E503 Robert Greene

27:22But, you know, I think I don't have kids, so it's easy for me to say. Oh, yeah, me either. So we're just obviously a couple of grifters yelling at people. Yeah, yeah, right. But no, I do think, though, that there should be something that tells a parent basic things because you can't just assume everyone has the knowledge just because they can conceive a child. That's right. You need to know it. Today's episode is sponsored by PrizePix. That's how you pick them. If you like firing on sports like I do, PrizePix is the best daily fantasy sports app for you. What I like about it is that it's unique.

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32:06Like, how unique is it that a person exists? How unique is an individual? Oh, well, it's something I'm going into in my new book. And I'm trying to tell you how you must realize how strange it is for you to be alive at this moment. I don't know if that's quite what your question is. No, I think it is kind of. How rare is it? Like sometimes I want to be able to remember how rare I am. And not just me. I mean that as a voice of a human. I want to remind myself more often that I am one of one, and not me, but every person. Yeah. Well, the way I try to describe it in my new book, I'm not going to go into the full thing because it'll take hours.

33:01But first of all, the idea that our planet has life on it is incredibly strange and weird. It was like an accident, totally fortuitous. We know billions of other planets that have no life, right? So something snapped 3 billion years ago, 4 billion years ago that we don't understand. Wow. All right. From that point on, life evolved in this weird fashion. And there was this moment about 600 million years ago called the – the word escapes me. It's a period in history. Mesoloic? No, no, no. It's before that. It'll come to me later. 600 million years ago? 600 million years ago suddenly life became complex it'll come to me at some point maybe it's the Cretaceous period Cretaceous Cretaceous suddenly complex life evolved Cambrian explosion Cambrian explosion thank you sir sorry not to cut you off but 600 million years ago the earth experienced an evolutionary event which has never been repeated the Cambrian explosion saw a huge increase in new life forms, many of which lay the foundations for the body plans of all subsequent animal life.

34:15Wow, I've never even heard of that. So yeah, so there's this guy, Stephen Jay Gould, who wrote a book about the Cambrian explosion and how there were these forms of life, and he has pictures in his book, of these really grotesque-looking creatures that lived in the ocean because all life was in water then. And if only one plan survived, which is the plan that all bodies basically have, right, with a head, et cetera, et cetera. But if that hadn't happened and it almost didn't, the strangest, most weird-looking forms of life would be walking around this planet. You have to see these pictures to believe it, right?

34:51Anyway, that happened. Okay, I can go on and on and on. Then there were the dinosaurs. And the dinosaurs disappeared because of, we now know, because of a meteor. What do you call it? Heat or something? No, no, no. A meteor hit the planet Earth. Oh, a Big Bang. Yeah. Or like a meteor wiped everything out. Yeah. It shook the whole thing, huh? About 60 million years ago, right? It ended up to the extinction of dinosaurs. Damn. But that meteor could have easily missed planet Earth. It had shifted just a slight degree. It could have hit somewhere else, but it let it in exactly the spot in the Yucatan Peninsula that caused the greatest amount of damage.

35:35If that hadn't happened, dinosaurs would still be roaming the planet. And then we wouldn't. We wouldn't. Humans, about 80 ,000 years ago, nearly went extinct. There were only about 8 ,000 of us. We had been decimated by various illnesses, et cetera. We very nearly went extinct as a species, okay? So humans surviving all of that, surviving that life evolves, surviving that life evolved in the way that it did, that dinosaurs disappeared, that mammals came on, is extremely unlikely. And then add on to this, Theo, the fact that your parents met and there was a chance that the chance that they met was probably a bit unlikely.

36:16It could have easily been somebody else who was your father, right? And then you would still be you, but you wouldn't be you exactly. It'd be different. Multiply that by 70 ,000 generations going back to the earliest humans. If they hadn't met in a certain way, if they hadn't met each other, you wouldn't be you at all. So the fact that you are here, the odds against it are so astronomical. I say in the book, you must have to sit down on your knees and it's almost like a religion. You must think it is so strange, it is so miraculous, that I'm so grateful that I am who I am. It is incredible. There's a reason for that.

36:57Yeah, I think that's something, yeah, that we all should, yeah, it's like that you were here like you were, there was purpose in you. There was some, the universe chose this. Whoever you are, the universe chose you. Whatever pain, whatever prosperity, whatever this walk is right now, that you were chosen for it. It's like, I feel like it just gives, I don't know if it helps me have some ownership when I'm thinking of myself. I don't know what it does for me, but I think it's important to hear that. Because I think more than ever now, it feels like that individuality is getting lost for how rare we are to exist.

37:47Only some of us have the same fingerprint. None of us have the same fingerprints, right? That's crazy, bro. Yeah. You know? And I think also is this, I think I read that nobody has the same sphincter either, which is, yeah, the 11th fingerprint. Never thought of it that way. Yeah. So that's crazy. Just to think that at both ends, they really got you sealed off, you know, uniquely. Uniquely. But it's definitely just, but I feel like for as unique as we are, we're losing individuality sometimes. And that's a problem that I feel like is going on today. A lot of it is social media. I mean, you don't want to beat that drum too much, but I think there's some truth to it.

38:35We're too much attuned to what other people are doing. And it's hard for us to think about what we want, what makes us different. You know, a lot of young people going to high school. I mean, I remember when I was in high school being weird and different. You could be laughed at. But I think it's much, much worse right now. Really? Yes, I do. I mean, I was kind of a loner in high school. I was a hippie. I had very long hair. Yeah. Did a lot of drugs. Yeah, buddy. Oh, there you are right there, Bobby Green. Robert Green right there. Wow. That's me. That's 19-year-old Robert. Bro, you look like you were looping right there, gooming on some boomers.

39:18Yeah, we were doing a lot of LSD at that time. You could see the tie-dyed sofa behind me. They had a tie-dyed sofa? Yeah, look at that. Look at that thing. Yeah, we were like getting into the Grateful Dead, if you can believe it. Oh, yeah. American Beauty, yeah. That album was out, yeah? Yeah, Working Class Dead was the one. Working Man's Dead was the one that came out just at that time. Who would you take it with by yourself or would you take it with friends? Oh, we took it with friends. Yeah. You really want me to go into this? Yeah. The drug that we really, really, really liked at this point, we're talking about the 70s.

39:54I'm an old dude, man, was peyote. Wow, I never got to do it. It was really big because this was in Berkeley and it was like the trendy thing. There are these buttons from cactus from Mexico or Arizona. and if you ate them, you would be incredibly sick. So you had to pull out all these little hairs so that you could digest them without throwing up. And they tasted absolutely horrible. You had to put them into these tiny little pieces and eat it in like peanut butter or like a milkshake so you didn't have to just swallow it. Man, you'd be tripping like you can't believe it. It was just unbelievable.

40:36Totally transcendent. The most spiritual drug of all. Really? Yeah. How would it get more, like, because spiritual is a unique word to use because LSD would get, like, freaky and weird sometimes. Mushrooms would get more spiritual, I felt like. Definitely. So peyote, you felt like, went even more spiritual than that? I think so. I think so. I mean, I did it probably maybe about a dozen times when I was younger. Yeah. And I've done LSD and I've done, mushrooms are pretty spiritual. God, I'm revealing all this crap of my youth. No, I think it's important. A lot of people do these things, especially psychedelics are coming back more than ever now.

41:14Well, I must say I don't do them anymore. I mean I've tried little tiny micro dosing of mushrooms. I don't do it anymore. But it had a very positive impact on me. It opened my mind to things that I will never forget, right? Experiences that still resonate in my brain that I may not create through drugs but I create through other means I try to return to. spiritual sensations that are very powerful. So those drugs could be used, could be, I say, for very positive purposes. They shouldn't be used just for partying and just for forgetting yourself, but they can be used to open what Aldous Huxley called the doors of perception.

41:55Yeah, that's the biggest thing is just the perception. Because perception is how you change everything about your life. Like, yeah, mushrooms have helped me many times to have perception adjustment, to realize where I was being, not giving myself enough grace or just being to trying to be control things, you know, just to really just have a little more. Because mushrooms is like a sponge, you know, just to add a little bit more space into my into your how you view things or see things. And it could be anything, a relationship. I mean, there's business situations. I mean, they can help so much, I feel like.

42:34And they're being used more than ever, it seems like. Definitely. You know? Because, yeah, I've microdosed before. Microdosing, I'll just like, during the day at one point, I'll just start, I'll see a mosquito and I'll kind of follow him around the house for a minute. Then I'll go back to work. But that's about as weird as it gets. That's pretty damn weird. Yeah, I'm just kind of curious, you know? Yeah. Just doing a little air traffic control. Are you seeing the little ant on the ground there? Yeah, to see where he's going. Yeah. Tell me if you're a scout. Yeah Hey look dude If you're trying to get away From something Blink once You know So how long did peyote last?

43:08Did it last for like a long time? You mean When you took it? Yeah Well It would Like all those drugs You would take effect After about 40 minutes or so Yeah And then It would be very intense For about 4 or 5 hours And then it would kind of wear off It's kind of had the same Sort of span as mushrooms In a way, it just depended on how many buttons you consumed. If you consumed like a dozen buttons, man, you'd be tripping for like several days. I don't think we went that far. Yeah, your damn elevator car at that point, dude. You're going up, bro. But I mean, it has an incredible history among Native Americans and Mexicans.

43:51Yeah, what did they use it for? Can you bring that up, Nick? I want to learn like if there was a distinctive like were they trying to talk to a god? Because I can't imagine the first time they took it, it must have blown their minds. Well, it was the first time people experimented with all kinds of drugs. That fascinates me, how they didn't kill themselves, how they knew that it had that effect. In the late 1800s, the modern-day Native American church was formed, a key part of which is the ingestion of peyote as a religious sacrament during all-night prayer ceremonies. In this context, peyote is not viewed as a drug, but rather as a medicine for healing.

44:26Wow. Yeah. Yeah, that kind of reminds you of how ayahuasca is these days. It is, very much so. I've never done it. I think ayahuasca sounds even more intense. Yeah, so I don't know, but I think it's similar to that, yeah. I've had some good experiences with it. For me, it's been very therapeutic. Oh, really? Yeah, I don't think of it as a drug, and I understand if other people do, that's fine. I think of it as a medicinal drug, but I don't think of it as a party. You know, it's very painful to go sit there and you go through the filing cabinet of who you are. and pull out some files and kind of burn them in a way.

45:02I don't know. I'm a little bit frightened about that myself at my age. Oh, you could rock in there, I think. You think so? Yeah. I find it to be actually not super invasive. I could get up and go pee or go get a snack in the kitchen and then go sit back down and drop back into the meditation. Really? Yeah, and I felt very okay with that. Well, I don't consider it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, how do you feel like we're like, well, one thing that I worry about with society today is since we watch so much of each other, right. We're never spending that time, like getting to know ourselves kind of, we're not, you know, I remember you used to just lie around all the time and sure.

45:40It seemed like you were bored, but your brain was like maybe coming up slowly building ideas or, you know, forming like, um, thoughts or hopes, dude. I remember you used to be able to hope so much because you would hope you would see this girl across town or you would hope that she was going to be at summer camp or there was just no way to know everything. So you had so much hope all the time. And, um, now you just, there's so much information that I feel like it's taken away a lot of hope, but I feel like even more so that, and I don't want to be like Debbie Downer where there's still hope, but I feel like it's subdued hope.

46:16Um, but I feel like if you're If we're always watching stuff, then do we start to just mimic it instead of being individual? That's what I worry about. Do you think that's possible? Like if we're always—do we become more mimics than creators? And has it always been that way, do you think? No, I think things are getting worse. Of course, I don't know. I don't have—I can't see everything, but my feeling is it is getting worse. I mean, you know, I do believe that there is something, as vague as the word is, that is like a soul that a person has. And that soul is connected to who you are as an individual.

46:58Like you're kind of born with it, right? And when you know who you are, when you go deep into it, when you connect to things that you really love, when you connect to your memories from childhood, to things that make you different, that soul's kind of alive. It feels alive. It feels vibrant. It feels right. Yeah. The feeling of rightness, which is something people don't understand. Some things feel right. Some things don't. Okay. And I know for myself, and I'm guilty of it, if I spend an hour on Instagram chasing this thing or that thing or wasting my time on this website or whatever, I have this feeling like a bit of my soul was sucked out of me.

47:41Yes. That I kind of lost something. that I'm just this kind of machine that's just processing data, and I'm not a human being anymore. And I feel that soul kind of, it's like a vapor that's escaping me, right? Yeah, I feel like they got me. They tricked me. The second I set it down, I feel like it almost takes a couple of seconds for you to get out of this trance in a way. It is a trance. You're like, dang, they tricked me. They did. They did trick me, yeah. Because a lot of the algorithms and just the entertainment value of it is so strong. Sure, it's entertaining, but with all the time you spend doing that or that I or anybody spends, it's time that I feel like you could be doing things that would get me to know myself better.

48:27Yeah. But that's what I'm wondering, are the scales of that other stuff getting so heavy? so, like, have they narrowed the algorithm so cleanly with everything, the pornography? It's taken away so many, like... It's frightening. It's frightening. That's what I wonder. Do you feel like there is a way for that? Is it just a cycle and there's a way out of that? Well, the possible optimistic scenario, which I don't know will happen, is that human beings to have a spirit and that will get so disgusted with it that will rebel, that a young generation will evolve, probably not Gen Z, probably three or four generations from now, that will find it so lifeless and so, you know, sick, but, you know, so unfruitful, not giving them anything, that they will rebel and they will be angry and they'll say, screw all this crap, I want to go back to something else.

49:26I want to go back to something in the past or whatever, however far back. Or I want to create something new. A real revolution of sorts, a consciousness revolution. That can happen because human beings have that capacity. And it's happened before in history where we've gone through these cycles of kind of our soul disappearing. Really? Yes, definitely. And people kind of going crazy and moments of chaos, yeah. Does one come to mind? Well, I mean, think of the people that have succumbed to things like Nazism or those kind of things where they're mass hallucinations and being drugged. Yeah. And the Germans now, I mean, however, you might not like Germans.

50:09I don't know. I mean, they're nice people. I'm fine with them. I'm fine with them. I don't know all of them. But they're not like that anymore, right? So they emerged from that. That's a good point. But it's kind of mass hallucinations sort of thing. But there were periods, I'm going to get kind of wonky here, but I believe it was the third century or fourth century BC in Greece where they went through this incredible crisis where their belief, their gods, all that was disappearing. People who didn't believe in it anymore. There was a crisis. Human beings need to believe in something. They need to believe in something larger than themselves.

50:45And when they don't, things can get really nasty and chaotic and soulless. and I think that's sort of what we're going through right now. That's kind of what I'm writing about in my new book. But I think people will find their way back to it. It'll take young people who get disgusted with this kind of mechanical culture that we have. Will that happen? I don't know. These algorithms, as you say, are insanely powerful. Yeah, it's like we're really up against this darkness that we've created, which is kind of fascinating too. It has very much a story. It's like all the stories. It's like the perfect story.

51:26It's like you create the Frankenstein. It really is. When it comes to individuality, right, what is a good way for people to start to get to know themselves? Does it make sense to you what I'm asking, Kevin? Yeah, it does. Well, I keep coming back to something that I tell a lot of people I think is very important is the desire to know yourself. So people are very good at faking it. And you could be out there listening and go, yeah, I kind of want to know myself better. Okay, let me get online and just forget about it because the other forces are stronger than them. You have to have a level. You know that if you're in recovery, a level of disgust.

52:08You have to hit bottom. You have to go, I don't want to be like this anymore. I want to find out who I am. I want to touch that core of individuality that I know is still within me, that soul that I believe is still there. You have to have the desire. If there's no desire there, if you're just mimicking, if you're just saying it just for the sake of it, because it sounds good, I can't help you. But if it's still there, yeah, you want to start by, I mean, the many paths you can take, a very good path is to take a journal and start journaling, right? And writing down your thoughts and writing down your dreams.

52:45And when I say that, I say, don't do it on a computer. I mean, I know a lot of young people don't know how to handwrite anymore, but pick up a pen. I still handwrite a lot of things. Pick up a pen and a journal and write it down. Dreams, I know this sounds woo-woo, but it's not. Dreams are really powerful, very interesting. They're going to tell you a lot about yourself, right? It's going to tell you about those journeys your brain takes at night that are pretty fantastical. You write that down. You go back into your childhood and you go, what was it that made me so different, that was so weird about me?

53:22What was it that I was attracted to? As you go through that process, things will start coming up. It's like you're digging, you're excavating. You're an archaeologist into your own past. Yeah, it's like using a brush and brushing off and you see a little bit of bone and then you're like, what other questions can I ask around here that might help? help me remove a little more dirt. Yeah. And memories will come up like your memory when you're two years old and your brother popping up his head. Things will start coming back to you. And you'll start connecting to who you were when you were young and you're connecting to who you were as an adolescent.

53:55Adolescence is an extremely important part of our life. It really is almost the most formative part. It's where we really made that turn into this or into that, right? And I find returning to your adolescence, returning to those strong, powerful emotions that you felt, those sexual things that were just so overwhelming. Yeah. Those other things that were happening. Returning to that because people, psychologists have studied that is the period when you feel what makes you different the most. Right? It's when you feel the most rebellious, when you understand, this is who I am. I'm not like my parents.

54:37You're 13, you're 14, all of a sudden you go, I don't have to be like mom or dad. In fact, I want to be totally different. Adolescence is like a really key thing to go deep into. That will show you a lot about your individuality, about who you are, and about who you've become. So it's a process, and it should be a very exciting process. Right, right. You shouldn't look at, yeah, that's the thing. If you look at it, it's like, oh, shit, I got to do this. But to carve out a little time where you're like, yeah, let me think. Whatever some things, look at old photos and stuff like that. Really look at yourself a little bit like you're studying something.

55:12Even listen to the music that you liked, however embarrassing that might be. Yeah. You know? Yeah, what'd you listen to, man? Remember the first song that you heard? I can't go. But I think I was four years old or so, and my sister, who's four years older than me, had a Beatles album. Yeah. And it was, I mean, this is, I'm older than you. Abbey Road? No, God, no. I'm almost so much older than that. It was like, meet the Beatles. And it was the song, I Saw Her Standing There, I think the single. And I thought, wow, this is so weird. This is so different. It's hard for people to imagine because the Beatles seem sort of cliched now.

55:53But when that sound first came out, I was like, there is nothing else like this out there. It's amazing. It's fantastic. And I remember my grandmother was there, and she couldn't understand it. She thought it was awful. And I thought it was the most amazing thing. I think that was the first song I can remember, I can recall. Yeah. Yeah, I remember my mom used to play Brian Adams all the time and make us clean the house to it. And then she would sometimes abuse us if we didn't clean up good. But Brian Adams, wow. Yeah, it was a bit. It was kind of crazy. But then what else would we all – oh, yeah, I've told this story before.

56:29But the first – a camp counselor, a woman, picked me up and took me to camp one day because my mom couldn't take me in summer camp. And she reached over and put my seatbelt on me. And it was like the first time that like a woman, like other, I guess, than my mother had been near me. Oh, wow. And then she put on Bon Jovi. Wow. And I was like, what is going on, dude? Are we married? Wow. How old were you? I was probably eight, seven or eight. And I'm sure I'd heard something before that, but nothing that, you know, this moment, that was the first song I remember hearing and being like, yeah, I want to hear that song again.

57:10Wow. But yeah, I think it was because there was a, you know, maybe because there was a woman there or something, but that was something that I remembered. what was it uh you know in a lot of your books you have the art of seduction you have um you have 48 laws of power you have mastery uh you're always like looking at yourself and finding ways it seems like to encourage the most out of oneself yeah um how did that kind of begin for Were you like, what was there like a period in your time where you're like, I got like, I wasn't my best self or I'm not going to let this happen to me again. Like, what was that trigger kind of for you?

57:54Well, there were many triggers. so I was out of college I decided to go into journalism because I needed to make a living I wanted to write but I had to support myself I was living in New York and I was very poor at the time I had a very low level job and it wasn't connecting to me I felt like something was wrong I didn't like the fact that you would write something and then the next day you'd be on to something else it was totally forgotten it didn't last and I was into something because I love history. If it doesn't last more than 24 hours, what's the point? It should last like 12 years, 20, 100 years.

58:36What you write should have some weight to it. I felt wrong, so I left it. I wandered around Europe for about four or five years. Sometimes I was with a backpack. I worked in a hotel in Paris. I did construction work in Greece because I ran out of money. I taught English in Barcelona. I worked in a crappy television show in London. I led a tour guide thing in Dublin, Ireland, trying to write novels. And I was starving. It's like a John Irving story, it almost seems like. It was. It was like it's such a cliche. I was a cliche of the American, the young American trying to write a novel. I had amazing experiences, you know, experiences that seeded all of my books.

59:21but nothing happened and I was lonely and I was depressed and I felt like something was wrong. Were you basing your achievement on something? What do you think you were looking for in that? Because it sounds like a searching kind of time. Well, I was trying to write a novel but I couldn't write it. It wasn't happening. My mind wasn't – I don't think I would have been a good novelist because I'm too much into ideas and my novels were just like these kind of big kind of sticks with a big idea on it that you were supposed to read about. It didn't have life to, I think I could do it now, but something was wrong about it.

59:58And I couldn't earn a living off of it. You know, I was on my own. I had to earn a living. I didn't want to be doing all these crap jobs my whole life. So I came back to LA where I'm from. My father wasn't well. And I got a job in Hollywood thinking that's, this is the golden path, money, writing, glamour, you know whatever you would the dream fancy yeah cocaine women all of that yeah and none of it happened it was i wasn't it wasn't well i mean i had the way i had the cocaine and all that stuff i didn't have the success and all the other stuff but none of the none of the really stuff i was after and so to answer your question nothing was going right nothing was quite fitting right and i I had a moment I was getting kind of desperate, and my girlfriend was saying, you know, maybe you got to stop like trying to cut, have it both ways, where you have your writing, your creativity, and then you have earning a living.

1:01:00Maybe you can't have both. So she said, I always wanted to write plays and theater and stuff. So she said, go ahead and do that. and that was a kind of a turning point where I'm going to stop trying to just be this person that other people wanted me to be and I'm going to follow what excites me even though I can't make a living in it and that was a very important part it meant like yeah I can I can do something that's kind of fun and maybe it will turn into something well it's the same thing you talk about in mastery too, kind of that we were talking about earlier. Yeah. And then, so sometimes fate has its weird ways of operating.

1:01:39Just as after I had done that, writing the plays, we put them on here in Los Angeles. We performed them. I acted in them. She directed them. We did all the work ourselves. Very strange plays. Right after that, I met this man in Italy who offered me the chance to write a book and something clicked in me going, Robert, all the bad choices in your life, all the mistakes, everything can turn on this moment, right? You can go from being this kind of loser in your one bedroom apartment in Santa Monica. You could somehow turn this around. A book? Wow, I never thought of that before. Not a novel, but a nonfiction book.

1:02:20I see. So you'd never really take, you'd never consider that. Of course not. If you're thinking of fiction, you're thinking of like the, you know, the F. Scott Fitzgerald, you're thinking of like a magnificent piece, you know, on the road with Caroway, you know, you're thinking of something that's going to change the tides, you know? Exactly. But then you're like, oh, damn, I'm like a nerd book. Exactly. But I'm kind of a strange individual, I have to say, for better or worse, because until I was 38, it was for the worst, right? And my parents were getting really worried about me. But when I had the chance to write The 48 Laws of Power, my first book, I made it a book that's not like anything else out there, right?

1:03:03Yeah. Because I'm sure it's something you've done in your comedy. There's nobody else out there like Theo Vaughn. You're unique. I made the book look weird, feel weird. Nothing about it was like anything else. It was dark. It was kind of like language was a little bit strong. It was controversial. It even looks biblical almost, this one. That one, yeah. This copy. The coolest thing is the face that's in this. There's two faces. Oh, is one of them Benjamin Franklin, one of them's you? Oh, no, wait, one of them's Henry, uh, Henry, uh. No, it's Machiavelli. Oh, Machiavelli. And me. I was thinking it was a guy from Black Flag.

1:03:40You know who that is, Henry? Henry Rollins? Yeah. It looks like Henry Rollins? A little bit. You mean me or Machiavelli? Well, unfortunately, Machiavelli. Oh, okay. You still look like you, but you look handsome. Henry Rollins is a lot more, yeah, I know. He's a lot beefier than I am. He's different than us, man. He's more intimidating. Yeah, maybe he's more intimidating. Is he still alive? What happened to him? I think he lives, I believe actually that he lives in Tennessee, yeah. Oh. I've heard that. Yeah, I heard he moved to Nashville. Yeah, I heard that he moved to Nashville. I would love to meet him sometime.

1:04:10Some of my friends have worked with him. I think he's a very interesting guy. And there's Machiavelli now. I don't see a resemblance really there. Yeah. Maybe, maybe the eyes, yeah. Yeah, maybe the eyes. They each have two eyes.

1:04:24Thank you. That's a good one. Thank you for trying to support me there, Robert. Took me a little while to hear the catch on. It took me a while, too. I didn't realize it was a joke until after I said it. But so then at that point, that's you kind of like realizing something's different here. There's this voice that says, this could be something for you. You need to follow this. and was it hard for you to start to make that happen for yourself? Well, as I said, I was 38 years old. I hadn't really amounted to anything. And this guy, Joost Elfers, who's the producer of the book, he offered me this chance.

1:05:06I pitched to him what turned out to be the 48 Laws of Power. He got so excited. So what happened was I went home to L.A. and I go, So Robert, it was before 50 Cent coined the expression, but it's either get rich or die trying here, right? You either make this book work or you're just going to be floundering the rest of your life, right? So I was so motivated. I was so hungry and desperate that this had to be it, that I put everything I had into it. And it's hard for me to understand now because it took two years to write. Now it takes me five years to write a damn book. All that research, all the creating something that hadn't been out there before, I don't know how I did it.

1:05:55But all I can say is there was something else inside of me that was so hungry that it made it happen. So there wasn't any like I can't do this kind of thing. It was like if I don't do it, that's it. I have in one book in my book on strategy and warfare, this thing that I call death ground strategy. It's a great expression. It comes from Sun Tzu. And it's if your back is to the ocean or your back is against a mountain and you're fighting the enemy, you're going to fight with 10 times the energy because it's either conquered them or you're going to die. Right? So you put yourself on death ground.

1:06:36You either succeed or terrible things will happen. you find energy that you hadn't believed you had. You'll find creativity that you hadn't believed you had. Did you lock yourself in a hole or something? Did you create that scenario for yourself? Did you change your habits? Because it seems like you have to really change your habits to produce something that... Well, I had good work habits, and I had learned how to research. But one thing my girlfriend did was, I had this cat who just would never leave me alone. Oh, yeah. He was so attached to me. And quite honestly, he probably made it so I couldn't write a book.

1:07:15So she created this table, this very thin table that would fit right in here on the chair. I could put my laptop on. He couldn't get on it. Oh, it wasn't enough space for him. No. Wow. And that allowed me to write the book. Damn, dude. They say a cat also, and I'll tell you because I know this, But a cat will, if you die, a cat will start eating, will probably start eating your face within like 48 hours. That's very nice to hear. Thank you for sharing that. You're welcome. I'm not going to look at my cat the same way now. But I just want to let you know. So don't be shocked that they want to stop you from writing a book.

1:07:54Okay. Okay. He wanted to eat me, you're saying? I'm just saying they're playing a long game. Okay. You know what I'm saying? They want to ruin it all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, they're just – yeah, you know, they're just saving face, you know, by trying to get you to think that writing a book is the issue. But that's so – it's like – but that's such a – that's almost such a metaphor. Like I'm going to make a table that a cat can't get on and that way I'll be able to write my book. We still have the table. It's really cool looking. She made it – she painted it. She made these like kind of backgammon signs on it.

1:08:29It was really cool. Oh, that's super cool. Yeah. What a neat – that's a – That's a fascinating little piece of information. Yeah, yeah. Did you feel more powerful after the book? Well, I couldn't have felt less powerful because I had no power really up until then. But you don't know because a lot of things fail in life, right? Oh, yeah. And the book could have flopped easily because it was so different and weird. And so I had no idea. But then suddenly it starts selling well and I'm getting, you know, the press was pretty good. And I remember in early 1999, I was invited to Italy for a book tour.

1:09:14And this was like the strangest moment of my life probably. I don't know if you know at Disneyland, they have Mr. Toad's Wild Ride where it's like he goes on this really weird adventure and it kind of blows your mind if you're like four years old. this was like my Mr. Toad's Wild Ride because suddenly I was invited to this conference where I was mingling with Italian politicians where paparazzi were following me around and taking my photograph I went, well who am I? but this was the land of Machiavelli and the 48 Laws of Power seemed really great to them, right? so suddenly I'm starting to realize well maybe this book has legs, maybe something will happen Then a couple of years later in Playboy magazine, there's an interview with Jay-Z and Jay-Z quotes the 48 Laws of Power.

1:10:05Wow. I would go, wow. It's like infiltrating that far. That's pretty interesting. And slowly, slowly the hip hop world, more and more and more, you know, meeting 50 Cent. People were coming to me for advice. Me that was always giving advice before I wrote the book, but nobody would ever listen to me. Now, they were coming to me for advice about their businesses, et cetera, et cetera. I got put on the board of directors for the company American Apparel. It was like being on acid. It was so weird because I had had so little success before that. If you have success when you're 23, it kind of spoils you and you think that this is what life should be like.

1:10:49I had so much loneliness. I had so much not being able to pay bills. I had so much frustration and depression that when it happened, it was like, man, this is like, I'm like on a drug. It's fantastic. Yeah, because the odds, the odds of that are slim. They are very slim. Very slim. The odds of that are slim. I'm very grateful. And did you feel like you had found mastery, though, or did you just felt like you had found your calling? Did you feel like you just got fortunate? Did you write it? Sorry. Yeah, that's the question. And I think it's three questions. Well, you know, there's luck involved in anything.

1:11:35So meeting this man who produced the book, I was in Italy. It could have not happened very easily. We could have not taken the walk that we'd taken, and I would have never improvised the idea that came to me. So you met a man and took a walk? Yeah. in Venice. We were walking. It was a beautiful day. I was in a good mood. And I pitched this book idea. And I pitched other ideas, which he didn't like, but he liked that idea. Anyway, that's a slender, slender thread that the whole thing hangs upon. Right. Me going to Italy, this man also being there, us taking this walk, me being in a good mood, me improvising it.

1:12:14Okay. But it's just as unique as going back to how people are created, how an idea, how something magnificent happens, how something unique happens, that this had to happen. Your grandparents had to meet each other on a ship or somebody had to be a slave or somebody had to work at a Chick-fil-A or whatever. It's like there's all these little things. Right. Twists of fate. Yeah, just twists of fate. Sorry, go on. So, you know, if that hadn't happened, there wouldn't be any book. But on the other hand, I might have – there's some feeling that I don't know if people out there can relate to, but some way I had a feeling like it was meant to happen.

1:13:00That something about me or him drew us together and that all of those bad experiences in life, all of the really awful bosses that I had, and I had some really bad ones, right? Roger, too. I had this guy, Roger. Roger, what was he? He was just, he was a damn deviant, dude. He would make us work and he would sit in his car also and smoke weed a lot of the time. Where's Roger now? That's a good question. I know his wife left him. I'm not sure. Okay. But he also was, he did lead our company bowling team or whatever. So that was like the one redeeming thing he did. Well, that's pretty impressive. It was nice of him to do.

1:13:46So he bought us all jerseys and everything. But anyway, go on. Sorry. I'm sorry. Well, that's a great story. Anyway, so. What other books did you pitch him that day? You shouldn't ask that question. I remember, so I really was into Louis XIV for whatever reason. Yeah, I'm from Louisiana, so. Oh, okay. Yeah. There you go. Yeah, Louisiana Purchase. Roulez le bon temps. Hey. Bon temps, don't, don't, you know. Les bon temps, roulez. Yeah. That's what they say, right? Exactly. so uh i pitched an idea about how weird how different people were in the court of louis the 14th like what their psychology was but it was kind of related to the 48 laws of power but this other idea that i pitched was i had read this book about nonsense and kind of it was called The Philosophy of Nonsense.

1:14:55It's a very kind of theoretical book, but it was all about how nonsense could be actually kind of revolutionary. To take words and to kind of make you think that there's a meaning, but there's no meaning kind of excited me, right? Yeah, because it activates a part of your brain that's not a common path. Yeah. Yeah. Sort of like some of the things in Lewis Carroll, like in Alice in Wonderland. Right, like you're falling through a hole in the ground and come up into a new universe, like world. Yeah, like ridiculous walking into mirrors. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Change of perception. Exactly. So I was pitching him an idea about nonsense, but it would be kind of a popular book that would sort of show how nonsense can be kind of a powerful force, can be very poetic and exciting.

1:15:39That idea didn't fly. Those are the ones I can remember. Yeah. But, hey, that's what it takes, man. That's what it takes to get something that does fly. Yeah. You know? But, you know, I think it was – so what I was saying is all the horrible bosses I had, all the bad experiences. I worked in a detective agency briefly here in Los Angeles, actually in Pasadena. For PI, private – Well, it was a firm. What is PI? That's private investigator. I wasn't a dick. I wasn't a gumshoe. I was what's called a skip tracer. and it was one of the worst jobs I ever had where basically, you know, some guy in Wisconsin jumps bail or owes this company this amount of money.

1:16:29I'm sitting in an office on the telephone trying to find him. That's what literally means skip trace. You're tracing where he skipped and they give you like these dialogues you're supposed to follow. You call his mother up and you pretend to be a high school buddy of his. You do some research. You went to Kenosha High School and you do little research things you can say to kind of bullshit your way. And I was very good at bullshitting. And I would kind of do that. And she'd say, oh, he's, he's, you know, she'd give you a clue. Yeah. Then you would find him. And then they would, you know, get the guy and they'd get him to pay.

1:17:05I felt so awful. Yeah. I was like helping the law. Yeah. By these poor suckers. You were kind of a, yeah, you weren't a snitch, but you was like. Kind of. Yeah, he was like an undercover kind of guy on the phone. Yeah. Not a cop, yeah. And I had the worst boss there. I hated that son of a bitch. Anyway, all of those people went into the 48 Laws of Power. I kind of got my little digs into them because they sort of inspired some of these awful laws that I ended up creating. Yeah, was some of the 48 Laws of Power written with like vengeance? Was it written like, yeah. A little bit. I think you have to have something like that.

1:17:43You have to have a fire. I was angry. Yeah. Were you angry at the world? Were you angry at circumstance, do you think? Because I get angry a lot. I try to think about what I'm angry at. It's hard for me to sometimes know what it is. It is hard to know what it is, what's like really underneath it. Because you can't be superficially angry, but there's something else underneath that's gnawing at you. I think I was angry at people's bullshit about people pretending to be something that they're not. is what really angers me and what angered me about Hollywood. I don't know your relationship to Hollywood.

1:18:17I hate Hollywood. Oh, good. Thank you. Well, people pretending to be these liberal, wonderful people in favor of all the best causes out there to create art, what bullshit? They wanted power. They loved having the power over people, right? Producers and directors loved the power they had over actresses, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so I had a law in there about get other people to do the work but always take the credit, which is one of the nastier laws. That's what happened to me a lot of times in Hollywood. I would do the work. I would write all the dialogue, et cetera, in some screenplay.

1:18:57I wouldn't get any credit at all. So I was kind of like turning it around and telling people this is how the world works. People will get you to do things and they'll put their name on it kind of thing. So is some of it not as much with 48 Laws is not as much telling people to do these things, but making people aware of things. It's almost like making people aware of different clocks that tick in time, but that aren't necessarily timekeeping clocks, but just clocks of like how things work. Does that make any sense? Almost, huh? Almost. There's something there. Thanks. I can think about it. I feel like it started off good.

1:19:36I'm going to go to bed thinking about that. There is something there. It's different. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's not all how to do things as much as some of them can be warnings or awareness. Well, there's a law in there about play on people's need to believe to create a cult-like following. And the idea is that there are a lot of cults out there. Yeah, there's a lot of cults. Definitely 30 Seconds to Mars, I think, is one. What's that? It's a band, I guess. It's also like a GPS estimate, I guess, if you drive a space shuttle or something. Excuse my ignorance. Yeah, no, I'm just joking. It's Jared Leto and his brother's band.

1:20:16I'm just joking. Oh, Jared Leto, okay. I am joking, but people always say that it's a cult. Oh. But yeah, there's a lot of different cults out there. Yeah, so I'm not telling you to go out and create a cult. Right. Although you could if you wanted to. I'm saying that you might be in a cult right now. And here's how to recognize when you're in a cult. These are the things that people do to kind of trap you into a cult. They create like an us versus them dynamic. While there's an enemy out there that's trying to destroy you, better stay inside here where it's us. And then they create, like they use numbers a lot.

1:20:48Like this is the fifth level of the sixth domain that you have reached. Then you know, brother, you're in a cult. That's what you're hearing that. So it's not so much like go out there and create this cult, but like maybe you're in one and here's how to recognize it. Yeah, dude, that's hilarious, man. Especially now with the media, it's like it's definitely become cult-like behavior, you know, and with their force over society. What do you think has more effect on us these days, our government or our media? Like who's a bigger power, Hollywood or the government? Well, Hollywood, and you're also saying like tech, the tech world, like social media, I'd say they have more power.

1:21:37I mean, I don't know what the numbers would be. I'd have to say like 70 % and 30 % would be the government. Yeah. I mean, at this point, though, it's reaching a point where the government and the media are kind of becoming one. Oh, right. I'll tell you a story. So I'm at the mall the other day in Century City in Los Angeles, right? West Los Angeles kind of. I'm in there. A construction guy walks through. He's like, Dio, what's up? So I start talking to him, and he's like, dude, guess what we're building? I'm like, I don't know. I thought maybe it could have been like a Hardee's or something. He's like, we're building like a 20-story building, and 10 floors of it are the CIA and the other 10 floors are a management company, Hollywood management company.

1:22:26Oh, wow. That's pretty spot on, right? I was like, you gotta be kidding me. He goes, bro, I wish I was joking with you. He's like, that is exactly who's gonna be in the building. Yeah. Exciting, because I was like, who's gonna be in the building? He's like, you're never gonna believe it. I'm like, wow. I used to be, I might still be, I don't think I am. I was with CAA and they were trying to make movies out of my books. And you go to that building and they call it like the Death Star. I forget. Maybe that's the name of it. And there are like, you know, politicians who are being represented by CAA, athletes, tech bros, influencers, right?

1:23:08So that's where all of that kind of, yeah, there's the Death Star. Yeah. Cool looking building. Their building is awesome looking. Yeah. It's pretty frightening, though, when you go inside. It's like all these people, everyone's like wearing a suit. Yeah. It's almost like Dianetics. What's that called again? Scientology? It's almost like Scientology. Like Scientology? Hollywood's version of Scientology. Yeah. Anyway, thank you. Yeah, that's a pretty building, though. um yeah so it's i it feels like there is emerging these days of the government and social media to me social media is definitely the power oh for sure that's what it's like that's all the influence i mean the government couldn't even keep the post office open you know i mean damn dude like the post office is crazy dude you can go in there and just ask for mail and they'll give you some mail, bro.

1:24:09Oh, really? Yeah, you don't even have to have any. They're just like, here's some mail for you. Oh, you try that. Yeah, it's gotten way... Yeah, they really lowered the bar on rules or whatever. Yeah, but the technology people, they've read all of the books on marketing, on psychology, you know, Mark Zuckerberg. They figured the whole thing out. Yeah. They know how to move us around like little puppets on a string, you know, So, um, yeah, I wonder if we'll get to a point in, uh, I have to pee, do you or not? I have to pee. You do? You go pee and then I'll pee after you. Okay. But I wanted to ask you all, do you think like Hollywood has like an agenda, like that it's an organized agenda that they try and create through their art?

1:25:01Or do you think that's just like a conspiracy theory where people, that art just imitates It's life, and that's just the way things are. Are you talking about the movie industry? Are you talking about tech? Are you talking about which aspect of it? That's a good question. Are you talking about video games? I guess I would probably talk more about the movie industry. Well, to me, for my being inside the belly of the beast, so to speak, is it's really all about money. I mean, there's so much money involved and at stake. that's really the motor that drives everything in Hollywood. People may pretend it's about creating art or supporting this cause or that cause.

1:25:47But when you bring it all down, it's about making money. I'm sorry. It's capitalism. Yeah, and that's what generates what they choose to make movies about. So for a while, it was all the franchise movies, the Mission Impossibles. Then it was all the Marvel movies because they need to sell their products abroad. If it sells in China, they make a killing. Right. If they can make one thing that sells to everybody, then it's like that's a super home run, whereas if they make one thing that sells just to people in a certain region of America, that's more of like a single or a bunt. Right. So that's what generates their mojo.

1:26:27That's why they make the things they make. So you don't want too much dialogue because if it's like in India or China, you have to do all the subtitles. It doesn't work. Just a lot of action, a lot of people beating each other up, a lot of explosions. So it's money and then comes the art. Then it comes, well, do we actually film? That's how they think. I'm pretty damn sure of it. Yeah. So I don't think there's like a conspiracy to like move a certain agenda. Although, you know, there is a kind of certain woke quality, excuse me, that I won't deny that permeates it. Yeah. Right? But it's more about, you know, they would drop the woke stuff tomorrow if they could make more money doing something else.

1:27:15It's just about what's going to bring the bucks and big bucks because that's what Hollywood's all about. And Hollywood needs proof. So Hollywood, I feel like, is always a little behind the times in a lot of ways unless they do something indie. because they really need proof that something is going to bring in the money. Yeah. So still they start to see like a swing in like ticket sales or streams or views. Then they are just riding whatever the previous few years were. Well, it used to be 30, 40 years ago when there was independent film that you could have somebody like a Jim Jarmusch, you know.

1:27:53Who was it? Huh? Jim Jarmusch. Who was it? Bring him up. Yeah, bring up Jim Jarmusch, please. He was a really interesting film director. He might have been from the South in like the 80s and 90s. Let's bring him up. Yeah, Jimmy Jarmusch, baby. But what were some of his movies? He did that movie with Tom Waits that I really like. I haven't seen that. Down by Law? Huh? Down by Law? Down by Law, thank you, yeah. Thanks, Zach, for saying that, Down by Law. Put that on the list of things to watch, too. Yeah, it's a really interesting movie. Tom Waits is the only time I've ever seen him act. Yeah. Are you a Tom Waits fan?

1:28:30No. Okay. Well, that's all right. I won't give you that. Cripple Creek, was that him? No, that's somebody else. That's the band. That's the band, yeah. Oh, the Wait, I'm thinking of. That's also the band. That's the band. Tom Waits. Bring him up. Decent guy. Oh, he's fantastic. Do I know him? Oh, wait. Tom Waits, dude? Yeah. Dude, I know Tom Waits. Yeah. Yeah, I'm a fan of him, dude. I freaking know him. Oh, yeah. Show me another picture of him. Yeah. Wow. He used to play, I think, with my buddy Josh Kelly. Uh-huh. Tom Waits, dude. Yeah. What's up, Tom? He's one of my heroes from, like, I loved his music.

1:29:18Is he dead? Oh, he didn't know he was Jewish. Whoa. He lives in California now. No, he's still alive. Oh, thank God. I'll text him then. Yeah, please say hello. That's cool, dude. Yeah, I went and I think he performed on a show with my buddy Josh, with a musician friend of mine one time. He's amazing. He's amazing. Yeah, with Josh Kelly. That's cool, man. So anyway, so back in the day, you'd have these like weird independent filmmakers like even Jonathan Demme or Jim Jarmusch. and they would create something weird and different. Then it would start a trend. People would start doing independent films like that, kind of even films in black and white, et cetera, et cetera.

1:30:09But now you can't make a movie for a million dollars or half a million dollars like you could back then. Now you need at least$10,$20 million to even begin to think about making a movie. Well, to make a big movie. To make any movie. You think so? Yeah, because the costs have just gone way, way up. Like, just to even think, because my wife, she's an independent filmmaker, right? And she used to make her own films that she would kind of raise the funds with. She could shoot a film for a million dollars. It's not possible now anymore. So, yeah, I mean, I think you probably at least probably have to have maybe five million dollars.

1:30:50At least. Okay. At least. That I'll agree on. And they won't fund it. Right. They're not going to fund it. Yeah. It's definitely hard. We've been trying to get a movie made for a while. And I, David Spade and I wrote a movie. And it's not a super expensive film. And it's been a nightmare. And so that's why sometimes it's like, I wonder, well, it's like, do they just not like us? Is that why like William Morris won't help us make this thing? You know, like, why would it, you know, like, you know, I don't know. I don't want to get petty in it. I don't feel petty, but it's like, why wouldn't they invest in it?

1:31:24Well, what would happen is if you made your$5 million movie with David Spade, it could very well set a trend. It could very well make$80 million and be huge. But they don't want to take the risk. They're so scared. Their balls are so scrunched up in a little, you know, and they're just so afraid and timid that they only want to do what they know is a slam dunk where they can make a lot of money because their lives are on the line. It's such a precarious world now, Hollywood. It's not doing very well. They're in kind of a crisis stage right now because of streaming, because it's so competitive.

1:31:57It's really hard to make money. So they're not willing to take risks. And this is a problem that's happening in America in all fields. The amount of risk takers now is shrinking, shrinking, shrinking because people are so afraid. See, that's it. And that in a way is also taking away our individuality. because if we don't take risks, if there's not enough space to take a risk or someone isn't brave enough or willing or is able to make it happen, it's not always bravery. A lot of people, it's not feasible based on their life, and it's okay if they can't take a risk. But you need those people. You do need those people.

1:32:39You need those people for things to change, to start a new curve. Yeah, that's really interesting, man. And thinking about what you just said a second ago, I had a friend of mine is a publicist. And he was saying the other day, he's like, man, Hollywood's just nobody's making a lot of things, you know, like like last year. I think Sony Pictures only made like 12 movies last year. Really? You know, that's crazy. I think this year there's they're on slate to make like 20 or 25. A lot of that had to do with the strike. Right. Oh, that's a good point, too. but to think that like probably 10 years ago, they probably made a hundred movies, you know?

1:33:18And if you can bring up any numbers on that, that'd be great. If you see anything, let me know. But yeah, he was that. Well, one of the problems also, I think with Hollywood is you have like, oh, nepotism is, is, is alive and well in America overall. So I think you get, I don't know if this is true, but I feel like you get people that are just, now it's the children of people, it's their sons. The creativity, the guy moving from Dubuque, Iowa with a great idea isn't coming here anymore because they're giving that job to somebody's kid. And you start to lose creativity because the creativity isn't going to come there after a while because it's not nurtured.

1:34:04Yeah, yeah. You know? I mean, there is a possibility. There is some hope that it's so cheap to make a movie with your iPhone, right? The means of making a movie could be you could go out there if you're some 20-year-old kid and you have a really interesting weird idea and you just go ahead and make it. Oh, totally. You could create a trend. But the problem is a lot of people are afraid to even make that step. You know, they want to make the money first. You know, sometimes I tell people it's okay to do something for free. It's okay to take a job where you're getting paid very little. But if you learn a valuable skill, if you actually make something that gets a lot of attention, the money will come in.

1:34:55But a lot of people are so afraid of making that step, right? so if you're like a young person you have an idea for film don't sit there and wait and try and get William Morris and get all the other crap online just go out and make it on your own for $10 ,000 and something could happen so you're saying right there then you can make a movie for$10 ,000 but you can't make like a it's a different looking movie yeah but you could get a lot of attention for it and you could maybe start a trend and you could create something so weird and stylistic that it reflects 100 % a proof of concept. Yeah. And that other people will not want to imitate.

1:35:34There just needs to be more of that. And the same thing is happening to the music industry as well right now. Yeah. You know? Yeah. You're fine. Yeah. Well, I think in music, it's an easier barrier to entry probably because it is cheaper maybe to create. You know, you need an instrument, you know, because then you have to pay editing. But maybe not really. These days you can learn everything online. I just wonder if we're less creative or more creative than ever. or maybe we're the same as we've always been? Well, being an old guy, I'd have to say less creative, but that's maybe just a misperception that comes with age where you think everything was so much better back in the day.

1:36:13Right. Sometimes I think that's possible, but I also think the imagination isn't used as much because there's so much. I can be like, okay, right now, could I think of something to entertain myself or to keep me busy or to see where my thoughts take me, Or can I open up TikTok and just see something that's definitely going to be entertaining? Yeah, yeah. You know, so I think our imagination has started to – and I don't even know how you would measure that. But I think our imagination has started to become like the appendix or something, you know, in the body. We don't even know what it was for.

1:36:48Back in the day, George Carlin had a routine. You know George Carlin? Oh, yeah. about when he was a kid, he would just pick up a stick and he would play with it and he would create all these amazing games with just a stick that he found on the road. Yeah. He'd sit there and poke it and look at the animals and then he would invent this, that and the other. And he was like bemoaning how nobody can take a stick anymore and imagine something with it, you know. He had a much funnier way than I'm saying it right now. Believe me. Trust me. But the idea was that when you were a kid, I remember we created something when I was a kid.

1:37:26I was about eight years old, nine years old. It was called Dirt Village. And what it is is we created a whole town in dirt on this hill near where my friend lived. And we created houses, et cetera, et cetera. And then we had wars. We took all our army men. And then we would like blast their city and destroy it. But they had created like bridges and lakes and all this stuff. It was like wonderful, you know, that kind of thing, making your own world. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think doing things like that was so interesting doing like being creative. But one thing that always creates imagination in people is love.

1:38:04I feel like that's something that like, you know, always like the risk of the siren in the distance, you know, always was the, that was a big factor. for me, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That always like sparked my imagination from whether I was writing a girl a poetry or making a collage, doing something, you know, trying to create romance or something. Or figuring out how to seduce her and how to strategize and where to take her and what would impress her and all that other stuff. Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, I didn't even think, I guess I didn't think of it. It's weird because you think of it, I guess seduction isn't just sexual, is it?

1:38:46Oh. Okay. So, yeah, because I would think about, like, yeah, what could I go do that's nice with my girl? What would make her care about me? What would make me show her that I care about her? I loved that stuff when I was young. Yeah, me too. You know? Yeah, I mean, I think online porn has definitely degraded those skills. Oh, it's ruined so much. I'm amazed that we allow it. I mean, you used to be like if you wanted to meet, you were feeling lonely, you'd go to a party or a bar or something. You had to took some guts. You had to like get out of your house. You had to take the risk of somebody saying no, you know, and you were kind of afraid and timid.

1:39:35Yeah. You're kind of trembling. And then maybe you had a few beers and things went a little bit better. but it took like a skill that you had to develop, a people skill. But if everything is so quick and instant, you're afraid. So many young men are afraid of women. They get in their early 20s, they don't know how to approach them because they've never had to approach them. They've never had to deal with the fact that somebody could reject them because it's just shh, shh, shh. Right there. You don't have to deal with it. Never rejected. So then no interaction. So then this, yeah, this weird feeling of weird fear.

1:40:11I had a ton. I was definitely too much pornography. Oh, really? Yeah. My 20s, dude, bad news, dude. Jerking my, yeah, just jerking my body off or just looking at porno. This is in the earlier days of porn. This was, yeah, 15 years ago, 13 years ago or whatever. Yeah. How much long ago was it? yeah it just was bad man i would yeah well sometimes i would even set a date up and then instead of going on the date i would end up looking at some pornography and then just cancel the date all right yeah it's like well why am i gonna go on this because i think probably some of it was nerves i didn't want to have to go but then also it was like i you just found a loophole to make yourself feel sexually gratified but the long-term effects of that miserable man because then I started thinking anytime I was like engaging in sexual activity, I would think of it in almost like camera shots or something.

1:41:12Oh my God. You know what I'm saying? Like it was all like, and I didn't even realize it, but it wasn't like in a moment. It was just like, I'd almost be just watching. Yeah. Like it wasn't, I wasn't in the moment, even the way I saw it. Right, right, right. was I'd seen it so many times this way that I couldn't break the pattern. Wow, that's really scary. I had no idea. Yeah, it was tough, man. Ruined some relationships that I was in. And I'm not trying to be self-pity. I'm just saying, yeah, I was certainly not even a victim of it. I did it, you know, and I wish that it hadn't have been there because I do miss the days when I would just lay at home and just scream like, where are all the chicks, you know, and just jerk off that way instead of at least like looking at the screen or whatever.

1:42:07And then their bodies could never measure up to what you saw. Yeah, the lighting is never the same. It's never the same. So then next time a girl comes over to your place, you have 700-watt bulbs in the ceiling. She's like, what the hell is going on? But, dude, there was nothing. That's what drew you out into the world as a man, the fantasy, even going to Europe or whatever. What if I meet someone on the corner smoking a cigarette? I remember when I worked in this hotel in Paris, I was 21. It was the hotel where all of the models would stay. Wow, dude. Oh, my God. I would hide under a bed. It was like paradise.

1:42:45I'd die in God heaven. And there was this guy who kept showing up at the hotel. His name was Eduardo. He was this tall Brazilian man. This is kind of where the art of seduction came from. I would watch this guy. He was so smooth. He had every skill in the book. He was so relaxed that when women were around him, they just melted, right? And so I was thinking, what is this power that this guy has? Yeah, he was pretty good looking. He wasn't the most handsome person in the world. But he had some kind of skill that he had developed. And, you know, he had crafted it coming to this hotel partially, you know, because he had seduced so many of the models staying there.

1:43:25But I was saying, what is it about him? And I was kind of fascinated by him. And I became friends with him briefly. And I realized it was his confidence, his calmness. There was nothing defensive about him. And the fact of him being so undefensive made him incredibly charming to women. What does undefensive mean? He's not insecure. He's not thinking about himself. He's not in the moment with a woman going, what do I need to say to impress her? He's not there at all. He's like so on them, inside their mind, so relaxed, and not thinking about himself. That's what I mean. Eduardo. Eduardo. Where is he now?

1:44:11God. Probably with some chick, probably. Well, now he's going to be in his 60s or 70s. That ain't stopping him, dude. I'll tell you that. Maybe not. Maybe not. Gosh, yeah. I think seeing somebody be like, oh, I was always shocked when a guy was good with the girls. I was like, who is this wizard? Yeah. Who is this damn wizard? Yeah, and there were people like that. They had something about them. And it wasn't just looks. Mm-mm. No, dude. Yeah. I mean, it was not. It's just a comfortability.

1:44:52Sometimes there are moments I would get into that state where I would be fearless with women, very rarely. But it's gotten better as I've gotten older. But, yeah, when I was young, it was so hard just to, like, even look at a girl and talk at the same time. I fucking, I don't even know. I feel like my legs were just going to climb right into my butt. I just was so scared. Well, we've all been there. Is that what propelled you out into Europe? Were you a ladies' man growing up? I had a period. My 20s were a bit like that. Yeah. And then I kind of grew out of it for whatever reason. What do you mean grew out of it?

1:45:30It got tiring. Oh, just chasing women kind of. Yeah, and it felt like something, you know, like it's okay when you're in your 20s. you're young, you look good, you've got energy, you've got spirit. You start getting into your 30s, you start getting into your 40s, and it seems kind of pathetic. Yeah. It doesn't seem good. That's how my – maybe if you're Mick Jagger, it's not pathetic. Yeah. But for me, it felt like it doesn't feel right anymore. But when I was in my 20s, I'm not saying I wasn't on the level of Eduardo. No way, man. But, you know, the interest was there. I was aspiring to be in his league, let's put it that way.

1:46:13And were you brave with women? Like, were you brave enough to go talk to them and stuff? Because part of that is learning just the art, like, learning even being in the dance. Like, I never even put myself in the dance so many times. I'm like, dude, you got to at least get in the interaction moment, you know? Well, the key to me that I learned, and maybe it's just me, is that if you're really interested in her, if you're really excited by her, if it's not just about sex, but there's something about her that excites you, it'll bring something out of you that you didn't think was in you. It'll bring energy out of you.

1:46:54It will make you – they will feel that your excitement and your interest, they'll see that it's not mechanical. that's not just about sex, that you're genuinely interested in them, that will relax them, which in turn will relax you back and forth, back and forth. So if you choose somebody that you genuinely feel a connection to, and it's also sexual, it'll have this kind of reverberating effect where you will bring out your natural... I remember sometimes I'd be funnier than I've ever been in my whole life. I'd be wittier. I'd be an actor. I'd be saying all kinds of weird things. And, you know, they brought it out of me.

1:47:33But then other women know nothing at all like that. I'd be nervous. It didn't happen. But that kind of magic happens when it's like a real connection. When there's purpose there. Yeah. Kind of like even what we were saying earlier about purpose showing up, that it shows up, that there's something there if you can navigate it, that a moment there's something, there's some energy there that shows up. that connects you to your purpose. Yeah. It's very similar to the energy that shows up to connect you to a woman in a way, I would say. Yeah. Or someone of the opposite sex. Yeah. Did they outlaw, sorry, the art of seduction in prison?

1:48:11I hope so. Right, right. That's hilarious, dude. I wouldn't want that book in prison. I wouldn't feel very good about myself. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I meant to say I heard they outlawed the 48 laws of power in prison. They might have outlawed artist seduction. I don't know.

1:48:41Yes, they did outlaw the 48 laws of power in a lot of prisons. Well, they picked the wrong book. Piggyback on your joke earlier. Why? Why? They don't want people having power in there? Well, um... Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power is second most banned book in prisons. You know what the most banned book is? Is it an obvious one or not? Oh, I know what it is. Hold on. I know exactly what it is, dude. I don't think you do. Yes, I do, brother. I know exactly what it is. It is, um... Shawshank Redemption. No. No way. It's a recipe book. about how to cook ramen. I kid you not. Prison ramen, the most commonly banned title on the list.

1:49:30What? There you go. Thank you. Why? The 48 Laws of Power is also one of them. The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, The Art of War, and Cuba Libre. Yeah, prison ramen. Don't ask me why. What is? Why is prison ramen? Let's get the answer. Why is your book banned in there? Well, because ostensibly it's because it's about manipulation. And they're worried that people are going to use it in prison to manipulate other prisoners. But really, it's not really about that. Really, it's about prison is – and I have a lot of feedback from prisoners. I don't have a record. I've never been in prison, so I can say that.

1:50:24But I have a lot of sympathy for people in prison. I understand that if not for the grace of God, I could be in that situation. For sure. There's a side of me, there's a slight criminal side to my psyche, I have to admit. Yeah. So I understand it. And prison is about power. It's about making you feel, it's about dividing the prisoners amongst themselves so they don't get together and see what's really going on. It's about controlling what they read, controlling what they see, controlling every aspect of their life, what they eat, etc., etc., etc. And it's a book about gaining some of that control back.

1:51:04And they're very much afraid of it. And I've had prisoners tell me about that. Like, you know, the games that wardens play on prisoners and guards play are really powerful and really manipulative, very psychological. And they said that the book kind of helped them see through that. I have a woman who's in prison in Texas who she had gotten the book from her, I think, husband or boyfriend. And I think she ended up committing a crime against him, something like that. But she realized how he was using the book against her and the book opened up her mind. And she's in prison in Texas. They will not let her see it.

1:51:47So she has a kind of memorized. She remembered the chapters. but they're afraid of somebody getting a hold of that and learning about how the system operates, how other people operate, what the guards are up to, et cetera, et cetera. Wow. I think it's about that more than anything else. Did that make you feel pretty cool? Yeah, I feel kind of bad about it. It's kind of cool. Yeah, I guess so. I don't know why, but it's kind of cool because it's like, you're banned here, Robert. Don't you come around here, buddy. There's something about that, you know? But what if I ended up in prison? They'd have to ban me because it's all in here.

1:52:24I could tell everybody all the laws. That'd be a good movie. I love that, huh? Let's go to William Morrison's pitch that. Sure. In 10 years, we'll get it made. What were some books you read that helped shape your worldview or things you liked reading growing up? I was a big John Irving guy, World According to Gar, Heart Prayer for Owen Meany, Hotel New Hampshire, some of my favorite books, Confederacy of Dunces. That's a great book. Dude, that's a great book, isn't it? Yeah. That's a great book. It's a wicked book. Robert O'Toole, I think. Something O'Toole, yeah. What did you like? Well, I was into some heavy stuff, but I also really like...

1:53:11Like Vonnegut kind of stuff? Well, like philosophy, like Nietzsche, like Machiavelli. But I was also very much into Carlos Castaneda. You don't know Carlos Castaneda? But write him down so we can get one of his books. Well, Carlos Castaneda was really big in the 60s and 70s, kind of the hippie generation. And he writes a lot about peyote, et cetera. His book, Journey to Ixitlan, that one on the second from the top, that had a big influence on me. Okay. Carlos Castellano was a professor of anthropology at UCLA. And some people think he made it up, but he went to Mexico and he met a kind of a curandero, a kind of a witch doctor type person named Don Juan, who had magical powers, but who ate a lot of peyote and took all of these journeys.

1:54:03And he taught him about the world. And I swear to God, that book had so much impact on me that a lot of the things in the 48 Laws of Power actually come from that book. Wow. There are ideas in there that are so amazing and practical and wonderful. For a 16-year-old, it was one of the most wonderful books I have ever read. I really, really love that. And that's where, you know, like a separate reality. They're all great. Yeah. Wow, that's cool. No, I want to order that. Will you make sure to order that too, Zach?

1:54:36And, you know, who else? I also, a writer named Herman Hess, German writer who wrote books like Siddhartha and Damien, which were really kind of quite radical. I liked things that were a little subversive and radical and weird. Like Clockwork Orange, that kind of stuff? Yeah, Anthony Burgess, he was a great writer, sure. Yeah. That was always one of the crazier things that, like, when you were a kid, only, like, the weird kids knew about Clockwork Orange when I was growing up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the jocks and stuff didn't know about it. No. But like the weirdo kids who would sometimes take a little sip of gasoline knew about it.

1:55:15You did sips of gasoline? Not a lot. Wow. Think of the damage that did to you. Yeah. I can't even think about it. I think it killed off the cells I would have used to think about it. Well, when I was in college, there's this Englishman. This is when we were doing a lot of drugs. And he started telling us about something he did when he was a kid. called Lady Esquire shoe polish. And basically you would take this shoe polish and you would put it in a rag, then you would sniff it, and your brain would go crazy for like a minute, then you felt deathly sick. But for that minute you were like, whoa.

1:55:52And all you had to do was like$1.25 shoe polish. And he said, you know, he got us so excited that we went searching for it, and we found a bottle of it in San Francisco, and we did and we sniffed it. and it was the most awful thing I've ever experienced in my life. It was like way too intense. It was like... Everything was like, it was just awful. It's the equivalent of gasoline. Yeah, there you go. That's your gasoline. We used to do everything. Like we heard about like cooking banana peels. There were always rumors that would go through town of things you could do to get high. Nutmeg. Oh, we smoked everything in my buddy Jeff's kitchen.

1:56:34We I remember One time we had Oh one time I took a bag of mushrooms To a party and people had never taken them there And so gave them to everybody And then I was like we're going to play hide and go seek right You guys go hide And I'm going to count right I'm going to count to like 700 And they all went and hid And I never went and found them And then I went home Can you imagine that Did they know you were giving them psychedelic mushrooms? Dude, fuck them. That's how I felt about it. That's a pretty good trick. Yeah, that's what it was. They're basically like Chris Angel. They're probably still waiting for you.

1:57:11There's some guy in a closet still wondering where you are. Oh, there was things like that I loved. I remember we went camping one time with a Boy Scouts or something, and I told everybody the day we left that Jay Leno had died, right? So all weekend, everybody, this is before the internet, and everybody's like, God, you hear people talking about it? So I would just lay in my tent, and I would hear dads telling each other, you hear that Jay Leno passed away. And I would be howling in there, like laughing at a – like it was coming out of the core of the earth through me. There was always – I loved that element of creating a scenario that nobody knows if it was real or not.

1:57:56You can't do that anymore, though. Right, because the Internet killed everything. You can't lie. You used to be able to tell a woman you were a lawyer. And she's like, you're 11. And I'll be like, I object. Don't be such a bitch, man. I'm trying to meet a cool chick. You're right. It did ruin everything. Can't lie anymore. Your new book, Siren, is that what it's called? I've heard you talk about it a couple times. Sirens? Sirens? No. What's that about? I don't know. I thought it was a new book that you were working on. There was one. Like about police sirens? No, about like the women in the distance.

1:58:28No, that's in The Art of Seduction. Okay, that's in The Art of Seduction. You're talking about sirens. What was some new book I heard you talking about? I'm writing a book on the sublime. The sublime. Sorry, that was it. It's an S word. It's close enough. That's what happened to me. Yeah, it's in the 50th law, the book I did with 50 Cent, And the last chapter is about confronting your mortality. Because 50, you know, he nearly died. He got shot nine times, close range. Gosh. And he had like a near-death experience. So the last chapter is sort of about, I call it the sublime. And then in my last book, The Laws of Human Nature, the last chapter is about confronting your mortality.

1:59:18And when you do that, all the amazing little things that will happen to your brain and your mind and how it will make life seem that much more intense. That was also what I called the sublime. And then about three months after I wrote that chapter, I came this close to dying myself with a stroke, which you can see the results of. Oh, wow. So that's why you have some physical illness? Yeah, I had a stroke. Damn, dude. So I was driving here in L.A. and my wife is in the car and she basically saved my life. Could you feel it as it came on? yeah uh i didn't i didn't recognize it i was like something weird's going on and she noticed it right away like the whole side of my face was like elongated and weird and wrong she knew right away she forced me to pull over and but what what what and then i started to get out of the car and she came around and I don't remember anything else.

2:00:21Wow. So, you know, there were some sounds that were a little bit weird and I was kind of acting like nothing was going on, like it was all just a joke. But deep down I knew something was very, very wrong. Dang. Anyway, so. That was almost a near-death experience thing kind of. Very, very close, you know, because if I'd been alone, which I often have, it happened, it's just luck that she was with me. even if I was driving, because most of the time I'd be alone, I'd be dead right now, or I'd have such bad brain damage, it wouldn't be worth living. So I'm very lucky.

2:01:00But, you know, it was like I had written about it, and now I lived it. And so the sublime is about experiences, a lot of them related to some of those drug experiences, that make you realize that there is another level, another almost dimension to life itself that you're not aware of. So your mind can either shrink, and it'll shrink with your phone to the confines of your stupid little phone, and what people are eating for breakfast, where they're taking their vacations, etc. It gets smaller and smaller and smaller. Your circle of thinking gets narrower and narrower and narrower, or it can expand, and it can expand further and further.

2:01:43Books can do it. Drugs can do it. I'm trying to make this book something that will do that, will make you think about what it means to be in a universe where we're alive, a chapter about your childhood and how sublime your childhood was, about the human brain and how weird it is, about animals and our connection to animals, about love and how love can be a sublime experience, about a relationship to the past and history. I'm doing a chapter now about what I call the daemon, which is a sense of like there's a second self inside of you that's kind of guiding you, has to do with what we're talking about, purpose, is to get you out of the small thinking and get you into thinking that there's something very weird about being alive in the world and being a human being who's conscious.

2:02:32So that's the book that I'm writing. Wow, that's fascinating. Do you think God put conscious in a sentence? Do you think we're just an anomaly? Thank you. Well, we now know that animals have consciousness, that animals think. So we're kind of knocked off our high horse. How long have we known? Huh? How long have we known that? Well, you can't know for sure because we can't get inside of them. But people who study this very seriously, who study what is consciousness, who study neuroscience, who study animals very deeply, they're convinced that animals have consciousness. And they have incredible proof for it.

2:03:08And even like bees and spiders. So I have a chapter about animals in the new book. Yeah. Spiders actually think, spiders are amazing, the powers that they have. And then octopus, octopuses. Water spiders. Are the most amazing animal on the planet. So this guy wrote a book called Alien. No, it's an anthology called Aliens. It's all about alien life. And one of the chapters in there is by a neuroscientist, a really good, amazing neuroscientist named Anil Seth, an Englishman. He wrote a chapter on octopuses, and he said, if there's an alien consciousness that's different from ours in the universe, it could be like the octopuses.

2:03:54Because octopuses have thinking, have brain neurons in their arms. They have like 12 different centers of consciousness. So they're thinking with their whole body. So animals are conscious. It's interesting. We only have five senses. That's not that many. Yeah, there are other senses out there that we don't have. Like snakes can pick up the heat. They have a sense of heat. There's a name for it. They can pick up the heat from a mammal in the area to attack and eat it. Birds have a sense of electromagnetic waves in the environment to navigate by. There are other senses like that. Spiders have a sense where they can pick up rhythms.

2:04:40or elephants have senses in their feet that pick up the vibrations from the ground. So I'm blowing your mind. There's just a lot out there. Yeah, so... There's a lot that's... We're not so special as we might think. Right. And it is amazing to marvel at ourselves in positive ways. In fact, we should do it more. You know, I'm sometimes amazed how few times I look up at the sky or up at the gods, the universe that created me and even just let it see my face. Like the universe created me and here I am all the time just down here. Yeah. Like just to go out there and be like, thank you. You know, or here I am, you know, don't what, you know, or even ask the universe for information.

2:05:30Like, it's like, here's the freaking universe and I'm down here trying to read a book, dude. But you got, you know, I don't know if that works or anything, but it's like, if I look up like this, I feel like something, I feel a little different. Well, you can do that tonight. Yeah. I'll get out there tonight, Robert. Okay. So many thought provoking, I'm going to say that's who you are. Oh, thank you. And I think that's one of the most unique things that somebody can be. and thank you for charting so much of it for us. Oh, thank you. So we can go back through your thoughts and explore our own. Thank you.

2:06:09Well, I really enjoyed it. That's great. Robert Green, love to get to chat with you again sometime, dude, or Sid, or if I come across any peyote, I'm not going to say it out loud. Oh, yeah, yeah, please. But I will come watch you do it. All right, well, yeah, I'll do the peyote myself. You can watch me. Cool, dude. I'll be right there with you, man. Okay, yeah, when my next book comes out, I would love to. The Sublime. I want to know about it. If I get any neat ideas or things that I think are sublime, I'll send them your way. That would be great. I'd love it. Not the jazz. It was kind of an insane thing to say to you.

2:06:41Robert Green, thank you so much, man. Thank you so much for having me see you. I really enjoyed it. Yeah, me too, bud. Now I'm just floating on the breeze, and I feel I'm falling like these leaves. I must be cornerstone. Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this peace of mind I found. I can feel it in my bones. But it's gonna take... Some things never go out of style, like trust, reliability, and driving a Toyota. Take the legendary Camry and Corolla, designed for comfort, engineered for performance. Hurry in. Offers end September 30th. Toyota, let's go places.