Transcription
Come naturally to them. So, you know, that makes it easier for them to do the things that they do, right? So, um, you know, and so not all of us—I don't want to imply that in doing this book you're going to turn into a narcissist. You're going to turn, you're going to have to have these very dark qualities. You know, it's just that you want to be aware of them. So, these other people, they're not aware that they're behaving this way. I don't want you to crush your enemy totally. I want you to be aware that that happens in business all the time and not be naive with your company that you've, as an entrepreneur, this business that you created. At this very moment, there are vultures circling around who are going to buy your business out and crush you because that's how business works, right? It's a merciless environment. I don't want you to be like that. I want you to be aware of it. I want you to be aware that there are people like that out there. But that is sort of the point of the book.
One of the lines, I don't think it's a law per se, and I can't remember which one it was related to that I go back to often, is uh, Sunzu's: "give them a golden bridge." Uh, give them a golden bridge on which to retreat. Uh-huh. And I can't tell you how many times I've used in deals and in business the opposite of what you just said, which is crush your opponent. Uh, which would be like a positive aspect from this book and persuasion, which is actually for your enemy: let them look like they have a win. And that's like a beautiful way to actually do the opposite of what you said. And I've gotten out of many a deal because of you.
Actually, I owe you some checks.
Really? How are you applying that? I'm not quite sure I understand.
So, like for instance, um, we had a deal that uh, we wanted to close and the guy had committed a little fraud. He had done a few things inside of the business.
On your side or the other side?
On the other side. So we had done a transaction, they had said a bunch of things on paper were X and Y and Z and then once we had dug in we were like, "that's not correct." So whether it was, you know, that they realized it or had written the numbers incorrectly, who could tell. Um, and one side of us wanted to, you know, we wanted to go do a lawsuit. So one of my partners was like, "well, we have them, this is incorrect. We could own way more of the company. Let's go after them." But instead of doing that, we kind of said, "Oo, we think there was a mess up, a mess up in these numbers," and and somebody wrote it incorrectly, and it's not a big deal. We can work around this. We've got to change the math a little bit on how much of the company we get, but um, you know, actually, I think we can just change this number. You guys can walk away. We can walk away. And so we gave them this kind of golden bridge on which to retreat. We could have sued them.
You mean you you you cut off the deal?
Yeah. We we kept the company and kept some economics, but let them walk away without a lawsuit.
Uh-huh. And that I don't mean you were buying them out.
Yeah. Uh-huh. And I think a lot of your book, people talk about the manipulative nature of it, but I don't think that's always the case.
No. No, definitely not. There's a lot of really beautiful aspects of the book that are so relevant to business.
Yeah. I mean, um, if you're alienating everybody, if you're crushing all of these people, if you're just having lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit, there there'll be a bounceback effect where you won't have many allies next time you're in trouble, right? People will resent you. You'll have more enemies on the horizon. And when you slip up in this media-crazy era, all those enemies will suddenly come out of the woodwork and they'll be on social media, and you know the mobs will come after you and you'll suffer for it. So there's an aspect of power where you have to play the soft game, where you have to please as many people as possible, make allies, make them think that they're doing what they want, but in fact they're doing what you want, which is the art of seduction itself, you know, and so you know that is a, that's a huge part of the power game. It's not all about, it's not a book about being aggressive and violent and pushing people around. It's the opposite. It's giving the impression that you're a nice, generous person, but that somehow you get people to kind of do what you want through being clever.
For young people today who maybe are not even going to be able to get through this whole book on persuasion given attention spans, what do you think is the most underrated human truth that a young person should know who wants control or power?
Well, um, you know, it's it's a good question. I mean, um, there's many aspects. You mean like a particular law of power or could be or it could be something that sits with you that you're like, "hm, I want to talk about this more. I think young people should think about this more." Well, okay. Well, what I would say is um, the most important skill that you can have in in the work world, in the business world, and in life is knowing how to observe people and not be so wrapped up in yourself and be outer-directed. So when you're in a situation like you've entered a job for the first time, your tendency is to be all insecure and think, "Did I say the wrong thing? Am I doing, am I dressing correctly? Am I fitting in?" And you're not observing. You're thinking about yourself, right? And the whole game is to be observing. It's like you're observing the the world, the different games that are going on, what people are doing, what they're like, what their tastes are like, what the boss is like. There are all these levels of power going on. You want to get outside of yourself and simply observe, right? And not be thinking about yourself as much. And if you become a really good observer of people, which is something that I developed over all of these different jobs that I had, I wasn't necessarily the best uh person figuring out the game, but I was very observant about people and their nature and their flaws and such. If you become an astute observer of the people around you, you will have this, the game will be much easier to to manage, right? You will know, "This is a person who is insecure. I cannot offend them. I cannot say the right, the wrong thing to them. This is a person who's strong and secure. I want to be with them. I want them to mentor me." They can, you know, you want to be able to take criticism from other people. In other words, be less insecure and be more kind of outer-motivated and paying attention to the people around you.
And so it sounds like sort of half the battle is sort of naming what other people are. So saying like, uh, "this this happened. Robert did this thing which tells me he cares about how he's perceived. Perception and relevance is important to Robert." So I'm going to name a person like that.
Right. And so often when you're young, you're just thinking I I I me me. You don't even know to name another.
Right. Interesting. Well, the thing also that you want to understand is everything is a sign. So when you're observing for another thing is enjoy this aspect of it because it's actually a lot of fun. It's like watching a movie and observing people and understanding them. But everything people do is a sign. So if they're showing up late at meetings or they're not returning your phone calls, it's not some innocent event. It means something. It's coming from some place within them. They're telling you something about themselves indirectly. If their desk is a mess, right? they can't organize their desk, it's a sign of something else going on inside them, right? If they if they're not returning your phone calls, on and on and on. Every little thing that people do, I sometimes when I read an email, I can sense that there's a little bit of anger as an undertone. You can sense people's tone, not just in what they say, but in how they write something, right? There's a lack, there's not this usual kind of polite tone. There's a little bit of a sharpness. There's a word or two that indicates that they're upset, they're angry. Every little thing that people do is a sign. You're not paranoid because it's actually a lot of fun and you're decoding what's going on. Because people wear masks. They smile and they say, "I love your ideas, Cody. You're brilliant. You're wonderful," but inside they're thinking something else. And you have to be able to pick up all of these signs.
Yeah. It seems like a lot of us have lost a lot of that gut intuition. Like we don't, we're told to not trust your first instinct. Yeah. You know, we're told to not cross the street when we feel a certain way because that could be rude to somebody else. We're sort of continuously being told to mask this feeling we get in our gut. How do you reopen that again? Like if you're sitting in a room with a bunch of people in the workplace and you're trying to figure out how to play this game, what is the mental game Robert plays to sort of pick up these undercurrents that somebody might not be able to see?
Well, um, I wrote a book called *The Laws of Human Nature*, sort of my last book, and I have a very long chapter in there about nonverbal communication. And it's extremely important skill to develop. And what that means is people um can say anything they want to with words. In fact, they generally do. They never really exactly say what's on their mind. That's how it is in the social world. Because if you said what was exactly on your mind, you would be offending a lot of people, right? So, we don't ever really say exactly what we feel, but our body language does not lie. It's very difficult to lie with your body language. Even the finest actors in the world find it very difficult to lie with their voice because the voice reveals people's feelings, right? So, you want to be observant. We're very good at picking these kind of cues up. So, you may not realize it, but you sense that something is wrong about this person that you've just met. This is something that in the, I talk a lot about in the art of seduction, I've dealt with with women who've written me back. They had a gut feeling that this man that they met was wrong. There was something bad about him. They got a bad feeling from it. But what happens is you don't trust that feeling and then because you're not, and as you say in our culture it's not something that we value, and then we go on, we have a relationship and then we find the hard way out that our original gut instinct was the correct one. So you want to trust these feelings. They're very valuable. We are animals. We think we're all so intellectual. We've got our our frontal cortex that governs everything. But inside we operate on emotions, on instincts, on feelings, on sensations. It's a nonverbal form of communication. It comes out in people's gestures and how they move, how they stand, right? You're, they're at a party. You're talking to them, but their feet are pointing in a different direction. They're not so interested in you. Their eyes reveal if they're really listening to you or not. A real smile lights up the whole face; a fake smile's all kind of tight and that's wonderful.
I really like…
Right. Yeah. On and on and on. It's this insane language. You can understand exactly what people are thinking. But you have to to do this to be able to reach this kind of level of understanding. You have to shut off your own mind. You have to shut off all your internal chatter and you have to observe and you have to see, you know exactly what, try and read and detect what that particular sign means. And you won't believe how often you are very accurate with it. You can detect people's resentment, people's envy. And I I as I said, I wrote a whole chapter about signs that you can look at at tomorrow and learn about this language. It's just that you're not paying attention and you don't value this form because we're so verbal. We think everything has to do with words, but it doesn't.
Yeah. You know, you said seduction is a form of deception, but people want to be led astray.
Yeah. What do you mean by that?
Well, um, when you're a child, um, you you were kind of really interested in stories, right? We're all, and we still are interested in stories, but what you like about stories from a very early age is the fact that a writer is leading you in a certain direction, but you don't know where they're going, where they're taking you, right? and you want to be led and they're creating an illusion and they're taking you along this journey. Okay? And so they're seducing you through a story and you can call it lies, you can call it fantasy, you can call it illusion, but reality is kind of harsh. It's kind of difficult, and we all want more pleasure in our life. That's why we go and see movies. That's why Hollywood is so successful. We want to be taken out of our day-to-day lives. We want to be led. We actually want to be deceived. We want illusion. We want fantasy. We want pleasure. And so you want to be the person that's supplying that fantasy, that's giving people that pleasure because if you do, it gives you a lot of power, right?
Yeah. It's it's so true and yet not said ever, which I feel like is a consistent thread through all of your books. It's where's the quiet part that we can say out loud that we shouldn't say out loud, right? In every single segment of our life, which I love. And it also another line of yours that I love is, "When you meet a swordsman, draw your sword. Do not recite poetry to one who is not a poet."
Yeah, those aren't my words. That's that's somebody else's. But um, yeah, it's um, you've got to know the people that you're dealing with, right? And um, you have to understand as you said, you're naming these people, which is the way you put it, which is a very good way of putting it. Um, and some people are are are vultures, some people you can't trust. Some people are tricky, and if you treat them as if they are somebody that you could trust, you're going to be in a lot of trouble. Okay? So you have to understand who the people are that you're dealing with. What is their nature? you know, are they somebody that you can actually trust? And sometimes you think that you can trust them because you're not really paying attention. You're not paying attention to those gut things that we're talking about. So that I think that comes from a chapter about know who you're dealing with and know exactly the kind of energy that you're getting from people so that you you're not dealing with a swordsman and reciting poetry, in which case you're going to get, you know, stabbed and killed.
Yeah, you have to know each person that you deal with. You know, you're really a student of history in so many ways in human nature. In that vein, it seems like today more than ever, we value directness and transparency and they're very direct and they're authentic and authenticity wins and this is sort of this narrative of today. Has that actually always been the narrative? Like has have humans always said we want to be authentic and derel and wrecked? So this is kind of a new phenomenon even though it might not be true.
Well, it's a pattern. So history goes in patterns. So I'm not going to bore you with too many history lessons, but in the 18th century, um, the theater was the was the main metaphor for being social. So you never wanted to be exactly yourself. You were playing a role when you entered in the social world. When you entered the cafe, you were playing a part. You were an actor in a play; you didn't want to reveal who you really were. It was the opposite. And then later there was a reaction against that in the early 19th century among the romantic movement where we have to be authentic. We can't be we can't wear these masks anymore. Goes back and forth, back and forth, back and forth throughout history. So right now it's all about being authentic. In 10, 20 years people are going to react against that and they're going to be more into fantasy and role-playing and wearing those masks and having fun in the social environment. Um, but I would say to this is nobody is ever authentic. It's a myth. It's [ __ ] in fact, and it kind of is annoying because to be a human being is to be social and is to wear a mask, is to be an actor. As I said, nobody ever tells you exactly what they think. That person that you think is so authentic is actually creating the effect of authenticity. They know how to act like that, right? But they're not saying or doing exactly what's going on in their mind. So understand that we're all actors and from a very early age as children, we are learning to play a part, how to please people, how to make them like us, how to say the right things. So the person that seems to be authentic is actually playing that part of being authentic. Okay? So if somebody called you authentic, would you like that? That is that a compliment?
Well, um, yeah, I think it's a compliment. I mean, there are degrees, don't get me wrong, there are people who are very fake in this world and there's absolutely nothing authentic. So, the person that we perceive as authentic, there's 40, 50% of them is actually true, is actually coming out. They're not faking it. But I'm never what I'm trying to say is they're not 100% authentic. There is always an element of playing it up, of laying it on a little bit thicker, of trying to look a little bit more authentic. I'm not saying it's completely fake.
Yeah. But there's an element of role-playing in it. And I guess maybe it also is just like a play as you mentioned because if somebody's authentic, what you're really saying is you're playing your part very well. That appears to be who you are. You're a great actor.
Yeah. And if somebody's fake, what you're really saying is you're not doing so great. I can see right through whatever mask this is. It's uninteresting.
Yeah, actually. You put it very well. That's fascinating. I've never thought about it that way. Um, I also, I mean, I mean there there are politicians who we think are authentic and I see them on television and I go, "God, no. They're not authentic at all. They're just really good at giving the appearance of being authentic. They know what they're doing. They've learned over the years by by various successes and failures and trial and error that this is what gives the impression of being authentic.
Yeah. Yeah. We were we were in a a room at a political fundraiser for somebody that I I actually think has done a good job as being a politician. But um, then he answered a question, which is what was it? The question was, "Who is your biggest role model in the world? Who do you look up more to than anyone else?" and his answer was, you know, his mother and this sort of story about his mother that just came off so scripted.
Yeah. It almost negated everything he had done prior and the fact that I even liked his policies.
Yeah. And so the downward uh, or the downside of even a moment of pure uh, bad acting or fakeness…
Yeah. can be actually quite large.
Yeah. So, if you don't know how to play, which kind of there's another line, and I don't know if this is yours or or from uh a quote, but "The most ethical thing you can do is win. And to win, you have to play the game better than the villains."
That's from me.
Yeah, this is from your Twitter. What do you think about this line? What do you think is meant by that? "To win, you have to play the power game better than the villains."
Well, um, so I'm not sure because it's it's not exactly something I've ever written, but what I think the person who wrote that is trying to say, my social media guy, whom I'm going to have to talk to after this, um, what I think I'm trying to say is you out there are probably a little bit naive, as most of us are, like I was, right? And there are other people out there who aren't
As ethical as you are. They play the game differently, right? They're not so concerned with the rules. They bend the rules, and you obey the rules, right? And they have the advantage over you because they're willing to do more than you're willing to do. You have to learn a little bit about their game. You have to play a little bit of what they're doing. You have to play a little bit of hardball back at them. And you have to do it better because what's wrong with a lot of villains is they're actually not as smart as you think. They're operating on emotion. They're pushing people around. They're powerful. They think they're so great. They're egotistical. They're grandiose. They think that they can do no wrong.
You need to be strategic in dealing with people who are manipulative. If you can be strategic, then you have the upper hand, right? Because I don't think a lot of times villains aren't as strategic as you think. I think that's what I meant. And a lot of times it seems like we just act. We don't actually think about what our actions are. We speak. We don't think about what we speak. We're sort of this, you know, hit a knee, hit yourself on the knee, and you have this reflex action. And so if you're a type of person who overlays, maybe 10 or 20% of let me ponder my interpersonal communication more than the next person, you might win more often.
That's right. Right. Um, I mean, I look around me and I think the main fault I see in reading the news and in dealing with people is they don't think long-term. They're just reacting in the moment. And in the book, I wrote a book about strategy, my version of the art of war, called The 33 Strategies of War. And I call this tactical hell, as opposed to being strategic in life. Tactical hell is your continually just reacting to what other people are doing. If you can lift your head out of the moment and think a few steps ahead and think, what is it that will actually bring me success? Not just immediately against this person, but three or four steps down the road. Elevate your mind above the battlefield and think ahead and game it out. And sometimes what you think is going to work immediately is actually the worst thing you can do.
I'll take a political example right now that's in the news, and um, it had to do with the recent possible shutdown of the government, and Chuck Schumer, as we all know, eventually folded, and he agreed not to shut it down, and he voted for the budget, and he said that the shutdown would have been the worst thing that could have happened. Okay. But in strategic thinking, which is something that I study very deeply, that was definitely the wrong move to make. It was reacting. It was being tactical and not being strategic. When you have leverage in a situation, in any situation in life, you have to use your leverage. And what a lot of people do, they're afraid of the leverage that they have. They're afraid they're going to offend the other person. They're afraid they're going to go too far, and they kind of compromise and they don't use what they actually have. And what that signals is you're weak. We can play you, and the next time around we're going to negotiate the hell out of you. We're going to beat you. Okay? You have to signal to people sometimes that you're going to use your leverage, that even if it means something bad is going to happen, like a shutdown, I'm signaling to you that I'm not weak, that the next time around you have to negotiate with me. That's long-term thinking. That's getting out of the immediate reaction and going to the bigger game. The bigger game is long-term, right? And I want to there's going to be more and more situations where you're going to be conflicting. You want to signal to them that you're not a pushover, that you can resist them, that there's something else going on.
Yeah. It's it's such a superpower, and it's so hard to do. I remember the first couple of deals I did, I was scared. I didn't realize, you said it perfectly, which is you're scared of your own leverage. And I think it's also you're scared of people not liking you. Yeah. It feels like especially today, likability is another thing we want. We don't want authenticity because we think that it will make people like us. Yeah. And if we're not liked, we think that that is bad. Whereas, you know, the guy on the other half of this book, Machiavelli, famously, he was the one that said it is better to be feared than loved.
Yeah. Right. Do you think that's true? It depends on your situation. Um, the thing, the reason why Machiavelli wrote that is if people love you, love is a very ephemeral thing. So people can like you and love you, and that's great, but the next day something happens, and they don't like you as much. You don't do something that pleases them as much, and that love turns into something else. But if they fear you, that fear ain't going away. It's strong. It's stable. It's there. They can't change it because they know that if they cross the line, they're going to pay a price. You're going to hit them, whatever it is, right? So fear is much more stable. It's much more powerful. But you can go too far. If you're an employee, employer of a company, and everybody's afraid of you, then they're not going to tell you the truth. They're going to nuance everything that they say to you. So you're going to be you're not going to know what's really happening in the world. Everyone's going to give you news that's going to that they think is going to what you want to hear. They're not going to tell you what you need to hear. They're not going to be as creative. They're not going to share their own ideas. So you can go too far with that, right? So for specific situations, I always tell people and clients that I consult with, you want to have the touch of fear. You want them to think that if they mess with you, they're going to pay a price. That they can't push you around. That's not the only thing they fear or feel about you. They do like you, but there's a little undercurrent of I respect that person, and if I don't do certain things, I'm going to pay a price for that.
Interesting. So in practice, would that be something like I remember reading Netflix's um sort of their manifesto on how to run a business, and uh, they they kind of famously wrote this PowerPoint about it and shared it, and they had a they basically had a zero-policy policy, which is like they tried to have almost no rules at Netflix, and they were like, we trust you guys to be employees. You can take as much time off as you want to. You can spend whatever you want; no hotel minimums, no plane costs. If you think you need first-class, take it. And so that was their policy, but the way that they enforced it was interesting because they said, "Do whatever you want as long as it's in the best interest of Netflix." Yeah. And so how I think they enforced it would be like exclamation points of fear. So they basically would say, well, this person spent a bunch of money on themselves and um didn't go to meetings that they said that they went to, that was thus not in the best interest of Netflix, and then they would sort of publicly fire this person. Oh, and talk about it and say this is why this person was fired. So is that like is that an example of how to be yes, we can be generally loved from having this wonderful open policy, but upon, you know, somebody doing something wrong, exclamation point of fear is this person was fired, and we will do a public showing of it.
Yeah. Yeah. I think that's very powerful. I've seen that in sports. Um, Vince Lombardi, who was a great coach of the Green Bay Packers back in the 60s, probably one of the greatest football coaches ever, he had a policy of treating everybody equally. There were no stars on the team, even though there were players who were better than others. Everybody got the same equal treatment, which made the people who weren't making as much money feel very good. And it sort of created a team spirit. But if one person stepped out of that, if one person did something that was showed that they weren't being part of the team, right, that they had an ego, he would punish them really hard. He set an example. And so what you want is you want a cohesive team. You want a group of people around you who are all working on the same page. But if you spoil them, if you if you let them do whatever they want, then they will do whatever they want. But if ever occasionally you set an example, you punish someone, you show that there are limits to what they can do. It's a very, very effective means of management, of controlling people, of giving them leeway because you want people to be creative. You want people to enjoy their work. It's something that I practice as well with people who work for me. Occasionally, I want you to know that there are limits. You cross them, I will get really upset with you, right? But generally, I try to be very nice. But that occasional use of the whip is much more effective than if if you're whipping people all of the time or if you have no whip at all in your hand.
Yeah. Kind of like Pavlov's dog. At some point, if you just keep shocking them consistently, they just lay down.
Yeah. Interesting. So right now you're writing a new book.
Yes. What are you obsessing on currently? Like what is in that mind of yours today?
Well, um, I'm I'm finishing a chapter. It's a book about the sublime, which is um, you know, I had a stroke and I had a near-death experience. I came very close to dying. Uh, somebody basically saved my life. My wife did. Um, and uh, I I maintain that that kind of experience changes you, changes how you look at life. The things that you took for granted, you no longer take for granted. And so when I look at the world, when I'm being alive, just being alive as I am right now, it's actually a very strange feeling to be alive because I came very close to death. And it made me realize that despite all the horrible things that are going on in the world, it's actually incredibly insane that we humans are at this moment in history, that in the course of 30,000 years, we went from being, you know, uh, whatever we were to to having all this incredible power. We are these insane animals. This consciousness that we have is this unbelievable gift. We have these brains that are by far the most complex organisms in the universe. Scientists have demonstrated that. But we're not aware of any of these things. We take it all for granted. And it's a book that's trying to open your eyes up to all of the sublime aspects of just being alive, of the history of the cosmos, of ancient history, of what it was like when we were children, of how our brains are formed, about our relationship with animals who are have consciousness that we can interact with other species, with love, and how sublime love can be, with history, with death itself. And so, um, it's a book that's kind of making me feel better about all of my limitations, but I want the readers to go away and think differently about what it means to be able to transform them. And so the chapter that I'm writing now uh that I'm going into just now is about willpower and energy and how we have capabilities that we don't even tap into, that we're only using a small part of our brain, that we're only using a tenth of the energy that we actually have. Right? It's our minds that are holding us back, and that we're gifted with these powers that are that are not being used. And I have examples of humans who've been in situations that are incredibly stressful, incredibly difficult, and they overcame them. They were able to tap into those powers because they were facing death essentially. They were facing something very terrible, and and a kind of courage came up came to them. So there's like a story of a plane crash in the Andes and in the worst part of the Andes and in in the mountains in the middle of winter, and these boys who were on a rugby team, they somehow managed out in the course of three months to save their lives. More than half of them died. But how they did it, the guy who narrates the story is so incredible that anybody who afterwards when people said it's absolutely impossible what you did. You climbed these 18,000-foot mountains that even mountain climbers can't climb, and you did it without any equipment. It was he called it a miracle. And so we have these powers that we're not even aware of, and circumstances will force us upon force them upon us. So if you're facing stress, if you're facing difficulty, you will feel this other energy that's flows through you that's very human, that's very powerful. So that's what I'm writing about now, and that's what I'm I'm kind of fascinated about.
Interesting. You know, it's actually funny because I was thinking about what does somebody like you who's such a prolific writer who's written these books that
Well, I'm not very prolific actually. I take four or five years to write a book.
Well, that's true. There are I wish I were prolific. You are instead a very profound writer.
Okay, thank you.
Okay, I'll I'll meet you on that one. So you're a very profound writer. You write these deep works. Um, I imagine there are moments where you feel uninspired.
Oh god, tell me about it, and you need to dive in. Is there something that you do when you are feeling absolutely no way you can write?
Well, you know, it's almost a question that makes me want to cry. I'm so sorry, but before I had my stroke, I wrote seven books, and I would get those moments, and what I would do was I had to get out of my mind, and I would go take a hike up into the park, and all these great ideas would come to me, or I would go for a long swim because I was into long-distance swimming. Then I'd come out of the pool, and wow, my mind was just sparkling with ideas. I can't do any of it now. I can't hike. I can't swim. I can't do the things that got me out of my mind and my body. And I'm writing a book that has to be exciting. That has to excite the reader every single page, every word. I can't write a dull book about the sublime. So what I do is I have to go through I have to work on my head. And so I'm sitting there writing this thing, and it's not coming out right. I have to step back, and I have to put myself in the mood, and I have to go. This is an incredible privilege you have, Robert, to write this book. Let's get into the spirit of it. Let's feel what you're trying to write. Let's not be intellectual. Let's not write something. Let's feel it first and then write it. I have to go through a process. I have to listen to some music. I have to look at my cat who's walking by. I have to talk to my, you know, just look at my wife or see something, and then I feel it, and then I can write it. But it is difficult because all of those things that I depended on before I don't have. So just like I said, when life turns against you, you have to adapt. You have to learn. It brings the best out of you sometimes because we're normally we're in a rut. Things are so familiar, we don't work on ourselves. But when things turn bad, like they turned bad for me, you have to change. You have to adapt. You have to become a different person. And it makes you grow. And it makes you learn, which is what I've had to do. I have to I have to force myself to be inspired, literally.
Wow. And in a completely new way. It's hard enough. Yeah. Even to do it the way that you've done it for decades, but to find a completely new way, it's fascinating.
Yeah. Yeah. And I guess you the universe kind of keeps pushing you to become the next level of the game player.
Well, you know, the the sublime is a concept that I've kind of created, but there are books, my way of thinking, but there are books that are out there about the concept, but they are so dry, they're so intellectual, they're so like academic speak, all this jargon that they're so unsublime, right?
Very true. I want this book for people to read it and really feel it and feel like there's an experience out there that they can have. And I'll tell you one thing, Cody, when I first thought of writing the book, which was 16, 17 years ago, before I had my near-death experience, I was going to go cross the Gobi Desert. I was going to go to Tierra del Fuego in Antarctica. I was going to see all the sublime parts of the planet. I was going to swim with dolphins, and I was going to experience this all and write about it. And here I am when I finally get the chance to write the book. I can't do any of those things. But the book will be better for that. That's what life is about. I call it amor fati. The things that happen to you are the best things that could ever happen to you. So having my stroke made the book better because I can't do those things. But 99% of my readers won't be able to do them. I'm showing you how you can have you can look at life sitting in your office, sitting in your chair, having your breakfast, and you can have these experiences in your day-to-day life. You don't have to do things that are extraordinary. Yeah. Because life is extraordinary.
God, that's so beautiful.
Yeah. You know, it reminds me um Do you like Bukowski at all? Do you?
Very much.
Me too. I mean, but I love that about him. You don't think so?
A little bit. No, he was a wonderful guy. He's a local LA person. I knew people who knew him.
Oh, that really?
Yes. Oh, I'm going to be such a nerd about it. His his like the poem that he did uh on becoming a writer. Was that what it was? And it's uh how he talks about Well, actually, I have a quote in here from him, I think.
Yeah. The I remember when I was writing my book, but then when I write the stuff that I only write for me, you know, do you ever do that where you just write things that nobody will ever see?
Yeah. And hopefully nobody will ever see. I do. But I loved that part where he's like, "If it doesn't come bursting out of you in spite of everything, don't do it. Unless it comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut, don't do it." And how he talks about the libraries of the world have yawned with uh books such as yours. I always loved that because it's it's basically him anti-selling the entire time.
How so?
He's saying, "Don't write." Like, "Don't write. We don't need another book that has no purpose except for your ego." Like, "Only write if it comes bursting out of you, if it would if it would kill you to not put pen to paper, right?" Which it sounds like this is that book for you. You're like, you have you feel like you have to write it.
Well, you know, um, I guess I'm I'm maybe slightly neurotic in that, you know, or a hypochondriac. I always think that I am going to die, like some illness or that I'm going to have an accident, and the book will never get finished. And so I tell my wife, if I'm dead, this is how I want to finish it. You know, I'm that you know, I know these aren't great things about me.
Have you always been like that?
Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so, uh, this book I have to finish. I can't let myself die before I finish it because it means that much to me, you know. And so, uh, sometimes I I take I'm a little bit of a daredevil in that I used to my hiking and swimming and mountain biking, I would do things that were a little bit risky because I like that. And so now I have, this is this is so silly. I don't even know I'm going into it, but I have a special bike that I can use cuz I can't ride a normal bike. It's my only outlet in life is this recumbent bike. And I go whipping down these hills. You can't
Pass cars and everything. And I like, I don't want to do this today, Robert, because you might get crushed by a car and then your book is finished. But then I forced myself to do it anyway.
But um, this is a book that I have to get out. And I'm on chapter 11 and they're 12 chapters. Wow. So I just have to live another nine months and I'll be okay. I'd like a little bit longer, but uh, I like it.
Does your wife laugh when you say that?
Yeah, she knows. She's she's been putting up with it a long time.
Yeah. For a long time. It's funny because you also have a a line that's like, "Never whine, never complain, never try to justify yourself." And it seems like you live that a bit too.
What does that mean? Why do you tell people to never whine, never complain, never justify?
Senseless. Nothing. There's nothing to complain about. Everything happens for a purpose.
Yeah. In the moment when when something somebody does something irritating, my first instinct is to complain and even whine a little bit. But then I calm down and I go, "It's not important. It doesn't matter. You don't need to complain about this." In fact, there's something good about it.
So this morning, to give you an example, I'm meditating, right? I meditate every morning. That helps me a lot. And um, there's noise going on that's kind of interrupting my thoughts. And, "God damn it," I want to yell at that person. And I'm meditating. How can you have a thought like that when you're meditating? And then it makes me go, "No, Robert, it's just a noise. Just think of it as birds singing. Calm down. Don't Don't be upset. It's actually training you to not get upset."
So the bad things that happen to you are training you to not take them so seriously or to find a way to use them. Nothing is ever really bad.
People often ask me in these interviews, "If you were 20 years old and you knew who was going to happen to your life, would you go back and tell yourself something and do something differently than the way you did it? You know, or do you have any regrets, Robert?"
I have no regrets. I wouldn't change anything because everything happened for a purpose. Everything lined itself up for a reason and it all came out the way it should have come out because I embraced it and I found a way to learn something from it. So even when I had a bad job, my attitude was, "I'm going to learn about people. I'm going to learn about what I hate and what I love." There's no wasted time in life.
It's such a good point. I saw this meme the other day that reminds me of your bird song. I don't know if you've seen it. It was, "You saw what?"
A meme. You know, like a little graphic and and in it, it was this woman in her window and she's looking outside and birds are singing. And she's like, "The bird song. It's so beautiful, right?" And then it was the two birds and it was one bird yelling at the other bird, "Uh, I've eaten all your children. I'll be back next year for the next round." And it made me kind of chuckle because the perspective from the woman was, "This is lovely. I have learned to associate bird song with something magical," and the birds are simultaneously murdering each other and that's their language. And so it kind of takes me to that idea of, "Nothing is good or bad except really by comparison," and it sounds like you've lived that.
Yeah. I mean um, you know, if I had to think of one thing that's wrong about about humans or about us is that we think too much. We overanalyze everything. And in overanalyzing and thinking too much, we ruin things. We ruin what could be good, what could be pleasurable, what's normal. So if we think and think and think think we're inevitably going to find something negative to uncover about that. So you know, uh, we we think and we create things that are are are good or bad or whatever, but they're just things that happen. They're not good or bad. They just are events that happen and we think of them and we make them what we want to make them.
Yeah. You know, this is something in your book, *Seduction*, but kind of a theme throughout them. You had this idea of anti-seductive, which I had never thought of this before. What is somebody who is anti-seductive like?
Well, I hope you're not one of them.
No, I don't think so.
Depends to who, I bet.
Well, you know how some people are are good seducers and it could be not just for sex, it could be socially or politically. They're very calm. They know how to tell a good story. They have charisma. They have energy. Their m their face lights up. They know how to say the right things. And they they they attract you. Okay. But there are people who do the opposite.
Yeah. They say the wrong things. They do the wrong things. They dress the wrong way. They take you to the wrong places. They repel you. They are anti-seductive. Nobody wants to be around them, right? And so what are the qualities that make a person anti-seductive?
So one of them are people who talk too much, who are always bragging, who always have a story to tell, you know? Um, in in the realm of seduction, women often complain of men who explain. They explain everything. They explain exactly what you're doing, what you mean, right? They call it mansplaining.
Okay. So, people who tell you everything, who doing 95% of the talking and they don't think they are, they're extremely anti-seductive. People who moralize, who tell you, "You're wrong. This is what you need to do. This is what's good. This is what's bad." That's anti-seductive, right? They preach to you. People who are always bragging about themselves like they're so great, that's a very anti-seductive quality. I think being vulgar is an anti-seductive quality because it's like you have no self-control. You don't look at yourself and realize that what you're saying or what you're how you're dressing or how you're looking is actually kind of off-putting, right? So, a seductive person is self-aware. They're self-aware of their body language, of of, you know, the clothes that they wear, of how they talk. The anti-eductive person has no self-awareness. They enter life, they don't look in a mirror, they don't think about what they're saying. They just think they're being natural and they offend a lot of people.
Yeah, we've def I've definitely met all those types and been all of those types at varying points as well.
No, you have. I I try not to. I don't believe that.
Well, I think you know I think as you get older like a little bit, you start to realize, oh, you know, that story isn't isn't so necessary to share so broadly. Like being so loud isn't so necessary all the time, right? Um, you know, just the other day we were talking about how even being too familiar can be in some ways anti-seductive.
Yeah. Um, and that's kind of what you go back you you talked about before, which is this little bit of there's almost like a some sort of removal, a slight, what would you call that?
A little bit of air mystery.
Yeah. So, um I know uh I was talking to u a celebrity, I won't mention names, who was saying, "Robert, you talk in *Seduction* about mystery, but in the era of social media, you have to be out there all of the time, right? You talk in the in the 48 Laws of Power of creating distance and absence, using absence to create respect and honor, which is one of the laws. How do you do that? In the era of social media, you always have to be out there. You have to be familiar." And I say, "If you do too much of that, I'm not going to use her name. People will become so familiar with you that you're going to lose that aura of being a celebrity. They're going to take you for granted. And you might shine for a year with being out there and having all of your posts and doing all these things, but after a year, they'll find somebody new who they haven't seen before, and you're not so new anymore, and they'll find them, and they'll leave you, and it'll be very painful for you. You have to keep people on their heels. They can't know everything about you." And what I said is, "Disappear for a couple weeks. Make people talk about you. Make people wonder, 'Why is she not posting as much? Why are we not seeing what she's wearing in the morning and having for breakfast and all these other things?'" I said, "Beyonce did that. She disappeared for like a couple of years and then she comes out with like a country western album that nobody expected. Michael Jackson did that. He would disappear between albums for three or four years and it just made people go crazy and talk about him and wonder who he was." That was before the era of social media, Grant. But you have to disappear sometimes so people don't take you for granted. If they know everything about you, it's human nature that you become too familiar and they're not interested in you anymore. It's at a certain point. So you have to create mystery, man.
Do you think you have to do that in interpersonal relationships too?
Yes.
How does one create mystery, let's say, in a relationship?
Well, it's that you think of doing something that's going to surprise the other person. Now, nobody knows you completely. Your husband doesn't know every single thing about you, Cody. He didn't know. He didn't know you before you got married. He didn't know all your previous boyfriends and and everything and some of the naughty things that you've done.
Saint Robert, no.
No former boyfriends. Perfect saint.
Right. Right. Like, I believe that. Um, so he he doesn't know these things. He doesn't know you completely. So if you give him a sense of I'm sorry, what's his name?
Chris.
Chris, I I forgot. Chris, you show him something that he didn't know about before. Goes, "Wow, I didn't know Cody. I was taking her for granted. I wasn't, you know, I think I knew everything about her. She showed me something that surprised me." Maybe the surprise isn't something good, but at least it like keeps him on his heels. makes him think about you because in a relationship people will take you for granted after a couple of months, right? They were so interested you in the beginning and now, huh, it's kind of dwindling. They take you for granted because they think they know everything about you. If you surprise them, if you say something different, if you take them to a place where they never thought that you would take them to, if you dress a certain way that seems a little bit out of character, not completely out of character, they go, "Wow." That you need to do that in a relationship constantly. Otherwise, it's just going to fizzle. All the energy is going to go out of it.
That's so beautiful. It really feels to me what I'm reminded speaking to you and every time I read your books is it is this like it's this beautiful game you know whether it's a play that we all are playing and if you do it uh in the right way that is somehow how you want to play the game too you can have outsized outcomes without that much additional effort.
That's right. Which is a beautiful thing. I cannot wait to read your next book. When is it out yet?
I can't wait to have you read it because that means it'll be finished.
I bet. Just careful on your bike rides.
Said careful on your bike rides. We need you to stick around. Check in in nine months. Make sure you're still going on one tomorrow, but I will be careful.
Okay. Um, it will be out um, Lord blessing me. It will be out in uh fall of 2026. So, next year, fall.
Wow. Okay. Well, I can't We don't know the name or anything yet. That'll come out next year. It's called right now *The Law of the Sublime*.
I like it. Robert Green, this was so amazing. I love learning from you. I'm actually gonna go back and reread a couple of your books because I've realized how much I've forgotten in them. But thank you for bringing these ideas for me, Cody. I really enjoyed it.
It's a great conversation.
Me, too. Minus the drilling. We have to go murder somebody out back.
I don't know what that was.
I know. I just I was pretending I couldn't hear it.
Exactly. Small screams. Robert Green. Um, where do you like to point people these days? Obviously, I'll do your intro and everything and get it right in that
Well, I have uh I have a website that goes back hundreds of years. Um I believe it's the same. You have a great Instagram and Twitter, too. Do you prefer people go to them? This is a place where you know everything.
Yeah, it's powerseductionandddwar.com. My first three books. And there you'll find my Instagram, my uh ex Twitter, whatever you call it. Uh YouTube, Tik Tok, um the whole shebang, huh?
Are you doing Tik Tok dances?
No, but I have like close to two million followers on Tik Tok just doing videos of, you know, just like our conversation. They're really good, by the way.
Do you know that you you probably already know this, but you are one of the highest ranking guests for YouTube podcasts of anyone? Do you know that across almost all channels like Stephen Bartlett, Chris Williamson?
Yeah.
Yeah. Um Yeah, I know Stephen Bartlett. We've Yeah. I don't know why it's good information, but yeah. Very grateful for it because uh it's helpful. I love the world world of podcasting. I can tell you I know we're finished here, but before uh before podcasting, a writer had to go on mainstream media. Man, that sucked so much. I hated that. three minutes and you don't get to say anything interesting. That's that speaking of inauthentic, it's like gh.
Yeah, I agree. I love podcasting. I love podcasters. I love that world. You just get to be yourself. There are people who actually read your books. Yeah. You know, and it's like a real interaction. So, I'm very grateful for all that.
So, the last part, this podcast, the idea is what would you say to the young Robert listening out there, but you um if you could go back, what would be your words of wisdom? and then whatever you feel comfortable writing and then we have you just read a message to young Robert and it's sort of a reminder that even those on high you know at some point they were young and lost and all the things we all were okay so what I wrote was, "Listen young Robert, everything was going to turn out fine for you so stop worrying and feeling so depressed and enjoy your youth more because it goes by way too quickly. You'll have plenty more to worry about when you're older and things start falling apart. So, try to enjoy yourself much more right now."
It's beautiful. Thank you for sharing, Robert. That makes sense.
Yes, it did. And I think that's true. Even on your worst day when you're young, it's kind of your best day, isn't it?
Yeah. I wish we I mean, it's it's good being older. I don't I don't regret that. It has its own advantages. I don't take things so seriously, but man, I had so much more fun when I was younger, you know.
Yeah.
Yeah. I think you did say too, um, God, what a bummer that would be. You said it more eloquently, but what a bummer that would be if everything worked out, uh, right on the first attempt.
Yeah, I think that's true. To learn.
Yeah.
Ah, well, Robert, this was amazing. Thank you.
Thank you so much for having me, Cody. [Music]