Believe in Yourself: The Key to Persuasion and Success w/ Robert Greene EP 1441

29:34Where am I at here? Soften people's resistance. No. Okay. Where are we at? The persuasive one. Yeah, seven. Is that one? Yeah, right here. The five strategies to becoming a master persuader. Is that this one? Yeah, right here. Seven, yeah. Well, you, Lewis, don't need to read that chapter because you already have that kind of mastered. But I think people need to understand this because I think what we just talked about right there is probably one of the most powerful parts of this whole book in my mind and in life is are you enrolling people in your vision, in being the king or queen, in getting the ships that you want?

30:12Are you stepping up and enrolling people and getting people to say yes to you? Or your dreams or hire you or date you or marry you? Or are you not showing up in a way that people want to say yes to you? And I feel like my whole business has been built on getting people to say yes. When I had nothing. I was on my sister's couch 10 years ago. No money, no skills, no degree. and it was an energy that I had to learn how to just get people to say yes and then more and then building momentum around that. So I'd love to talk about this, becoming a master persuader. And the first thing you talk about is, which I think most people aren't doing, you say is to deepen your listening and be a better listener.

31:00Most people don't have the patience to care about someone else. They're so concerned about what they think about them. Well, people always talk about being a better listener, and their advice is usually very weak. I mean, it's ineffective because, okay, I've become a better listener. Yeah, I'll try that, but it's very hard to overcome certain patterns. So I try to tackle the question of why is it that you're not a good listener? And at the root of that is you're more interested in yourself than you are in the other person. You won't deny that. You will say, oh, no, no, no, that's not me. That's not me.

31:38I really like people. But the truth is you're more interested in your own thoughts and your own ideas, things that you're so certain about, your own experiences, than about that other person and what they're saying and what's going on inside them. If you can flip that around, if you can actually feel the motivation to get inside Lewis and get inside his head and his experience, then you suddenly will become a better listener. That's the key, not just telling people to listen more. The key is the quality of the listening. and the emotion involved. So if I feel I want to get inside that other person inside their life, then suddenly you will start listening.

32:15What will make you interested in other people? Well, first off is the idea you don't know them. Normally when you're, let's say you're on a first date with someone or you're just meeting someone, you have assumptions about them. You create a simplified version of who they are and that's what you think, you know, and that'll stay with you forever. Instead, you want to think, that person is more interesting than I imagine. Their first appearance isn't really who they are. They're like a book that I could read. We love going to movies and getting inside other characters and what motivates them, being taken along for a ride.

32:53Think of the people that you meet in life as a character in a movie. You want to know what motivates them. They are more interesting than you think. They've had traumas. They've had problems from their early childhood. They have fantasies. They have a shadow, a dark side to their personality they're not revealing. They're more complicated and interesting than you think. So if you're motivated to understand what makes them tick, their experience, suddenly you will start listening. So that's the key to me. And it's not easy. why is it so hard for people because for me it's it's been an easy thing because I've used my insecurity of not feeling like I was smart enough growing up because I was one of the poor students in school yeah so I was like my voice doesn't matter as much let me just ask smart people what they think right and it became a huge advantage for me right because I've learned that being the most interested person in the room, you become the most interesting?

33:54Well, the key is really so much in the book is, are you motivated to change yourself? Do you want to become successful in life? This book is trying to realign your priorities and how you look at the world. Normally, your focus is on yourself and on your work and the techniques in your work you know the the skills you have to master and I'm telling you the key to success in life is people we're a social animal you know we're like dogs or wolves or whatever chimpanzees we're a social animal and how we interact with people will determine how far we get you can be brilliant at hacking computers or whatever but if you're terrible with people your life is going to be hell so So are you motivated to become somebody supremely skilled at understanding and working with people?

34:47That's the whole point of the book. You have to buy into that. You have to buy into the fact that you're usually bad at dealing with people. You're not seeing who they are. You're seeing reflections of your own fantasies or projections. You have to admit that you're not good at dealing with people and you need to improve. If you understand that and you want to change and you're motivated to get out of your shell, then you can make that leap. I'm a big advocate of baby steps. You're not going to suddenly transform yourself into Bill Clinton overnight. Right. Remember thousands of people's names.

35:23Or suddenly become a great listener. So every day you give yourself little tests. So you have now lunch with this person who you normally find kind of boring. All right. For 10 minutes I'm going to shut off my internal monologue and I'm going to force myself to listen to them and I'm going to glean some information, some nugget about their character that I never understood before. I'm going to ask them about their childhood. I'm not going to be like, it's not going to be that kind of inquisition where I'm asking them, you know, penetrating questions. But in a relaxed mood, I'm going to find out about something that really motivates them or something deep or some traumatic experience they had.

36:05you force yourself day by day to take little baby steps in which you try to learn something about people that you didn't know before and get interested in them and their experiences. I think a lot of people are asking the wrong questions too. I think you got to start learning to ask different questions. Like what? What do you mean? I think a lot of questions are very servicey and I know you wanted to keep it relaxed as well. You don't need to be like, tell me you're done. It's also there's ways you can start opening that up and I think For me, I know if I want to get the most out of someone, I have to give the most myself.

36:38I have to start with vulnerability or opening up in certain ways. I can't just expect someone else to open up if I don't. But I think certain questions, like if you're meeting someone for the first time, as opposed to what do you do or where do you work, it's what are you most excited about right now? Or what's something you've been having a challenge with in your life? Well, the thing I tell people to look for, because I'm a very big believer in nonverbal communication, In the course of a conversation, if you keep it kind of open and flowing, people's eyes will light up when a certain topic is mentioned.

37:12It could be their children. It could be their work. It could be their parent. It could be something in their life that their whole body language changes. They relax. I know if you suddenly asked me about the Los Angeles Lakers, I would be very excited because that's one of my deep passions in life is basketball and the Lakers. Yeah, but people got my hometown guy LeBron James. Oh, you're from clean from Ohio Wow, but I how do you feel about this? I feel bittersweet because she stayed in Cleveland. Oh, you did I wanted to win one more there But you know, I live in LA now, so it's nice that he's here at least I could go to some games and watch him.

37:50That's right I didn't get to go watch games in Cleveland. So that's right. So I'm like, you know, if he's gonna go anywhere This is that's right. That's good. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't used to like LeBron, but now I love it But now you love it. You're the greatest player in the world. He is, for sure. So you line up about that. Look at you. You're getting excited talking about it. You can see it. If somebody inadvertently brought that up, they could see like, oh, wow, man, I could talk for hours about the Lakers, you know. But everybody has a topic like that. It could be something a little more intellectual and more interesting than sports.

38:20But look for, you're not paying attention to people's body language is another thing. So as an observer, as a good listener, you're not just hearing their words. You're looking at their eyes, their facial expressions. I have a chapter on that. How to differentiate between the fake smile and the genuine smile. Wow. And it's very real. A real smile lights up the whole face. It alters how the eyes look. You want to see when you've hit something like that. Or when you've done the opposite. You get that kind of scowling micro expression. Right? But people aren't observant. They're in their own shell.

38:59They're not seeing. people are constantly giving out signs of their likes, their diversions, their values, and you're missing them because you're not paying attention. Is it because we're too obsessed with how we look or what other people are judging about us? Is that why we're closed off or not observant? I think it becomes kind of a habit, and that's the main part of it, that we're worried about how we look and how they're judging us. But also part of that habit is, you know, life is difficult in this world, in the modern world. We're absorbing too much information on our phones, et cetera. And it's a very competitive world out there.

39:39So naturally we turn inward. Naturally we're thinking about ourselves. We're thinking about what we need to do, you know, our own anxieties. They're talking and I'm thinking about it. I have to, I kind of change that appointment tomorrow kind of thing because you're thinking about your own problems, etc. And naturally so. But the whole thing is, is my books are all about getting outside of yourself and finding other people more interesting than yourself in some ways. Yeah, I'm always doing that. Yeah, you don't need this book. Yeah, I know. This is great though. I think you, you know, for me, I do need this book because there's always another level of like, what am I missing?

40:20What am I not seeing? And how can I get to where I want to be faster? You talked about infect people with the proper mood. Yeah. What does that mean? And how do we do this? Well, this is a key to influence and persuasion. I'm trying to make the case in this book about human nature that we are animals, that we have an animal side to our nature that you have to understand. And we are extremely vulnerable to the emotions and moods of other people. I trace that back to how we evolved as primates and the need our ancestors had for understanding the moods of the people in the group or the tribe before language was invented.

41:04So we're extremely vulnerable to the moods and attitudes of other people. if someone visits us and they're in a depressed mood, it will tend to lower our energy. We've all had the experience. Think of it yourself. You go through life and you encounter 10 different people, and there's always one in those 10 people that kind of makes you feel happy. The moment you meet them, an old friend or whomever, while you're smiling, you're laughing, your mood changes. And there's one in 10 that every time you meet them, they just feel like, man. Your mood changes in a bad way. Bad way. Well, it's because you're feeling something.

41:42It's not just the fact that you're a friend. There's something nonverbal going on. Our moods are extremely contagious. And so you can persuade people more through infecting them with your mood than through your words. True. Words are not necessarily the best means of influence. Energy. Energy. The way you show up. Attitude. It's like if there's a negative room or people having a negative conversation, there's 10 people and someone enters it with a positive energy and just starts connecting with each person you see the mood lift in a positive way right but it could also be if everyone's having a good time and one person comes down and it's like just being negative and taking everyone down and saying stupid stuff you're like we've all been through that then everyone's mood goes down again goes back to life as an enrollment game you're either enrolling people in the way you want to show up they're enrolling you and that energy well so this this should be like a really exciting concept to you with the reader because what it means is you can't you can alter people by how you approach them with your energy absolutely right so I mean I wrote about that a lot in the art of seduction Errol Flynn was probably the greatest seducer that ever lived if we counted the number of women he slept with.

42:59It's close to 3 ,000. And he only died when he was 50. So if you do the math, it's pretty insane. He was an unbelievable seducer. And I researched this as deeply as I could. Why? And women would write memoirs about it, and they would mention their experience. And they said, being around Errol Flynn was like having drunk three martinis. he was so relaxed and so comfortable with himself he had a kind of animal spirit where he was just really himself and very comfortable very open that being around him you just you felt all of your resistance and all your defenses just melting away there were other greats that do like Duke Ellington was like that so I'm the level of seduction and and male or female how you approach them your mood more than what you say about yourself and your own insecurities will have a much greater impact.

43:54More than the pick up lines or whatever. It's the energy. I believe so. The confidence. A relaxed, undefensive quality will go very far. I remember. How did he die? Alcohol. Wow. He was a major alcoholic. He drank himself to death. Probably was unfulfilled. Huh? He was probably unfulfilled. Well yeah, you know. 3 ,000 women, it gets kind of soulless after a while. Oh my gosh, yeah. He was a great, he was a very interesting character. But I remember I was in Paris when I was 21. I was living there. I was working in a hotel. And there was a man, it was a hotel where all the models stayed. And there was this Brazilian man who was obsessed with all the models in the hotel.

44:36And he was the greatest seducer I've ever seen in my life. And one day I was walking down the street with him and some other friends. and this other woman came running up she realized he was a seducer and was not had not been honest and was cheating on her and I will never forget how he responded he was so relaxed and so undefensive about it and he didn't apologize he was just this is who I am more or less than his body language and she completely relaxed and changed you know and I thought God normally it would have been this yelling match and he completely diffused it with his sort of relaxed attitude, you know.

45:17So it's a whole language that you need to master is how your moods infect other people. And I tell people, experiment with that. Normally with this one person, you're locked in a dynamic where you're always kind of reacting the same way. Try next time approaching them with a completely different mood think something differently about them suddenly force yourself to think that this person is really really like good-looking and exciting and seductive and you'll see that you're thinking of them in a certain way will change how they respond to you as opposed to being defensive and guarded and reactive and a judgmental yeah and you said you do not judge other people you accept them as they are well that's a key throughout out the whole book.

46:06You're not going to influence people if you're judging them, right? That's the key through the whole book. The book starts with a quote from Schopenhauer, meaning that if you come across people who are bad, just think of them as, or as toxic, just think of them as a kind of mineral that you're encountering. That you're a scientist. People are all different. You're not going to change them. They are who they are because of their circumstances. And instead of judging everyone learn to accept them and to kind of understand that you you are fatal You were flawed and so are they sort of kind of get rid of your superiority, yeah Because that's not gonna influence them if you're trying to persuade them to do something Judging them and making them wrong is only gonna make people more defensive, right?

46:53Well, that's true But the other point is your superior your sense of superiority is usually not justified mm-hmm I'm making the point in this book the number one thing about human nature is that we tend to deny that there is such a thing I'm not aggressive I'm not narcissistic I never feel envy I don't have a bad side to me it's the other people I don't have any of these bad qualities we all do that you have these qualities as well as anyone else if you can be honest with yourself you'll be a little more humble and realize you're not so perfect and not superior Which will make you less judgmental about other people.

47:34Yeah And you said you just talked about this but Thinking of the person in the best light as they're generous and caring Or thinking that they're good-looking, you know thinking that you help you your energy show up in a different way to Potentially persuade them will alter the dynamic of the conversation, right? I have a story in there of in the next chapter of this great Russian writer Chekhov, who came from the poorest circumstances. His father beat him every day. He lived in the most miserable village in Russia. Then his family abandoned him to go to Moscow and left him alone in this village.

48:16And he said, God, I could end up being the most bitter person and hating everybody and hating my life, and I don't want to let that happen to me. There's a chapter about how to change your attitude. And instead, I'm going to accept my father. I'm going to learn to love him. He grew up under terrible circumstances. He's beating me because his father beat him. I'm going to understand him, and I'm going to accept him, and I'm going to love him. I'm going to do the same about my mother. I'm going to do the same about my alcoholic brother. And then he moved to Moscow to be with them. And he moved into this house with eight people who were miserable, fighting, bitter, hate, and toxic.

48:55And his attitude and his acceptance of them completely altered everything. He got his father out of the house and into a better job. He changed his, you know, he got his siblings to start reading and to think of higher things than just their petty feelings. He changed the dynamic by how he thought of them. Wow. Yeah. One person can change the whole dynamic. That's right. Or the whole dynamic can change the one person. That's right. And you say that when you want to persuade someone They can't feel like they're being coerced or manipulated They must choose to do whatever it is you want them to do Or they must at least experience it as their choice Well, this is the key to this particular chapter But it's a key to the whole book Is people have what I call a self-opinion They have a way that they look at themselves I said there are three universals to the self-opinion Practically every human being has them Number one, we all think that we're autonomous, that when we make a decision, we weren't manipulated.

49:59We did it on our own. We're independent. Number two, that we're intelligent, that we're smart, that we know what we're doing. It doesn't mean that you feel like you're an intellectual. A plumber thinks that he knows plumbing better than anyone. That makes him feel like he's intelligent in his own way. And the third is that we're good people, that we treat people well. Now, none of these might be true, but we all tend to believe that that's who we are. Then there'll be other components to that. Oh, I'm a very independent, self-reliant person, or I'm a great rebel, I'm anti-authoritarian, etc. So you have an opinion about yourself.

50:39And if someone says something that challenges that opinion of yourself inadvertently, if they make you feel that you're kind of stupid or that you don't know what you're talking about, or that you're doing something because you were manipulated, that you didn't choose to do it, or that you're really not such a good person, we will suddenly get extremely defensive and closed off. And nothing you will ever say or do will change that. It can even turn into hatred or something, bitter feelings. Most of the time we're going around and we're not doing that, but we're not necessarily feeding people self-opinion.

51:16The number one need that humans have I want you to remember this is to feel validated by other people We've all one need the number one need William James the great psychologist said that it's not just me People want to feel recognized and validated by other people We can feel good about ourselves But if we don't get that from other people if they don't validate that we're smart intelligent independent It's hard to feel that so we're all craving that validation constantly Constantly if you're able to give people some of that validation if you're able to feed their self opinion without Being a flatterer because you know people do have good qualities and you can actually Recognize them but if you can validate their self opinion suddenly their defenses go down and you have room to maneuver them to Persuade them to influence them you talk about being an ally to their insecurities and you say by by praising and flattery is a great strategy like you just said but not there's praise and strategy but then there's manipulation so what's the dance between the two well if you flatter someone and it's clear that that it's your after something you've already validated this i'm sorry you already violated their self-opinion because it's clear that that you think that there's someone that can be manipulated so you're telling them oh you're not so independent as you think I can I can trick you and that doesn't work if we see through some obvious flattery so that can actually water someone and then say oh can you do this for me right afterwards that's that's that's pretty obvious yeah but also if you flatter someone about something that everybody flatters them about then it's clear what you're after that you're you're doing something so you want to find those qualities that no one's been flattering them about but that they feel insecure about uncertain about right now what would that be for you lewis oh man probably like that i'm a good writer you know it's like i believe that i'm a good writer but it's like i'm not as good as you you know it's like i'm like a ryan holiday or so now all of your listeners know that yeah tell me you have a great book lewis i love reading your writing is amazing you're on ryan's level completely exactly so to get to that point though you have to understand people you have to see who they are you have to understand what their insecurities would be generally you don't want to flatter people about what everybody else is flattering them about.

53:57It's too obvious. So sometimes, for instance, a person is very Machiavellian, is very clever and strategic, and if you flatter them about that, thinking that you know who they are, etc., you're actually going to insult them because they don't want to think of themselves as being machiavellian they think that they're doing these things for a good cause for a good reason so you want to find a different avenue a different way of approaching them to say wow you won that election and because you you're going to do great things with it you know flattering their their values their sense of of goodness the impact you're making yeah how you're helping people yeah yeah I think it's I think it's figuring that out and figuring out what and the way you do that is by being a good listener I think yeah I'm good observer yeah by not just observing the obvious but observing the unobvious right you have to get out of your own self to be interested in someone else yeah all these things are interconnected that we've been talking about and then you talk about using people's resistance and stubbornness They are often most people with deeper levels of insecurity and low self-opinion.

55:17Well, this is tricky. This is kind of advanced influence. advanced seduction. Yeah, yes. Where it's basically reverse psychology. Okay. And the best example is like a rebellious teenager who doesn't want to do their homework, who doesn't want to be told what to do. You have to realize that telling them what to do feeds into their rebellious nature and just makes them more defensive. But if you go with their resistance and go with their feeling of being a rebel, you can actually work within their mindset and get them to change. I have an example of a student who's thrown out of school because he's not studying hard enough.

56:04And the teacher says he's going to have to do all of this work at home in order to graduate, and he's going to have to study at home, but I can't have him in school because he's dealing drugs, et cetera. And the kid is like, I'm not going to study at all, that guy. I'm just going to be a slacker. And his mother went to a psychologist who trained her about how to use reverse psychology and said, look, you try and get him to study will make him worse. Try this approach. Try telling him that the teacher wants him to fail. The teacher gave him all of this work knowing that he wouldn't succeed because he knows you're a slacker and if you could prove him wrong can you imagine how great that will feel to show that up so if you study hard and actually graduate you'll make him look like a fool and it worked it worked yeah Wow I mean proving people wrong is some of the most powerful energy and fire that I think right humans have I think that's that's was my entire life was proving everyone wrong about like kids who made fun of me and bullies and guys actually abused me and all these things I was gonna prove everyone wrong well and it worked powerful motivator it worked until it didn't until I realized man I'm still suffering inside I'm not fulfilled it wasn't until about five years ago when I started opening up about everything I was insecure about or holding on to and frustrated about when I realized like okay yeah that got me to i'm at and it helped me accomplish a lot of things but i'm still in fulfilled and when i started to say how can i prove people right and lift other people up whether they doubted me or hurt me or not and focus on that energy that's when i became so much more fulfilled so much more peaceful and more driven to impact more people as opposed to prove a handful of people wrong that's right Right.

58:08Well, a lot of what I'm talking about in the book is your ability to be aware of yourself and honest with yourself and say that this isn't ultimately fulfilling. Right. And that what I think is this strong thing is actually a weakness of mine, and I'm going to work against that. That's sort of the whole point of the book is knowing who you are, knowing your weaknesses, knowing what really motivates you. Because it was your self-awareness that was able to make you change. yeah and my self-awareness in the beginning for 30 years where I was like this is the way I need to be in order for me to achieve was there was a particular experience that provoked this I mean I was sexually abused when I was five by man my brother was in prison for four years and I didn't have friends during that time because the neighborhood parents want to let their kids hang out with me yeah I was you know in the special needs classes all through elementary school and had a tutor through college because I couldn't read and write well so just getting feeling like very insecure around you know everything I wasn't a good student I didn't learn in the structure that school was built for us I learned from sports so I put all my energy into proving people wrong in sports because I could learn from moving my body from listening to a coach and applying it right then and failing and learning and and that structure was a better format for learning for me what was this thing that happened five years ago that Oh, yeah five years ago.

59:36I started I went through a I Read about this in my book the mask of masculinity and talked about it many times, but I had a bad fight I was playing basketball down the street pick up game with a bunch of people and Got a bad fight like a real fist fight and blood everywhere and wow and I had this awakening right afterwards of fear. I was like, what did I just do? I think I don't fight you the instigator We are both kind of the incires he hit me first, but we're like, you know Talking trash the whole game and hard fouling and you know playing a hard game but he actually hit me first so that But who knows I could have defused this is this information at any time I could have backed away I could have been calmer all these things so that made you reassess yourself.

1:00:24Yeah, it made me realize I achieved all these things I was you know Successful or whatever with these accomplishments, but I was like, why am I still angry? Why am I still right? Why am I still reactive to this? Nonsense, that's nothing. It's a little pick a basketball game and yet I take it so personally. Yeah, and feel like this person is attacking my Masculinity my manhood my life my credibility everything well, so I would defend myself Anytime someone said something negative about me either defend myself. Wow, it's kind of like my whole life though, right? Now I was a joyful happy guy But when that happened it was a trigger Wow, so in my friend was like I don't want to hang out with you anymore because he was there Uh-huh.

1:01:09He was like every time we play basketball you get in a fight Wow you react or you say something you shove someone whatever Wow And so I said I need to take a look at my life and I started going to workshops I started doing emotional intelligence training. I started working a therapist of all types types and i was just like i need to see what's the root of this well the key is here is that decision that you were not going to let this become a pattern that was it and a lot of people i don't could have reacted the opposite way right so what's what makes you different from others is someone could write a whole book about yeah well i'm a student of life too like i always want to learn right i realized that's something that was holding me back like i'd achieved a certain level of success or results but it still couldn't sleep at night i was still hurting inside i was still unfulfilled and i was like well i thought once you achieve these things yeah like you feel better yeah like these are dreams that i've had for years that why don't i feel good now well that's a common yeah and i think it was like i turned 30 i was going through a breakup in a relationship that i moved here for in l.a yeah i remember that i was in a business breakup as well with my partner and I was like, huh, why?

1:02:18You know, I'm the common denominator for everything going wrong in my life. Right, right, right. Like... So you saw your own patterns. I saw it. And I think that was my, you know, not near-death experience of like getting in this fight, but it was like an awakening moment. Well, this fight, see, sometimes it takes something physical, like you could feel the fist on your face and you knew the feeling of shame. Oh, I felt horrible. These are powerful chemical reactions that you'll feel 20 years from now and so that can wake you up. Hopefully it doesn't take that much for other people, but sometimes it does.

1:02:50Sometimes it does. And luckily, you know, the guy was fine. I mean, there was blood everywhere and everything, but the police station was right across the street, and I was just like, I could lose everything. Like, what if this guy had a knife? What if they pressed charges? Or what if, you know, it's like, what's the point of this? You see, this is something I talk about in the book a lot, is there's almost like a stranger inside of you, a person that acts and you don't even know who they are. Like in those moments, you're not Lewis. Who is this? And it could happen tomorrow still, where you could get in a situation where that will happen.

1:03:30And where does that come from? Well, there are things like that in everybody where certain circumstances, certain events will trigger something in you and you'll act in a way that you don't even understand. Like, I never did that before. Or why am I doing this? Why am I falling in love with the absolute worst woman that I could possibly involve in my life? Why am I taking this career job path that's making me miserable? Why am I getting into fights? Why am I suddenly getting angry? I'm saying that these are forces inside of you, human nature, that you don't understand, that are compelling you to behave in certain ways.

1:04:09And your only way outside is to understand what's going on inside of you. Wow. And that's why this book is so important. You have so many other great chapters in here. I want to ask you a couple more questions. And then we can wrap it up. This one on, you know, advance with a sense of purpose as a law. You talk about the law of aimlessness. And I think, you know, for me, having a clear vision, or at least a vision that you think is clear for a certain amount of time, is one of the most powerful things we can have. Because if we are aimless, then we're screwed, I feel like. Yeah. Well, the problem for human beings is, you know, an animal, a cat or a dog, they don't have to wake up in the morning and decide what they're going to do, right?

1:04:54Oh, am I going to eat this food? Am I going to go for a walk? Whatever. Their life is sort of programmed by who they are genetically, et cetera. We humans don't have that kind of programming. We are not given any kind of natural guidance in life. We could wake up and we could not go to work tomorrow. We could suddenly do whatever we wanted if we felt so inclined. So we have to create our own sense of purpose. And that purpose can't come from the outside. If our parents tell us, you need to do this, this, and this, or a teacher tells us, it's not going to connect to something deep within us. and it might work for a while, but when we're 25, we'll feel empty and hollow because it's not something from within.

1:05:37It's not our path. Yeah. So the trick in life is figuring out what you were meant to do. I maintain, and this is something that I go into in great depth in Mastery, in Chapter 1 in Mastery, but also in this book, is to figure every human is different. Every human has a different genetic code. Their brains are wired differently. their parents no two people have the same parents who raise them a certain way you are different you have something very unique about you that uniqueness exists for a purpose if you follow that if you use your uniqueness in some way you will create something probably pretty interesting and pretty great right but if you follow what everyone else is doing you will be like everyone else.

1:06:27You will become a lawyer because your parents say you should. And when you're 29, you won't feel connected to it. And you'll see that there are 8 million other lawyers doing the same thing. And you'll be 32 and you'll be drinking and you'll gain weight and you'll lose all, and your life will go downhill from there. Is this your life? No, could have been. My parents would have liked me to become a lawyer or a doctor. Yeah, right. So, you know, how do you find that voice? I call it a voice that's telling you who you are and what you need to do. How do you find it? Well, it's listening, first of all.

1:07:10So when you were young, you were generally attracted to certain activities activities or pursuits. I call it in mastery primal inclinations. It's a voice inside of you saying you should do this, you are attracted to that. There's a book that I recommend by a man named Howard Gardner called The Five Frames of Intelligence. He mentions that there are five forms of intelligence, one that has to do with mathematics patterns, one is kinetic with sports, one is social and do with people, one has to do with words, there's a fifth one I don't remember. Everyone has a brain that is inclined towards one of the five.

1:07:56That's like your main strength. For you it might have been kinetic, which was sports and activity and physical action. We tend to emphasize in our culture intellectual as as a form of intelligence. But being really good with your hands or being really good at sports is a form of intelligence. You are naturally drawn to one of these five forms. You have to know what that is. And when you were very young, you felt naturally drawn to certain things. When I was a kid, I was drawn to words. I was obsessed with language and words, and I was obsessed with strategy, with warfare and war games and sports.

1:08:41And so, you know, eventually that's sort of what I ended up doing. You know, Tiger Woods, when he was a year and a half old, saw his father hitting golf balls in the garage, and he went berserk. He felt this, like, primal attraction to it. I have many examples of famous people. You probably had that in your life, but as you get older, you start listening to your friends, your teacher, your parents, and you're not hearing that voice anymore. And all you're hearing is what other people tell you who you should be, what they think is cool, and you lose connection to what makes you unique. And who you are, your uniqueness, is your source of power.

1:09:18The further you deviate from that uniqueness, the weaker you will become. You will become like other people. Wow. So the game in life is to know who you are, to gather skills and train yourself and be disciplined. And by the time you reach your age of 30, you have a lot of creative energy, and you're able to take all the things that you've learned and create something unique like you did with your school of greatness. I was 36 when I started writing the 48 loss of power, so it took me a little bit longer than that. Well, you obsess a little more with things. That's why. You're a perfectionist.

1:09:52You let that get in the way. Well, I had a little more failure than most people have. It took me a little longer. I'm a little slow sometimes. That's okay. Worked in your advantage. That's powerful. I like that. So lean into your curious, the things that you were curious about as a kid, and go back into one of those five things, figure out what it is, and start pursuing that more. And also know what you don't like. You don't like working in a group where everything's political. Well, then maybe you need to be an entrepreneur and work for yourself and start your own business. So the things that you dislike show you a lot about who you are.

1:10:31I like that a lot because I think a lot of people right now they have too many options Yeah, I'm passionate about everything. How do I know which direction to go? Yeah, and that's like a downfall in itself it's just like law figuring out how to choose one direction there's people that don't have they don't know what their passion is They're like how do I find my passion and there's people have lots of passions right basically in the same boat You're not doing either anything. That's right. And it's hard because Because, especially with the internet and all the access to information, you can get excited about so many things.

1:11:04Oh, I could direct a film. Oh, I could write a screenplay. Oh, I could win a political election, etc. No, you can't. You can't do everything. You're not meant to do everything in life. You are not Leonardo da Vinci. There's probably one or two or three things that you need to focus on. But you need to find that thing to focus on. focusing on one activity is not something that should frighten you which liberate you because by developing solid skills in one area you now have power to maybe branch out to something else and combine different skills if you aren't somebody if you're somebody gets easily bored and just one straight path you can follow this path of doing different things but you have to master each level before you can advance.

1:11:50Yeah, and if you are scattered in your passions or your direction or your vision, you will influence less people. The more powerful you become in one area, the more influential you become with lots of people. Isn't that right? That's right. We'll finish with this topic, and then I'll ask you my final couple questions because there's a lot of people that are looking to build a business or build a following with social media. You have a chapter that says, make them want to follow you. how do we make people want to follow us, whether it be offline, online, buying into our business, our products, our services, our books, following us on social media, listening to our podcast.

1:12:33How do we do that? Well, you have to understand human nature. That's the key. Yeah. Understanding human nature, yes. People don't want to be forced or coerced or manipulated. They want to feel that they are coming to something on their own. So if you create this podcast and you go out there and you get all this advertising, etc., and you force yourself down people's throats with your presence, they go, ah, this guy's trying too hard. I'm not so interested. But if you create a viral buzz where instead of you promoting yourself, I go out and go, wow, Lewis was the best interviewer, but you are. You are one of the best interviewers around.

1:13:15Thank you. I believe that. I appreciate it. Thank you. And I realize, because it was six years ago, I remember. Yeah, thanks. If I'm the one going out and promoting you, suddenly that carries so much more power. So you have to understand that you don't want... Oftentimes, this is a chapter about leadership. Often as a leader, your impulse is to yell at people and make them do things, do your bidding. And that creates defensive, resentful, bitter people. You want them to want to join your force, to join the group, to follow the group's path, to get into line on their own, of their own volition.

1:13:54They follow you. And so you have to understand that, first of all, you're dealing with individuals. You can't compel. You have three people who work for you. You can't do the same thing with each person. You have to play to their psychology. You have to create a cause. people don't want to feel like they're doing something for money it makes it's kind of soulless and mercenary right if oh i'm going to listen to louis's podcast because i'm going to become a millionaire well you'll get some people but a lot of people will find that kind of empty but if you say i you listen to my podcast and you're going to help humanity you're going to change the world you're going to feel great about yourself people are going to love you you're appealing to things that motivate people, right?

1:14:42So you have to understand that. You have to get them to join a cause. Basically, that's, I mean, I have more things in the chapter. Yeah, that's the essence of it, yeah. You talk also about a dark shadow, is that what you call it? A shadow side, a dark shadow? The shadow side. What does that mean, and what is your shadow side? Well, your shadow side came out of the basketball court very clearly. Yes. The Incredible Hulk. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it's a very important concept. Basically, it means when we were children, we were two or three years old, we were like a complete individual. We felt all this range of emotions, anger, hate, love, joy, depression.

1:15:34and we tended to express it as children often do. All the time, right? Yeah. And then our parents intervene and say, because a child who just does what he wants and is always expressing it can be kind of irritating and you want to sleep and you have your own cares. So you're telling the child, stop that behavior. Stop being like that. Be a good boy. Be a good girl. Study harder. And so you start to repress certain qualities in yourself in order to please your parents, in order to please other people. Those qualities could be your aggressiveness, your natural assertiveness. It could be your kind of dramatic tendencies or whatever.

1:16:16Your theater nature, yeah. Your what? Your theater nature. Your theater nature. You kind of repress them. You try to be something that will please other people. And as you repress that other part of your character, it goes into what we call the shadow. It doesn't disappear. Nothing ever disappears. It just is not immediately visible. It forms the dark side of your character. There's the moon that we always see in the sky, then there's the dark side of the moon that we don't see. But the dark side of the moon doesn't exist. It's still there. It's just we don't see it. Everybody has their dark side.

1:16:50And it comes from these qualities that they were repressed when they were younger. and it will come out later in life in sudden bursts of anger like you on the basketball field or it'll come out you know in a relationship for instance um you might have felt like your parents didn't really love you and you're worried that that you were worried with a child that you had an irrational feeling that they would abandon you and then you form a relationship later with a woman and she's slightly cold to you but not for any reasons that have to do with you. Maybe she's in a bad mood. You assume that she's about to abandon you because you have that fear and you lash out and you get angry and you like basically instigate a breakup in advance because you don't want to deal with that pain of going through it.

1:17:45You don't want to have to be abandoned. You want to be the one abandoning. Well that's your shadow side coming out. Everybody has it and you'll notice it when people do something that seems out of character. They will lash out, they will get angry, they will do something self-destructive. They will say as we said earlier, oh that's not me, something came over me. But no, that is them, that is their shadow acting out. That person on the basketball court wasn't somehow Mr. X who suddenly invaded Lewis's body. It was Lewis. It was more Lewis than what we normally see. Normally we see the nice pleasant Lewis.

1:18:24The real Lewis suddenly came out on that basketball court and you saw it. Well everybody has that and you want to see that in people. You want to see that they're, you want to see their shadow and understand that they're not as nice and wonderful as they say they are. Not to judge them but to be aware and you want to see your own shadow so you can use it so you can be aware of it so you can overcome it Wow what's your shadow side that's a good question I've had to deal a little bit with my shadow side now because I suffered a stroke about two months ago and my shadow side is I feel like I'm I have an incredible need to be independent and self-reliant and if I don't feel that way if I feel like I'm trapped, that I can't do something, I get really angry and really can be vicious and violent.

1:19:20So the sense that something is stripping or stepping on my independence or autonomy can trigger that Lewis Howe basketball reaction. The ho comes out. The ho comes out. So your wife and everyone has to suffer that, huh? Well, I had to deal with it. I've had to deal with the fact that I am dependent, that I am like a baby right now, that I can't have to rely on people. But there are other things that I can do for myself still but there's small things that's part of it and then the other shadow side is the hyper perfectionist in me that's always trying to please and make the absolute perfect book you know well they're pretty amazing they're pretty amazing so that it's paying off in some ways but at what cost also what's the price you have to pay yeah with that well I guess right yeah but you know as I said before we were first talking I'll take that price yeah because I created something that I wanted to do I did something that meant a lot to me and I knew I was kind of hurting myself physically but I still did it it's like you're going off to war what will make a man a person man or woman go into battle knowing that you you could die a greater purpose yeah so you give up your body for some our football players you give up your body for something greater and that's not a bad feeling yeah what's the thing you're most proud of that most people don't know about Wow Oh, huh.

1:20:57Well, that's a good question. I try to make you think about things you normally don't think about. I think I'm proud of, well I don't like tooting my own horn. I don't like seeing how wonderful I am. If you had to, about the thing that you're most proud of. Well you know what, people assume, because I wrote the 48 Laws of Power, they have this image that I'm kind of this I'm sort of this manipulative Machiavellian who goes around trying to get the better of people that I know every trick in the book that if I'm late for a meeting I'm doing that on purpose because I'm playing some game. And actually I'm a really nice person.

1:21:38You know I'm kind of a puppy. I'm not like that at all. You know I can be tough when I have to be. but kind of my father, my father was a really nice person. He wasn't weak but he was just really nice. So I don't know if I'm proud of that but that's sort of a side of me that people don't know. I'm not as much an a**. Yeah, yeah, that's good. Good to be proud of being a nice guy. Your shadow side is the manipulative strategist, right? That's right, that's right. That is right, that's actually more accurate. That would be my shadow side. There you go. What's the question you wish more people would ask you if they never asked?

1:22:18Wow. Anytime you get Robert Greene and say, wow, that's a good sign. The question people ask. You wish people would ask you. Yeah. Or you wish you could answer more.

1:22:37man you see the problem for me is my books cover so many different topics that people generally ask about everything i mean a lot of it has to do with um you know because i've spent my whole life listening to other people and writing about other people i don't really talk about myself very much. So sort of talking about my own experiences and how I formed myself. I did that in a TED Talk, and it was very difficult for me. It's very unnatural. But in this TED Talk, I discussed how I arrived at where I am right now. And that's something I don't get to talk a lot about, because I don't like to talk about myself that much.

1:23:23But that's sort of a question I don't get so much. how you arrived where you're at right now yeah how I ended up writing the kind of books that I write I remember you telling me about this six years ago where you had done a lot of different things that were all failures right what you were like a newspaper writer or like a screenplay writer and moving in all these different things and you were like 70 % good at all of them but they weren't really that great yeah and then they all kind of magically showed up at 36 to writing like this different book that no one really wanted but then it was like a big hit.

1:23:58Yeah I mean the thing was goes back to the thing about uniqueness that we were talking about. I've never felt like I was like other people. I've always felt like an oddball. I never did what my parents told me to do. I left college and went and lived in Europe. I mean I graduated but I lived in Europe and I just wandered around. I never listened to what people told me to do and so when it came time to writing this book this man who was my partner in writing it who packaged it he sort of asked me if I had an idea for a book and I kind of explained my ideas about power I decided to make it something very weird and unique different than was in the market and yeah like you can hate the 48 loves of power but you can honestly no one has ever written a book like that.

1:24:50The structure with the stories, the sections, the quotes, the things on the side. And I got a lot of grief for that. The publishers go, I don't think this will work. And we want you to change. We want it to be more like other books. And so I stuck to my guns. And I said, no, I'm going to go down sinking with who I am. If this works, it's because I'm weird and I'm unique. And it succeeded. So the idea that... And then after the 48 Laws of Power, the logical thing was to put 48 Laws of Power, part two, and just sort of kind of mine what I'd already done. So no, I'm going to go in a new direction.

1:25:31So I'm constantly challenging myself and following my own path. I'm a weirdo. And people don't realize maybe how weird I really am. Only my wife kind of knows how truly weird I am. So maybe that's to answer your question. I like that. How truly strange and weird I am. But that's the path to achieving something great is leaning into your uniqueness. I think so. I mean, you could go too far with that. Right. I've still got to reach the masses in some way. I could have written poetry. There are poets right now that are selling millions of copies. Rupi Kaur, have you seen her? Yeah. She sold millions of copies.

1:26:09Two books, I think, were number one New York Times bestseller. Or poetry books. I take that back. But if I had written poetry, I wouldn't have had it. It wouldn't have been good for you, yeah. This is a question I ask at the end. It's called The Three Truths. I didn't ask you this last time because I didn't have this question. So imagine you live as long as you want. You live for as many years as you want. But at some point, you get to choose the day. It's the last day for you. And you've written every book that you can think of. They've all been bestsellers. They've all, you know, millions of copies like you've already done and then some.

1:26:45You've done it all. And you say, okay, it's been good. Like, time to go. And for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your work with you. So no one has access to your work anymore. You've got to bring it with you. Hypothetical. But you get to write down on a piece of paper the three truths from everything that you've learned in your life. From all of your books, all of your messages, your work, your insights, all your weirdness that you are. the three things you know to be true about life, and this would be the only thing that you would leave behind for everyone to have. Robert Greene's Three Truths or Life Lessons.

1:27:21What would you say are your truths? Well, there's a weird kind of law that governs the universe, which is what you give to the world is sort of what you get, right? Right. So we are more active than we think we are. We are more responsible for what happens to us than we think we are. And so the things that have worked for me in life, when I've sort of been aware of that and through my attitude, through, you know, like the pattern of my life is kind of foggy with all of the failures. But overall, there was there was a reason behind it. There was a purpose, and I followed that purpose unconsciously, maybe consciously to some degree.

1:28:11And it led to where I am today. But that there is something, a feeling that I had that there is something kind of guiding me. And I can't put my words, I can't put my finger on it. Something was guiding me to where I ended up today, even from when I was five years old. so I've always had a feeling of like fate and destiny for better or for worse and it happened so that's one wow

1:28:46the other truth is that is that

1:28:55we tend And I tend, and other people, we tend to be too nice in life, too indulgent with other people, too nice. We don't ask for enough. We feel like we don't deserve much in life, et cetera. And we let people push us around. I was pushed around a lot because I was sort of a naive writer type who didn't understand that there are bad people out there. So one of the things I had to learn in life and that are the source for my work is that there are bad people out there. And you have to recognize that, that there are narcissists, that there are aggressive people, that there are passive aggressive people, that there are enviers.

1:29:43and you have to be aware of that and you have to be strong enough to deal with them. And by not being able to deal with those kind of people, your life can be completely ruined. One awful toxic person, one bad relationship can ruin you for life. You internalize the negative energy. So the ability to stand up for yourself and to be aware and to understand that not everyone has the best intentions, that you're going to be more strategic and not always kind of just accepting what people give you. It was a major source of wisdom for me. And all of my books come from a bit of anger, you know? And I think the reader can feel the anger in them.

1:30:32And anger is kind of an intoxicating emotion. I even talk in the book how it can be a positive emotion. when my writing is angry it's very real and you can feel it so I've been able to take that kind of sense there are people out there who are hurtful and use that anger and turn it into something positive into a book that was sort of the second final truth final truth

1:31:05for the world to know for the world to know

1:31:22well I'd say one thing was kind of related to some of the other things I've said and I did write a book about this but it has to do with the role of fear in my life and what I've been afraid of. And I come from a background of my parents who were kind of anxious, somewhat fearful people, and I tend to internalize that and to worry about what will happen next to whether people will like me. And to the degree that I overcame that fear and did something bold and unusual, I've kind of become more of who I am and kind of achieved things. So I've always been one to confront my fears. Like I have great fears now of walking because if I fall, it's very easy for me to fall.

1:32:26I could be finished. You know, I'll break something and now I can't. My stroke will never, I'll never get over. I've got to get over that and I've got to keep walking and walking, get over my fear. I was afraid of being alone or being in a situation I had no control over. So when I was 22 years old, I went and lived on the island of Crete in Greece with a backpack and sleeping in caves and kind of being alone and sort of cutting myself off from the world was something I had greatly feared. And I kind of overcame that fear. So sort of the ability for me to confront what I'm most afraid of has been a great source of power.

1:33:12I'm not great at it. There's still many fears that haunt me. But instead of kind of giving in to them, always kind of confronting them and moving past them. To confront your fears. Yeah. Wow, that's powerful. Did I cover three? You covered three. These are beautiful. Make sure you guys get this book, The Laws of Human Nature is out right now. Very powerful. I recommend getting a couple copies to give to friends as well because the key to life is relationships. And this is the key to understanding people and understanding how to be better in relationships. So get this book. It's going to transform the way you move through life.

1:33:56We can follow you on Instagram, Twitter. Where do you spend time at or where do you post the most? Well, we have a website in which everything is funneled into. I've had it for years.

1:34:07It's powerseductionandwar.com. Those are my first three books. powerseductionandwar.com. You'll find there a site for mastery and for the new book. Right. And are you spending time on social media at all or no? Yeah. I'm on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. But I'm not as active as I should be, but I'm there. What's your handle on Instagram? We'll find it and link it up, people. Yeah, I don't even know what it is on Twitter. I just have it on my phone. We'll find it. I should have known. It's probably your name. It's okay. Well, I want to acknowledge you. Before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you, Robert, for constantly showing up and creating masterpieces because these books truly transform lives.

1:34:51Millions of people talk about them, read them, and they improve their life because of the information that you obsess over, whether that's good or bad. but your ability to dive into a topic is unbelievable. So I acknowledge you for your care and attention to detail to impact people's lives. Thank you, Liz. I just want to make sure you take care of your health moving forward. That's right. But it's amazing everything you've done. I'm grateful for our friendship over the years. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And just, you know, everything that's happened. I saw you when you were just a little... You were my first episode.

1:35:27So I appreciate you for giving me my first chance. It was an honor. I'm so proud of you and everything you've done. Thank you. Thank you. The final question is, what is your definition of greatness?

1:35:45Well, it's kind of what we've already talked about. And so I feel like everybody has the potential for greatness. And greatness would mean something a little bit larger than what you've already done, for going a little bit beyond what you've already created, going a little bit past your limits. Great implies kind of size and largeness. And so everybody has the potential for greatness. I don't care who you are or the bad circumstances of your childhood. And greatness is realizing your own potential. I don't care what that is. It could be in being the best possible parent. It could be in using your hands and creating some beautiful work of art or some great bit of craftsmanship.

1:36:41It could be in writing a book or creating a great podcast. But it's something larger than what you were 10 years ago. You've expanded your boundaries. You've expanded your own limits. You've pushed them a little bit further. So to me, that's greatness. I made this a circle. I didn't explain it in the book. Because I said, human nature kind of contains us. It creates a limit for us. We can't become a chimpanzee or a sheep. We are human, and this is the limiting factor. but by knowing the laws of human nature you can begin to explore a little bit further out and become something a little bit more you can take your irrational nature and become more reasonable and rational well pushing a little bit past your limits and expanding like a balloon just a little further that's greatness to me not accepting but moving past your own limits well we're great, thank you man thank you Lewis, that was great I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness.

1:37:46Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend, leave us a review over on Apple Podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at Lewis Howes. I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world-class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

1:38:30And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great. No, no, no.