything depends on the particular circumstance. You have to be able to think for yourself. you have to be able to think in the moment. If you entered a chess game with everything mapped out in advance, you would lose. You have to be a little bit alive to the moment. You have to see who your opponent is, what they're doing.

39:07So sometimes one strategy will work. Sometimes another strategy will work. It's not like this cookie cutter thing where every law must be followed to the T. What is the last law of the book? The last law of the book is called assume formlessness. And the idea is take everything that I've written in this book and just throw it out and be in the moment and be formless and adapt to the situation to be like water, like Bruce Lee said, and just kind of flow with the moment and don't be stuck on these particular laws. I kind of contradicted my whole book in law 48 and each law has what I call a reversal.

39:46You might want to do the reverse of this law because life isn't the static little game. It's a very fluid thing. One strategy, one moment will lead to disaster and another moment will be perfect. So get rid of this mentality a lot of people have that everything has to be this straight category. You're a terrible strategist if that's how you think. You have to be able to adapt to everything that happens to you.

40:25You know, this whole concept of using these laws of power, depending on where you are in the hierarchy, the way you were just talking about it reminds me of basically the definition of talent. So you have to have enough self-awareness to fuel your talent. So you are better than the people who are just following some other example or doing something by rote, or they have it all mapped out. Like, like, like take Talleyrand as an example. He's a character that kind of threads his way through the book. And he was, uh, I don't know how you describe it, an advisor to Napoleon and others in the various stages of the French government.

41:06he was very talented knowing exactly where he stood in every single hierarchy he seemed to be in. And that really is, that's a difficult thing to do because sometimes people think they're higher in the hierarchy or sometimes they think they're lower in the hierarchy. Well, it all comes down to self-awareness and observing and just thinking and being alive in the moment and not being caught up in the past. Atali Ron was what we would call an opportunist. And he saw everything around him as an opportunity. So probably some things we wouldn't want to necessarily imitate in Tali Ram, but he didn't really have any political convictions.

41:47He would assume the convictions that suited the moment, the political moment. If it was Napoleon and the revolution, he became a revolutionary. Then when Napoleon became an emperor, he became noble and royalty. And then when the king returned, he was now in favor of the king. But he was aware of each situation and how it changed. And the problem that a lot of people have, so this is something that comes from Machiavelli. And I noticed this in a lot of leaders, a lot of people who attain power, they kind of hit a wall and they can't get past it. And I see this in almost everybody that I deal with in my consulting with powerful people.

42:27You reach a level of power through one particular quality that you have. whether it's arrogance, whether it's in supreme confidence, whether it's sheer aggressiveness, whether it's being very seductive and excellent powers of persuasion or eloquent, et cetera. You reach your power through this one thing that is a quality that you have that's very strong. And now you have this position and you've reached a new level in the hierarchy, as you say. and what brought you there is no longer relevant, is no longer a powerful quality. You have to adapt. And Machiavelli said that this is what undoes a lot of people.

43:12They cannot adapt to the moment. And if he were to craft a perfect leader, it'd be somebody who would alter with each circumstance. So it's a common phenomenon in military where a lieutenant, a soldier will rise to a position of power in the military back probably a couple hundred years ago. And then suddenly they didn't know how to adapt to their new position and they were absolutely useless. People who reach a certain level. I know one guy I consulted with, he worked in a brokerage firm. He was an incredibly successful trader, et cetera. He was a salesman, basically. He got promoted to a management level and it all fell apart because he didn't know how to manage.

43:54All he knew was how to sell. And I worked for a company, American Apparel, where the guy was this incredible entrepreneur, Dov Charney, very charismatic, very powerful, very aggressive. He created this incredible empire, American Apparel, with stores all over the world. But he couldn't organize it. He couldn't manage it. He was not good dealing with people because he only knew one. He only had one gear in life. And I kept trying to tell him, you've got to adapt. But he wouldn't listen to me. And so the lesson for people in the world today is your circumstances are always changing. You might rise up in the hierarchy.

44:36You might fall down. You have to adapt your mind to where you are, to the circumstances that you're facing. You have to adapt your mind to the world as it is. So your industry, my work is in publishing. Publishing is changing by the moment. to publicize a book now in 2023 is completely different from how you publicize a book in 2018. So you have to be alive to how everything in the world is changing in the moment. You can't be stuck in the past. You can't be stuck in a moment, you know, what brought you to success and power. You have to continually adapt. Yeah, and, you know, it's interesting that you also have examples of people who were brilliant but couldn't adapt.

45:22to their circumstance or didn't understand the circumstances quite correctly. So like you talked about the difference between, uh, Tesla and Thomas Edison. And I really didn't understand the level to which Tom Edison wasn't really a technologist and was more just a, a businessman slash salesman. And Tesla was a true technologist who didn't really understand business at all and was too trusting. And I want, you know, and he kept falling into the same traps, whether it was with Edison or Westinghouse or J.P. Morgan. Like, what could someone like that have done to sort of adapt a little better? Or do you think he was just incapable?

46:06Maybe he was so good at his technology, it gave him an inability somehow to read people. Yeah, I think, you know, some people, a lot of people who are very talented and very creative either in sciences or in the arts can be very naive. And I definitely fall into that category. I was a very naive person when I entered the world for quite a long time. I still have a little bit of that seed of naivete in me. And - How so? What's an example? Of what? Of you being naive in the industry. Well, law number one, never outshine the master. I violated that law once and twice and possibly a third time, which I'm not sure of.

46:54Of course, it was before I wrote the book. But I was aware, you know, I was trying really hard to please people. I had a job, for instance, on a television show as a researcher. And essentially, the more stories that got produced from your research, the better you were, obviously. It was like a hard, fast metric for it. And I was by far, I don't mean to brag, because I'm not good at a lot of things, but I was good at this one thing. I had by far the highest number of stories that were being produced. And so I thought, well, you know, that gives me a lot of confidence. I can almost do anything I want.

47:33I kind of dressed, you know, this is the 90s, I kind of dressed in a grunge way. I didn't really care what I looked like. When we had meetings, I wasn't really paying deep attention. Anyway, I ran afoul of my boss and I got fired. Essentially, I had developed an attitude thinking that I was greater. I was so good that that was what mattered. But what mattered was you fit into a group. People have egos. So that person that fired me probably thought, this young kid thinks he's better than I am. He's after my job, et cetera, et cetera. I made her insecure and therefore I suffered. And so I wasn't aware that people could be political.

48:16I wasn't aware that people had these egos. And early on in my career, when I was in New York, when I was working for magazines, I made a lot of mistakes that way. I didn't have this radar that goes, that person you're dealing with, they're insecure. They're your boss, et cetera, et cetera. And you have to kind of tailor what you do and what you say according to what you gauge as their insecurities. So I was naive in that sense. I had all of these ideas coming from college that what mattered was just being good at what you do, being creative, etc. But no, you have to be political in this world.

48:53So I was naive that way. Do you think you increased your skills in this area? Or do you think researching this book increased your skills? Like what snapped you out of it? I got better out of it as I suffered, as I made mistakes and I learned from my mistakes and I analyzed them. I was progressively getting better. And then, you know, I've always been very observant of people. So as I said, I never really had power, but I was always kind of watching them. But I had blind spots, which is one thing that I revealed here now. So I wasn't perfect in my ability to observe, engage where people were. So I was always pretty good, but I had some of these blind spots.

49:36And one of those blind spots was thinking, I'm so creative. I'm so superior to everyone that I can just get away with things. And that's a terrible, terrible mistake. And yes, in writing the books, obviously I've upped my game, you know, and it's not going to be easy to trick me or manipulate me now that I've written the book, obviously, because I can see through anything a mile, 10 ,000 miles away. And people still who I've hired to work for me or other people, they still think, they still try and play games with me. And they don't realize that I wrote the book on that. You can't really fool me at this point, you know.

50:17You know, it's interesting you used the phrase blind spots because I was almost thinking as I was rereading this book that it's a it is a book about blind spots because there there is no manipulation without someone being blind to the machinations of another person and in each case whether it's someone who's very powerful being um persuaded by someone less powerful like like a talley ran persuading napoleon or in the cases of uh you know someone trying to impress louis 14th louis the 14th but then out shining him so getting killed like in each case all these people do have blind spots and that's when you fall into the hole of the blind spot is where trouble occurs yeah i tell a story one of my favorite stories in the book involves a very famous con artist named count victor lustig uh who nobody knows exactly where he came from but he operated in florida in the United States.

51:16And one time he decided to con Al Capone. Now that takes real cojones, if you know what I mean. To me, if he catches on that you're trying to con Al Capone, you're going to be wrapped in cement and thrown into a river. But he went to Al Capone and he goes, Mr. Capone, you give me$50 ,000. He presented himself as this incredible business person. You give me$50 ,000. I'll be able to double it for you in three months. Okay. And Al Capone goes, I don't know, but the guy seems so confident. I'll give it a shot. Why not? You know, I've got the money. So he gave it to him. And then three months later, he comes to Al Capone's office.

52:02He goes, Mr. Capone, I'm really sorry. It didn't pan out the way I did. The money is lost. I feel absolutely terrible. I, I, you, you trusted me, you know, and it was, and I felt so honored that you trusted me and I failed. And is there anything I can do for you to pay, to make up for this? And the Alcabon goes, well, I appreciate your sincerity, Mr. Luzdig, and don't just let it go. It's all right. We'll just forget about it. Okay. All right. But I won't do business with you again, but just forget about it okay well that that was the con was those fifty thousand dollars and the way he conned him was his sincerity and by buttering up to him because i left out part of the story which he was flattering mr capone how smart he was how great he was and so he knew al capone's weak spot which was he thought he was a tough guy and here he was appealing to his softer side so to give Al Capone the chance to be noble and go, that's all right, I'll forgive it, was incredibly appealing to his ego.

53:09And Victor Lustig was a master of psychology. And he knew that even though he might be killed, more likely, either he'll ask for some of that money back, all right, I'll just give it back because I have it, or he'll forgive me. I have nothing to lose. And so the con game worked because even the most evil, the most violent man on the planet has a blind spot. The need to be flattered, the need to feel noble and better than what he was. Yeah, you have a similar story. It's not a con per se, but about Genghis Khan. So here's a person who basically destroys everything in his path, but he has this one advisor who has figured out how to persuade him to keep different cities alive and so on.

53:58And another example where someone lower on the hierarchy is able to manipulate and persuade someone much more powerful. Like this person might not have had the skills to be a Genghis Khan, but he had the skills to manipulate a Genghis Khan. Well, he knew that it's a law about self-interest. Instead of appealing to people's sense of generosity or morality in all cases. You want to appeal to their self-interest. And he understood that Genghis Khan was that kind of person. If you can show me what I can get out of it, I'll do what you want. So he basically persuaded him that if he annihilated the city, if he killed one million people, as he often would do when he destroyed a civilization or an empire, you're going to lose this, this, and this, it's going to hurt you in the end.

54:51And he gave very rational reasons for it. So he said, you need to preserve this particular place because in the long run, you'll be able to get so much out of it. I don't remember the exact details, but he appealed to his self-interest. And so the book is designed, if you read all of the examples, to give you so many patterns in your head of possible, let's just compare it to chess, patterns of moves that you can make in life depending on your circumstances sometimes it's that person you're dealing with all they think about is what's in it for me all right you tailor your effort at persuasion for what's in it for them but at the same time what's in it for them is actually what's in it for you you know be clever um or sometimes it's appealing to people's noble sense of self, making them feel like they're a king or an emperor by how you frame it, et cetera.

55:50Sometimes you have to be really aggressive and intimidate people. Other times you have to use the surrender tactic and make yourself look weak. So they take you for granted. And then when they let their guard down, then you attack them. Each circumstance in life requires a particular law, a particular way of thinking. That's, to me, what power is, is a person who can do that. And it's also very interesting what you say about the influence of time, in the sense that time actually, like a past history with somebody, is almost worthless when you're trying to persuade them. So you have the story of Athens.

56:30It might have been even in the same chapter as the Genghis Khan story, the story of Athens trying to decide which city to partner with and one city approaches Athens and says, hey, we've been friends forever. We have a history, choose us. And the other city says, look, we hate each other, but let's be blunt, our combined navies will destroy Sparta. And that's the city that Athens went with. Yeah, I mean, the Athenians were very practical people. I mean, they created a democracy and they thought of themselves as superior. to other cultures, but they had this very Machiavellian side. They were very practical people.

57:13They were great business people. They were merchants. It was a commercial city. They were seamen. They were very fluid in their thinking as opposed to the Spartans, right? And so they were very open to an appeal that would increase their security and their power because they lived in a very insecure world. So I tell people, when you're trying to get a more powerful person on your side, which this small island was trying to do with the great Athens, don't try and say,

57:49I've done favors for you in the past, you need to do this for me, or this is what, I'm really great, I can do all these really wonderful things for you. Instead, tailor your argument, your attempt at persuasion, at exactly what they need, what is in their self-interest, what will make them look better, what will make them more productive, what will make them more money, what will give them more success in life. Nobody can resist that. If somebody came to me instead of saying, Robert, I have brilliant ideas. I can be your best assistant you ever had, which people do if they said, Robert, I can save you time.

58:25I understand that you're probably way overworked and you can't deal with all these things going on right now. I'm going to literally save you time by doing this, this, this, this, this. I will organize your life. It would be hard for me to resist. I'm not asking people to do that. Please don't get me wrong. But instead, if you appeal to what people need, what their weakness is, and the weakness most people have in the world today is time. They're just overworked. They don't have time for all these little details that they're facing. So be strategic in life. That's what it comes to. Just don't be all about your ego and about who you are and how great you are.

59:05Be strategic and think about the other person and the circumstances and what will get you what you need. You know, one thing I notice in all of your books is you rarely write about yourself. I sort of feel like there's two main styles of nonfiction that I really enjoy. There's what I literally call in my house the Robert Greene style, which is kind of making these different, talking about these different concepts through tons of really great historical examples. And then there's almost the, what I'll call the Charles Bukowski story style, the dirty realism of like, he just talks about himself and gives his opinions throughout these outrageous stories about himself that are more or less true.

59:54And you've never really written about yourself at all, but I know you have many interesting stories. Is there a reason you don't write about yourself? Well, I appreciate the Charles Bukowski style of writing very much so. And there are people who are very brilliant at it. I guess it just doesn't fit me. I've always felt, I don't know, I think it's because I had so many years of failure in my life. And I'm being realistic about that. By the time I wrote The 48 Laws of Power, I was essentially pretty much a failure. I had had 50, 60 different jobs. I couldn't stay at one more than a few months. I never really made that much money.

1:00:40I tried many things and I failed at being a screenwriter. I failed really being a good journalist. I failed at writing novels. So built into me, I was kind of beaten up. And so I thought a slight inferiority complex, like who am I to write a book about power? Who am I to write a book about seduction or warfare and strategy? Well, if I wrote about myself, it just wouldn't feel right. And so I don't feel comfortable in just using personal examples because I don't think they have weight behind them. Whereas, so things in the moment, in the present are very hard for us to gauge. It's very hard to say that Elon Musk is this incredible genius or Elon Musk is this incredible failure.

1:01:32In 30 years, we will know very definitely what he was. And history will be written on the subject because they will understand the context. They will understand how things play out. So if I write about my little personal stories about things I dealt with, like I mentioned when I got fired, it kind of makes the idea sort of trivial and banal. It just seems like it's just personal. Whereas if I talk about the same idea with Louis XIV, and a man who outshone Louis XIV and gets thrown in prison for the rest of his life. Well, then the reader goes, wow, yeah, that's really interesting. That's exciting.

1:02:10I can understand that. So I just don't feel like my personal stories rise to the level of something that's, that, you know, I don't mind talking about them in podcasts, but I'm trying to write books that are going to last for 50, 100, 200 years and writing about my little personal experience they don't seem large enough they don't seem mythic you know but since the age of 38 though you've gone on this adventure this you know you've become this massive best-selling author you're you have you are the person who's written the books on war seduction power you know you co-wrote a book with 50 cent uh you know his his take on the the you know power and you've had i mean you like you've mentioned before you've consulted with major companies like when after this book was published when did you realize your life was changing because of this book well i think the the real wake-up moment for me was about four months later i got invited to italy of the italian version of the book had just come out it was my first real international book tour and I get there and like I'm wined and dined I'm taken to the island of Capri which you've never known it's just incredibly beautiful I had paparazzi like taking photographs of me as I emerge out of the out of the water you know of the Mediterranean you know I'm eating in these fancy restaurants and then I'm taken to Rome where I meet a man named Andrioti who used to be the president of Italy, who had written a review of the 48 laws of power because he's considered like the most Machiavellian politician in Italian recent politics.

1:04:05You know, Jesus Christ, I compared it to like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at Disneyland, where it takes you through this like hallucinogenic drug experience where you're going through all these little things and you're like eight years old and you're like, whoa, this is insane. It was like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride because I had nothing like that ever happened in my life before. So that was when it started to go, hmm, something here is changing. And then slowly, as like a year later, I read that Jay-Z quoted the book in a Playboy interview. I started seeing that it's infiltrated the hip-hop world. So it's entering popular culture.

1:04:43That was like another kind of second revelatory moment. So it had these little moments along the way. I'm just curious, did ups and downs still continue for you, but in a different way? Like, you know, what were some down moments? Yeah, I mean, when The Art of Seduction came out, it literally came out two days after 9-11. And nobody was interested in my book, and rightfully so. But it was like, oh my God, you know, my second book is out and nobody's going to write about it. very selfish of me. You know, I must admit that, you know, it's natural that people feel that way and I'm admitting something bad, but I understood it very quickly, but I was very worried.

1:05:28But then the other one came when I was doing the 50 cent book. I was so intimidated by him that I thought this book has to be about 50. And so I spent months tagging along with him and looking at his business and everything. And I wrote a good portion of the book um kind of following his examples and it was mostly just focused on him and then like um as i was nearly the nearing the end of it the publisher of that book simon and schuster i believe at the time they canceled the project ostensibly because we were too late in delivering it. But I think they didn't think it was very good. And somebody else, another publisher at Harper's came in and said, I will take over this project, but Robert, I have to tell you something.

1:06:23And he said, honestly, this isn't the right kind of book that you should have been writing. It should be more about you and your way of thinking and not so obsessed with 50 and everything that he's ever done. It should be a book that kind of reflects my way of thinking. You have to change the whole thing. You've spent a year writing this thing. You have to throw it away. You have to do something else. And on top of that, you only have eight months or nine months to finish it. Whoa. First of all, blow to my ego. Me, who's written three bestsellers. Yeah, I failed. And it's true. And he was right.

1:07:00I had to admit that I was wrong. But it was a very depressing moment. and then to realize that I have to go get a whole new approach to it. And then I have only so much time to get it done. That was a moment that said, you're not as great as you necessarily think you are. You can make mistakes and you made a mistake. So be more aware of it. Don't let your ego get involved in this kind of thing. Although in this case, it was the opposite. I was trying, my ego was like going down instead of asserting itself more in this particular project. And what's the new book you've mentioned you're working on?

1:07:41What's that about? Well, it's a book about what I call the sublime. And in the 10th chapter of the 50 Cent book, I talk about it. And in the 18th chapter of the laws of human nature, I talk about it in relation to our mortality and death. And so I've talked, it's something I've wanted to have been writing for 17 years, but I got sidetracked by other projects. I've been thinking about it and I've put it in other books. But essentially the idea is that we live in a world that's kind of limited. Human beings live in a world that are conventional, that have certain codes of behavior. And I compare it to a circle.

1:08:28and inside that circle are everything that you're supposed to think, ways you're supposed to behave, ideas you're allowed to have, you know, behavior that's acceptable. That circle won't look the same, won't be the same as it was in ancient Egypt. They won't have the same codes of how to think, how to behave, but there's still a circle because we're very conventional. We try to order human life according to these codes and conventions well the sublime is everything that lies outside that circle what we're not supposed to think about patterns ideas that we're not supposed to entertain behavior that we're not really supposed to have and when you tell somebody this isn't really what is acceptable this isn't really what you're supposed to think about it immediately stirs the desire to go beyond those limits because that's who human beings are we have this perverse streak in us.

1:09:24And so the ultimate thing outside that circle is death itself. Like, we don't know what death is. Nobody knows what it's about. But to feel it, to go outside and to actually touch upon it, a near-death experience, is like an insanely sublime moment. It teaches you so much. It makes you realize that the world is not what you think it is. 50 Cent had that moment when he got shot nine times and nearly died. He had that kind of epiphany when he was lying in the hospital bed and he thought he was dying. And so five years ago, I had a stroke. I came this close to dying myself. And I had not the same, but that kind of experience.

1:10:07And so I thought, well, this is this is my moment I have to write the book now because I had just written a chapter two months earlier about death and the sublimeness of it and here and here it actually happened to me so somebody out there some fate some god is telling me this is the moment to write the book because it's it's now it's like something deeply personal deeply emotional deeply visceral to me And the thing is, when I first conceived of the book, probably about 2006, it's a subject that fascinates me. I was going to jet all over the world. I was going to go to the Gobi Desert. I was going to climb mountains.

1:10:50I was going to go to Tierra del Fuego. I was going to swim with dolphins. I was going to have all these sublime experiences. And now since I had the stroke, I can't do any of that. I'm very limited in what I can do. I can barely walk outside my house. So I have to make this book about what's inside your head. I have to make this sublime an experience that you can have, even if you're disabled like I am, even if you can't go to the Gobi Desert, even if you can't even go down to San Diego, for God's sake, because it's in your head. It's an internal experience that will change you. And it can happen just looking at your pets.

1:11:25It can happen just listening to music. It can happen reading a book. It can happen anywhere in the city that you live in. it's forced me to make the book about that and so each chapter in the book is about an element that lies outside that circle some of it has to do with our relationship to the cosmos and the universe and the big bang theory and things we've learned a lot of there's a lot of science in this book so it has to do with evolution how insane it is that you and i james are talking on this call right now with a mere 10 000 years ago which is nothing in the course of history we were basically neolithic neolithic period nothing like this it's just so improbable that this has happened the way it has happened oh there's you know a chapter about the brain and how it operates and how our brains kind of create our reality and stepping outside the chapter about childhood chapter about animals chapter about love one about history which is the one that i'm currently writing So each chapter, there are going to be 12 of them, covers something that's outside that circle.

1:12:30So like, for instance, when you write about history, what do you point out as sublime? Like, what's an example? Well, I kind of mentioned it when I said, when I talked about Tenochtitlan and that city, which has completely disappeared. So when the Aztec, when the Spaniards, the conquistadors, destroyed the Aztec civilization, they burned everything down to the ground. There's not one single piece of architecture remaining from that. There's a few scattered sculptures, which you'll find in the museum in Mexico City, and some literature. But basically, the whole civilization was wiped off this planet.

1:13:10and yet it's the most insanely incredible um if so people who lived there just thought it was normal thought it was real but for the spanish people who went there and saw it first of all they were kind of terrified by the human sacrifices so they had a kind of a repulsion attraction to this culture but aesthetically sensuously it was the most insanely wonderful thing they had ever seen. They never got over that experience, right? So history contains those moments that I'm trying to show you that I call history uncanny. And if you know the definition of uncanny, it's a mix of things that are familiar and unfamiliar, like in a dream.

1:13:55So in a dream, people are kind of familiar, but they're acting differently. They're familiar, but they're not, they're doing things different. That's what makes a dream so strange and weird and compelling. If everything was familiar, a dream wouldn't be interesting. If everything was strange, it wouldn't draw you in or stick with you. But that mix of things is like a dream is what is so compelling. History is like that. The people are different. The culture is different. How they were thinking, how they dressed, how they smelled, how they, the food they ate. But then there's something familiar about them.

1:14:33There's something about the human experience that has never changed. That mix of things is like a dream. And so when I enter ancient Babylonia, when I try and enter the world of Paleolithic, our ancestors, or the Chinese city in the 10th century, I have that feeling like I'm entering a dream. It's almost too fantastical to believe that this is actually part of our heritage. So history is completely sublime. We don't look at it that way, which is what my chapter is about. I'm trying to alter, reverse your perspective. It's not a dead thing. It's something that's very, very alive. And do you think having the stroke and kind of forcing you to be not as physical has opened even vaster new vistas for yourself in terms of finding the sublime in the everyday things around you?

1:15:33Yes, it does. Because, you know, what am I going to do? First of all, when I write a book, I have to live it in some degree. I have to feel it inside of me. I can't just write about things that are abstract. And so I have to have some of these experiences that I'm writing about. And so it's forced me to find those moments. So if I write about animals, because I have a very long, deep relationship to the animal world, it's something I've always been attracted to. And I wrote about our relationship to animals and some amazing stories. I now, when I look at birds, I never look at them the same way because of this story that I wrote.

1:16:17Or when I look at my own pets that we have in our house here, I have to bring that kind of awareness to it. Um, then when I'm writing about history, I can't go, I can't go to Rome and look at the ruins there and feel it in the moment as I planned to when I wrote this writing in 2006. I have to do it in my head. I have to do it in my armchair. And I'm able to do that because I have a strategy and I share that strategy with the reader about how you can make those things happen. You can do it through reading. You can do it through looking at images, but you have to do it with a certain mindset. So each chapter I have to live through.

1:17:02And it's been a very, it's been, I can tell you one thing. My life is very limited. You know, I can't do the things I used to do. I can't hike. I can't swim. I can't ride a normal bicycle. I have a special bicycle. but those moments in the day after our podcast is over or i have those three or four hours to write it's the only thing i live for it's the most magical moment of my day because it just like gives me a spark so yeah i've had to live this book in a way that i couldn't have done it before my stroke and when's the book coming out when do you think you'll finish that's the million dollar question um i'm on chapter eight i'll be finishing that in a month and there are 12 chapters um so if i really get my act together which is going to be not that easy i'm hoping it'll be ready in 2025 not next not uh this coming fall but the fall after that well because books take like nine months to go through a system.

1:18:12I can't wait to read this one. I remember you talking about it and also us speaking about it when we spoke about the laws of human nature, but it sounds incredible, so I can't wait for it. Well, Robert, as always, I benefit so much from these conversations. And also when I'm preparing for a podcast with you, and we've had many now, I always go through your books again. And, and it's just, I get new perspectives each time out of it. Like it's, these books have really changed me and I'm really grateful you've written them and, and just your writing also. I don't want to, you have a very good blunt style of writing about these historical events.

1:19:03There's almost a poetry in your lack of poetry in how you describe these events. You're telling it how it is, but it's in a very compelling way. And the storytelling aspect is kind of hidden in how you write it, as opposed to being very overt about it, if that makes any sense. but uh i always learn from your style and again we spoke about before the podcast i feel i could i could sometimes i read books and i say oh he's this guy's copying robert green but not doing it as well and i don't mean to put them down it's very hard i think to write like you but uh but i think it created a genre the the way you write and i always i always see that when i when i read these books in addition to the usual just vast amount of knowledge and i get from your books so so thank you again i'm really glad you put out this special edition for for one thing it's a beautiful book but the other thing gave us another chance to speak and i am going to take you up on your offer to help me a little in this how to structure this this book it's it's the first time I'm writing a concept book like this.

1:20:13I've written sort of books where each chapter sort of stands on its own, but this one has a real cohesive thread and I have not done that before. And I want you, when we talk about this, I'm going to try and get you to loosen up, to think of this book in a way that maybe you haven't thought about it before and to not be so tight and be a little more creative with how you approach it. Not at all criticizing your past books, but just great works. It's like it's a new type of book for you and you have to approach it in a new way and I will help you with that. I don't help many people because I'm way inundated with work, but I genuinely believe this could be an extremely exciting book.

1:20:59Well, I'm grateful for that. And you're right. Thinking about it and talking with you about it, I realize I've been very rigid in how this book has to begin and how this book has to end. And of course that guides the middle as well. So, but, but you're right. I've already been experiencing incredible things that are book worthy. And I'm not, I'm not a 22 year old. I don't have to write about how I become, you know, champion of this or champion of that. It's the experience itself has been this incredible adventure. Yeah. And how you write it is going to be the key to making it compelling for the reader.

1:21:41Because just on its own, it's not going to work like that. You have to approach it a certain way. And I can feel it in my head. I'd have to spend time and discuss it with you. But I have a sense, as we say in German, a fingerspitzen gefühl about how it could be. I'm not going to take time now doing that. But, you know, I just, I think it has to be more of like a story and not in reading this story, you're going to learn a lot. But I don't want like chapter one. This is the lesson here. Chapter two, this is the lesson here. I want it more loosely structured. Yeah, this is a very good way to think about it.

1:22:23It gives me a lot of food for thought. So thanks again, Robert, for coming on the show. And the special edition of the 48 Laws of Power is just a beautiful work of art. Not to mention the book is a great book, but I really just love how the book is designed and packaged. And it's a special book. So I encourage people to look at it or get it or whatever they want to do with it. But if you don't get that book, get the first edition, which also is a beautiful book. So enjoy. And Robert, once again, thanks. And thanks for coming on the show. thanks for having me James I really enjoyed it I always enjoy it so whenever you want me just let me know excellent me too