Robert Greene: Why People Manipulate & How to Protect Yourself

Summary

The Jefferson Fisher Podcast
Episode: Robert Greene: Why People Manipulate & How to Protect Yourself
Date: December 9, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Jefferson Fisher interviews Robert Greene, celebrated author of "The 48 Laws of Power," about the nature of power, manipulation, and the strategies individuals use to navigate—and protect themselves—from the power dynamics present in personal and professional life. The discussion intricately weaves Greene’s philosophy on the neutrality of power, the intersection of communication and influence, how to spot manipulation before it harms you, and practical advice on maintaining self-worth amidst challenging environments. Greene also gives an exclusive preview of his forthcoming book, "The Law of the Sublime."

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Nature and Definition of Power

• Power as a Neutral Tool
  • Greene likens power to a hammer: neutral, capable of building or destroying depending on the user’s intention (01:39).
  • True misery, he notes, comes from powerlessness—the inability to influence events or people in one’s life, leading to resentment, anger, and psychological harm (02:18).
  • “Power is the sense first... of control over yourself, over your emotions, so that you’re not always reacting.” (03:29, Robert Greene)

2. Communication as a Vehicle for Power

• Strategic Over Tactical Communication
  • Greene emphasizes that true communication is strategic, not merely the conveyance of one’s needs (05:51).
  • It requires understanding the other person’s needs and appealing to their self-interest, not just talking about your own (05:51-08:31).
  • “All you’re communicating is your insecurity and your needs. True communication is effective. It’s strategic.” (05:56, Robert Greene)
  • The importance of “saying less than necessary” to avoid overwhelming others and to foster intentional speech (08:15).

3. Personal Motivations Behind "The 48 Laws of Power"

• The Book’s Origins & Greene’s Personal Journey
  • Greene’s desire to genuinely help people is rooted in his own painful and naive experiences with workplace politics and manipulation (09:01).
  • He observes that workplaces operate on ego and political games rather than merit, making naïveté costly (09:12-12:16).
  • “I suffer deeply from the sense of people are so political. Their egos are involved in everything.” (09:41, Robert Greene)

4. The Healing Aspect of Understanding Power

• Liberation Through Awareness
  • Many readers find the book healing because it “flips a switch”—helping them see the real, often politically-charged power dynamics at play (12:53-14:47).
  • Recognizing the game of power for what it is can reduce suffering from unexpected workplace and social blows.

5. Recognizing and Protecting Yourself from Manipulation

• Spotting Manipulators
  • The most skilled manipulators are subtle; less skilled ones reveal themselves through subtext and body language (15:42-19:36).
  • Greene suggests learning to read people—to see past appearances and identify patterns of narcissism or envy early on.
  • “You have to see, like a laser, through other people’s masks... not always take appearances for reality.” (18:33, Robert Greene)

6. Who Uses "The 48 Laws of Power" and Why?

• Intentions and Reader Profiles
  • Greene distinguishes between “nasty” people who innately manipulate for gain (a small minority) and the vast majority of readers—naive individuals seeking defense and understanding (20:22-24:11).
  • “The people who are really, really nasty and evil at the game of power... don’t really need a book like the 48 Laws of Power.” (21:07, Robert Greene)
  • The book serves as “water in the desert” for those unprepared for the realities of power and manipulation.

7. The Problem of Ethical Asymmetry in Power Struggles

• Asymmetric Warfare and Everyday Life
  • Greene draws parallels between asymmetric warfare (in war and politics) and the workplace—where some operate without scruples and others are bound by ethical constraints (25:19-28:29).
  • “There are people out there in your office who... their ethics and their morals are thinner than yours. They're willing to do things you would never consider doing. You're at a continual disadvantage.” (27:05, Robert Greene)
  • He recommends being strategic and aware, without necessarily stooping to unethical means.

8. Dealing with Doubt: Building Self-Love and Resilience

• Coping with Attacks on Self-Worth
  • Greene contrasts narcissism and healthy self-love, arguing self-worth is the anchor that allows people to recover from attacks and manipulation (31:25-36:15).
  • “If you have that level of self-love that you developed at an early age, you will rise back up... It’s like a thermostat that you have inside of yourself.” (32:28, Robert Greene)
  • He cautions that blaming others leads nowhere; real growth comes from self-examination and learning from painful experiences (34:10-36:15).
  • “You have two ways you can go... You can blame other people... Or you look inside of yourself and go, what is it about me that allowed [manipulation] into my life? What is it about me that was so innocent, that was so stupid, that believed the things [they] were saying?” (34:18, Robert Greene)

9. Preview: The Law of the Sublime (Next Book)

• Book Announcement and Personal Inspiration
  • Greene gives an exclusive on his next book, "The Law of the Sublime," scheduled for release in October 2026 (38:15-39:01).
  • The book is influenced by a near-death experience (a stroke) and explores the awe of existence, consciousness, love, and history, among other themes (39:06-42:25).
  • “To be alive, to simply be alive... Your minds are getting smaller and smaller. They’re not opening up to the infinite, to the vastness of this world.” (40:10, Robert Greene)

10. Reflecting on the 48 Laws—Is There a 49th?

• Closure and Forward Momentum
  • Greene states, “The 49th law is: There is no 49th law,” explaining that he focuses on moving forward to new projects rather than revisiting old ones (43:19–43:57).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Power’s Neutrality:

  • “Power is a tool. It’s totally neutral, like a hammer. You can use it to build a house, or you could clobber someone over the head and kill them with it.”
    (01:39, Robert Greene)

• On Communication:

  • “True communication is what I was saying before. You take that step back and you put yourself in the other person’s shoes... Once you figure out their side, not your side... now you have some power to craft what you say to actually influence them.”
    (06:29–07:45, Robert Greene)

• On Awareness as Healing:

  • “Just seeing that little switch go on in your brain, that, no, the game is different. It’s played differently. There are rules to this game... That little switch of your perspective of how you look at it can be deeply healing and enlightening.”
    (13:35–14:34, Robert Greene)

• On Spotting Manipulation:

  • “You have to see, like a laser, through other people’s masks, through other people’s games that they’re playing, through the appearances they’re trying to create.”
    (18:33, Robert Greene)

• On Handling Attacks to Self-Esteem:

  • “If you have that level of self love that you developed at an early age, you will rise back up... It’s like a thermostat that you have inside of yourself.”
    (32:28, Robert Greene)

• On Personal Growth:

  • “You look inside of yourself and go, ‘that person manipulated me... What is it about me that allowed them into my life? What is it about me that was so innocent, that was so stupid, that believed the things that they were saying?’... That’s how you handle things.”
    (34:18–35:51, Robert Greene)

• On the Sublime:

  • “To be alive... We’re on a planet with life in a cosmos. There’s probably very little, hardly maybe no life at all. That it evolved to where we are today... is utterly unbelievable. And I’m trying to open your eyes to each of the different aspects of what I call the sublime.”
    (40:10–41:33, Robert Greene)

• On Moving Forward:

  • “When I finish a book, I kind of move on. I'm on to the next project... That’s sort of my guiding philosophy in life.”
    (43:25–43:57, Robert Greene)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | |-----------|---------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:39 | Greene defines power as a neutral tool | | 05:51 | Intersection of power and communication | | 09:01 | Personal motivations and origins of the book | | 12:53 | The healing/transformative power of recognizing real-world dynamics | | 15:42 | Recognizing manipulation and protecting yourself | | 20:22 | Reader intentions & experience with "48 Laws" | | 25:19 | Asymmetric (dirty) warfare in life and ethics | | 31:25 | Building resilience to attacks on self-worth | | 38:15 | Announcement and preview: "The Law of the Sublime" | | 43:19 | Is there a 49th law? Philosophy of moving forward |

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Summary & Takeaways

• Power is neither inherently good nor evil—it’s a tool shaped by the user’s intent.
• Effective communication is strategic and rooted in empathy, not self-centeredness.
• The workplace and social world are governed by invisible political rules; recognizing and navigating these is crucial for personal well-being.
• Manipulation can be subtle; learning to read character and motives is your best protection.
• Naiveté is the main risk—most readers of "The 48 Laws of Power" use it to defend and empower themselves, not to harm others.
• Attacks on our self-worth are only as damaging as the gaps in our self-love; resilience is built from within.
• Forward-thinking and openness to awe—the ‘Sublime’—can transform one’s perspective on life’s value and meaning.

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This episode offers a nuanced guide for understanding power, guarding oneself against manipulation, and forging a more self-aware, strategic approach to communication and influence—crucial lessons for anyone navigating the challenges of modern life.

Transcript

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[Jefferson (Host)]

If you haven't heard of the book the 48 Laws of Power, well, you might be living under a rock today. I am privileged to talk to the man himself, the Author of the 48 Laws of Power, Robert Greene. Robert, thank you so much for coming.

[Robert Greene]

Thank you for having me, Jefferson. I appreciate it.

[Jefferson (Host)]

This is a conversation I'm very much looking forward to because your book is one that often when I'm, I make content or I'm speaking, there will typically be somebody who comes up and says, oh, you have, have you read the.

[Sponsor Announcer]

48 laws of power?

[Jefferson (Host)]

And I said, yes, I, I have. And what I want to talk about and what the listeners are going to get, what you're going to get in this episode is we're going to talk on can you use power.

And can you also maintain your own integrity?

[Sponsor Announcer]

What?

[Jefferson (Host)]

Because a lot of the times people find those to be conflicting in some way of they, they hear manipulation. They don't hear anything that is descriptive, prescriptive, that can improve their life. Robert, how would you define power? What is, what does power mean to you?

[Robert Greene]

Well, power is a tool. It's totally neutral, like a hammer. You can use it to build a house, or you could clobber someone over the head and kill them with it. So power is simply a tool. It's neutral. It is neither good nor bad. It can be used for evil. It can be used for great good. But power is the sense of having control over the immediate environment, over events that are occurring in your life. So to use this to flip it around to the negative, if you sense in your daily life that you have no ability to influence your children.

Your spouse, your partner, the colleagues at work, your boss, the people in your company, it's a miserable, miserable feeling. You have no power. You have no control, you have no influence. You can't tell people to do that. You tell people to do something and they don't listen to you, right? Or they do things to you that, that kind of block your path and you have no way of getting them to stop this. That feeling of powerlessness is, is something that human beings cannot endure very well. And if you feel powerless for very long, you can. Something's going to warp inside of you psychologically. You're going to turn inward. You're going to become resentful, you're going to become angry. You're going to have pools of anger, you know, developing inside of you deeper and deeper and deeper. And you're not going to have control over yourself. So power is the sense first. The first sense of control is over yourself, over your emotions, so that you're not always reacting and getting angry, so that you have a little bit of detachment. So when it comes to those situations where you need to move or influence people like your children, your spouse, your colleagues, your boss, you're able to step back a half step, a full step, couple steps, and think and go, what is it that will actually move that person in the direction that I want? How can I actually influence them effectively so they don't hate me, so they don't resent me, so that they actually do what is in my interest without maybe even realizing it with. Or that the interests align in some way? So that is power for me, right? It begins with yourself. It begins with a slim sense of detachment from the events happening to you. It's the ability to strategize and think in each situation in life. This is a move that will gain me a little degree of control over events. You can never, ever have complete control. Life happens, things happen, pandemics happen. Black swans happen. You can't control everything, right? But that little bit of margin of control is enough to kind of help you glide through life a little bit more smoothly.

[Jefferson (Host)]

When I think of power, I think what you said is a perfect definition of it. The ability, one's ability to control or influence another's behavior, maybe including even their own. You have the personal power, you have relational power, like who in the dynamic might have more influence over the other between husband, wife, or partner. And maybe there's political power, the ability to construct, influence, others, the ability to write laws, implement laws socially. And what I find the people that I get to talk to are always looking for power of themselves and how they're going to improve their life. And where I teach is communication and the power of words. And this is why I really like.

There's a number of the. The laws that you have out that are specific to communication, like using less words in particular.

How do you find that communication and power intersect?

[Robert Greene]

They're. They're obviously completely intertwined. So. But communication has to be strategic. Okay? And that's the problem that a lot of people have in this world. They think if they just talk, if they just say, this is what I want, this is what I need, please come and help me. That that's communicating. All you're communicating is your insecurity and your needs. True communication is effective. It's strategic. It hit other people are naturally resistant to helping you or to aligning themselves with your interest. Everybody has their own problems in the world today. We are all stressed, we're all working too hard. We never have enough time, right? So you talk to me about what you want, okay? I'm kind of half listening, but you're kind of irritating me because you're just spewing things from your side, right? True communication is what I was saying before. You take that step back and you put yourself in the other person's shoes, right? You get out of your own head because you're so self involved that you don't realize that your words are just landing nowhere. You get out of your head and you go, I'm dealing with another person. They are not me. They have their own problems, their own wishes, their own issues right now in the present, right? What is that? What is it that is going on in their head in their world? Sometimes you have to do some research. Sometimes. Maybe you know them well enough, maybe you don't know them at all. But you have to figure that out. It's a puzzle. Once you figure out their side, not your side, what they want, what they need. Now you have some power to craft what you say to actually influence them, to appeal to their self interest, which is one of the laws of power, a very power, one of the most powerful laws of all, right? So if I say something and I'm trying to influence, I'm trying to move them like on a chessboard in my direction, right? If I say something that appeals to their self interest while it's also helping me, their eyes will light up. All those defenses that they have will start to go down. So communication is absolutely worthless unless it's strategic. And always say less than necessary is important because the natural tendency for a human being without self control is just to spew words, you know, just like verbal diarrhea. This is, you know, my problems, my life. This is what's going on with me. This is what I need. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? Just shut up, talk less and think more about what the other person needs and craft your communication strategically.

[Jefferson (Host)]

You know, I. I wrote a book recently and it's hard not to. I can't imagining writing a book and not having pieces of yourself in it. When you were writing this book was what was coming up for you in your own life? Are you just studying these elements of influence and control and power? Is it something that you were writing to yourself or for other people? Where did that. Where did that come up for you?

[Robert Greene]

Well, it came from two things. First of all, a very deep desire to help people in this world. I don't. My books, I think very, very deeply.

[Sponsor Announcer]

This.

[Robert Greene]

I'm working on my eighth book now, so Power is my only book. But I think very, very deeply of my audience. Right. It's a form of communication to get back to that. Right. And I want to help people. I want to help people deal with their problems in a real way, not just to satisfy my own ego. So I have to think about how my words can actually be absorbed into your daily life. So that's one side. The other side is the book came from a lot of pain, right? So I started into life like most people, kind of naive, kind of innocent. I wasn't a good player naturally, necessarily. Power, right? I made mistakes. I talked too much. Probably. I outshone the master, right? On and on and on. I could go through the laundry list of the things that I violated. And I didn't realize that the world is political. I thought when you enter the work world, what matters is having results, is getting things done, is doing things well. But no. I had many, many, many painful experiences, particularly working in the film world. But as I've said in many interviews, I've had 50 different jobs in my life, more than 50 in all different aspects, in every little possible avenue of life. I've had a job, and I suffer deeply. And I suffer deeply from the sense of people are so political. Their egos are involved in everything. You can see their egos as they walk past you, right? I would notice in the office that there was these hierarchies. I worked. Remember, I worked for a while at the magazine Rolling Stone. And there are these hierarchies. There was the boss, and you could just see this massive ego walking back and forth. Then there were all the other smaller little people working right under him and their egos. And there was little me in the corner as a copy editor. Little, tiny, tiny, little ego. But that's what mattered. That's what made things run, was how well you impressed him, how you talked to the boss, in this case, Jan Wenner. And I thought, this. This is silly, but this is the real world. And you have to take the real world, seriously, you have to succeed in the real world. So the book came from deep pools of pain, from my own mistakes, and from a deep desire to help other people, because I feel it's the source of a lot of depression and misery in life. You know, you say something or you do something thinking that you're on the right track, it's going to help you, and the next thing you know, you're fired or you're devoted. You don't know why I felt, you know, I see people around me having these problems. So those are the two strands of the book. A deep desire to help people and. And a realization that the world is political, full of egos, and that mistakes are very costly and painful, and I made plenty of them.

[Jefferson (Host)]

Yeah, well, you're not alone. We've all. We've all made a lot of mistakes. Looking back at it now and knowing the impact of the book, and I want to. I want to talk about the book specifically that you're. You're writing and going to be releasing soon is.

For those who haven't read it or those who might go, you know what? Now that I've listened to this episode, I want to pick it up again. Maybe they have it on their shelf. I haven't looked at it in a while. How do you find, and especially being the one that wrote it, that this topic can also be very healing?

[Robert Greene]

I get a lot of emails from people that, you know, it's helped them. It's turned their life around or they started a business because of the book. Of course they're, you know, it's anecdotal, so I'm sure there's a lot of stories out there, people who've been hurt, who've been on the other side of the manipulation. I understand that. But what's healing and liberating is to finally have that little light turned on inside of your brain, that this is how the world works. I didn't realize that. I thought what mattered was. Was just being myself. I thought that I. I could just do my job, say the things that I like, dress the way that I like to dress, just be myself, and it was enough. And no, I'm suffering from it. And just seeing that little switch go on in your brain, that, no, the game is different. It's played differently. There are rules to this game. You can't just come in, play poker, and just do whatever you want. There are rules for poker. There were rules for chess. You don't know the rules. You're just playing terribly and you're suffering and just that little bit of switch inside going, maybe I'm entering this game, maybe I'm from the wrong angle. Maybe I'm being too selfish, egotistical, I'm too self absorbed and I'm not thinking enough about the players in this game. That little switch of your perspective of how you look at it can be deeply healing and enlightening because it's not natural to us. As I said, it wasn't natural to me. So I think in that sense, that's what has helped a lot of people, a lot of people who like myself, enter the work world a little bit innocent and a little bit on the naive side.

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[Jefferson (Host)]

How can you tell if somebody is trying to manipulate you?

[Robert Greene]

Well, sometimes if people are clever, you're not going to realize it. Like, if people are really good at the manipulation game, if they know the 48 laws of power, if they know how to seduce you, how to wrap their, their words in and make you seem like they're, they're just wonderful that they're out for your best interest. If they're really good at it, you won't realize it until it's too late. And so in my book, one of my, I think my last book, the Laws of Human Nature, what I, what I tell people is you need to identify these people before they enter your life or before you start listening to them. You need to be able to identify the manipulative types before they start charming you, before they start enchanting you, before they start wrapping you up in their dramas. Because if if you don't, if you fall into that trap, it's going to probably be too late. Most people aren't such good manipulators. And you. You can sense it, right? They're very passive aggressive. They say things that they want to get from you. But there's enough. There's a subtext involved, right? And a lot of the bad manipulators, you can feel it. You have an intuitive sense. You can understand that there's something in their body language, something in how they speak. It doesn't seem sincere. But the main thing is to under is to be able to sense people's character, to be able to identify the types of people out there. So, as I said, there's some people out there who are brilliant at the manipulation game. What, for whatever reason, not because maybe necessarily they read my book, but because it's in their DNA. They're just naturally good at it, right? People who are very political. Okay? So your task is to be able to see through these people. Because the problem that a lot of people have, you see, I have to kind of circle around here a little bit. The thing that I try to say in the 48 laws of power is that it's a game of appearances. Appearances matter so much in this power game. How you present yourself, how people see you, you know, act like a king to be treated like a king, right? Recreate yourself. Your appearances is what people are judging you by, right? So at the same time, you have to control your appearances. So people see you as powerful, but you have to see, like a laser through other people's masks, through other people's games that they're playing through the appearances they're trying to create. So the great manipulators out there, right, they have signs they're not perfect. They give little clues, little crumbs that reveal that they're trying to play this kind of game on you. And that's why I wrote the Laws of Human Nature, where I give you tools for identifying the great narcissists out there. Because most of the master manipulators are toxic narcissists, and you have to be able to identify them before they enter your life. How to identify people who are full of envy. They are a very dangerous type. They'll become your best friend in order to hurt you, to sabotage you because they feel envious. You have to identify them before they get into your life, on and on and on down the line. So that's sort of my advice. There's no simple answer. How to identify a manipulator it's in their character, it's in their body language. It's the little signs that they give out. And you have to be able to see through people's masks and not always take appearances for reality.

[Jefferson (Host)]

The people who.

Would read this book, and let's say they've read it, they really understand it, they're putting it into practice, and they're somebody who wants to have, as we've defined, more power in their life, whether it's for good or whether it's for bad. And through that, they're going to be able to, as a verb, manipulate people for good or for bad to their purpose. Do you find that the people who read this book.

Are doing it with ill intent or for good intent? Like you? I know you've heard, you have to have had a lot of feedback from this book over the last many years.

[Robert Greene]

Yeah.

[Jefferson (Host)]

And I'm curious what you'd speak to that.

[Robert Greene]

Well, let me clear up one thing, though, that not all of the laws are about manipulation. Right?

[Jefferson (Host)]

Right.

[Robert Greene]

I mean, I guess it's how you define manipulation, but creating compelling spectacles, One of the, one of the laws is, you know, creating something that draws a lot of attention. Right. Which is what a lot of life and social media involves. Now, you can say in some ways it's manipulation, but it's also just trying to please people, just trying to bring pleasure into the world, just trying to create a spectacle that attracts attention. I don't necessarily see every law in there about manipulation, but to get to your point.

You know, I've said this before. The people who are really, really nasty and evil at the game of power, and they're out there, out there. I. I would, I would say maybe 3 to 5% of the population would be like that. Maybe I'm overestimating the number. You don't really need a book like the 48 Laws of Power. Right. They've been learning this from a very early age. They probably had troubled childhoods. I don't want to get too deep into the psychology of that. But they've been wounded in their childhood. Right. And they learn from the age of 6 or 7 or 8. This is how you get people. This is how you string people along. This is how you get attention. This is how you be dramatic. This is what you say. This is how you get mommy and daddy to pay attention to me. This is how, you know, you get the teacher to like me. They've learned this step by step at an early age. By the time they enter the work world, in 22, they've been dealing, doing this in high school, they've been doing it at college or wherever. They're getting better and better at it. Then this book comes along, the 48 laws of power. Well, they don't need to read that. If they read it, it's just going to confirm the things that they've kind of intuitively understood. Now I don't deny that there's going to be a percentage of people who read that book go, wow, I can really be nasty in the world. I can really use this now and get a lot of power. And they are using it for bad purposes. I understand that and I have to own up to that. And not, I'm not completely naive about how the book is used but the vast percentage of people, and I know this from the emails I get, I get hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of them in the last 20 some years. Probably hundreds of thousands in the end are people who are like myself, were like myself, who were naive, who didn't understand how the game is played, who entered the work world with all kinds of illusions that were bred into them. Because your parents don't tell you, your teachers at your parents and your schools don't tell you that there are people out there who are manipulative, that the world can't be political, that everyone out there has egos. Nobody teaches you this. All of the books are so sweet and sugary, telling you self help books, you know, just cooperate. This is how to be a good human being. And you enter the work world and nobody prepared you for the slap that you have from people being so nasty, political and ego ridden. Nobody taught me this. They glom onto the book like it's, you know, water in the desert. Wow, he's teaching me something real. That's the majority of readers I believe I could be wrong. There's no science behind it. I don't have data, anecdotal data. Those is sort of how I believe it. These are the readers that are chatted to them.

[Jefferson (Host)]

What I have found in my own life is so, so much of what I have seen and ran into with.

Especially in what they would early childhood trauma like what you just talked about. People who have people who are proficient at lying or manipulating or exercising as we can define power. It's because at that point in time in their life there was an actual utility to it. They were able to get mom and dad to stop arguing. They were able to keep the family together. They were able to not get in trouble to keep themselves from getting abused or whatever it is that so much of it they have already learned. And whereas some people might be, like you said, they think everything's roses and they just get hit with the tidal wave as soon as they enter the real world of, wow, this is. It doesn't matter how nice I am, they're going to be rude to me. It doesn't matter how clean I play. I'm never going to get anywhere if I don't do X, Y and Z. Nobody taught me the true rule, the. The hard knock rules.

[Robert Greene]

Yeah.

[Jefferson (Host)]

Is that fair?

[Robert Greene]

Yeah. I mean, I wrote a book about warfare and one of the concepts called 33 strategies of war. And one of the concepts in there is what we call asymmetric warfare. And that's what is also called dirty warfare, right? People who like terrorism, okay. Or like guerrilla warfare where the rules are thrown out, where you're willing to do anything, but usually it comes from armies that have. That are much smaller and weaker. And that's certainly the origin of terrorism, right? You're going to leverage your smallness, your small size, your small army, but being as nasty and amoral, and you'll do anything to get power to hurt the enemy, okay? And what happens is oftentimes the enemy doesn't. Plays by rules is good. And so in asymmetric warfare, right? It's an ethical. There's also an ethical asymmetry. So I think of things like Putin in Russia, for instance, okay? He's somebody who's willing to play do anything for power, as nasty and as dark. Whatever works for him and his country is what he will do. When you have these European countries with their democracies and their rules and their all and their organization and their bureaucracies, and they're continually at a disadvantage facing somebody who's willing to do anything much more than they're willing to do. We find this as well in American politics, okay? So in life, the same thing happens when there are people out there in your office who have, who their ethics and their morals are thinner than yours. They're willing to do things that you would never consider doing. You're at a continual disadvantage. You're not willing to do the dirty things that they're doing, right? How do you defend yourself in a world where some people are willing to do things that you would never consider doing, right? Well, you have to become strategic and you have to understand that you don't have to do. You don't have to be evil. You don't have to lower yourself to their level. You don't have to play fire, to hit fire with fire. You could do different things to upset them, to be strategic, to deter them from hurting you, et cetera. But there's the fact that there are asymmetries of it. There are people who are willing to do things that you're not willing to do. Is the source of a lot of problems and pain in your life and suffering. And you're going to suffer throughout your life because of that. You know, those toxic narcissists, their. Their gamut of what they're willing to do is like this, and yours is like this. And so, you know, you're. You're constantly being hit by things and you're not necessarily understanding because you're a good person. You don't necessarily register all the dark things that they're doing until it's too late.

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[Jefferson (Host)]

Before we keep going, I want to.

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[Jefferson (Host)]

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[Jefferson (Host)]

Like to read a quote that hit home for me.

Understand people will constantly attack you in life. One of their main weapons will be to instill in you doubts about yourself, your worth, your abilities, your potential. That's in transform self love into empathy. My question is how do we build communication habits that handle these attacks on ourselves that instill doubts in us without internalizing them? Or how do you handle people trying to instill doubts in you?

[Robert Greene]

You talked about self love. This is from my book, the Laws of Human Nature.

So to the degree that you are insecure, to the degree that you don't really love yourself. So we have to clear up a misconception that people have. There's a difference between narcissism and true self love, right? So if you learned at an early age, three or four or five years old, that you're actually a good person, that you're worthy of love and affection from other people, you know that you have skills and abilities as you get older that are actually worthwhile, that will contribute, right? Then you have an anchor in your life. You have a degree of love of yourself, a confidence. So every time later in life where you have blows, where people hit you with doubts or they try and sabotage you, they try and insinuate that maybe you're not so good, or they play these games that we're talking about, you're going to hit, get this blow and it's going to depress you and it's going to lower you down and it's going to affect you. We're all like that. Nobody can, can, can't suffer from that, myself included. But what happens is if you have that level of self love that you developed at an early age, you will rise back up. You will start going, no, it's not true that I'm this way. It's not true what they're trying to tell me, you know, I'm actually worthy. And I know it because I've done things in my life, I've accomplished this, I've helped this other person. It raises you back up. It's Like a thermostat that you have inside of yourself, okay? So the degree that you have that, that love will bounce you back up. And you'll be able to tell yourself, at first their doubts kind of hit you because we're, we're all human. But then you go, no, it's crap. They're playing a game. I'm not going to fall for that. But if you were wounded very early on and you never developed that self love, and you have a lot of doubts about yourself already, and you're insecure and you're riddled with like, bullet holes and wounds inside of yourself where things can leak through and people tell you those things, it's going to bring you down and you're going to not rise back up. You rise back up a little bit. Then another person will hit you. You keep going down and down and down. You get depressed, and you'll find it very difficult to rise back up. So the way you have to handle it in life, if you're in your 20s or 30s or 40s or even in your 50s, well, I just saw a coyote walk right by.

You know, you have to develop it. You have to go back and go, I'm beating up on myself. I have all these insecurities. They're effective. These people are effectively manipulating them because I'm allowing them to manipulate me. So when bad things happen to you in life, you have two choices you can do right. This is probably the most important thing I can tell everybody out there. You have two ways you can go. You can blame other people. You can say, oh, that evil person out there, he's manipulating. She's manipulating you. They're doing this, that and the other. Oh, woe is me. I'm being the victim, blah, blah, blah. They're evil, they're bad. Okay? You do that in life, you're never going to get anywhere, right? You're going to always be looking for things to blame, looking at external things. You're never going to grow. You're never going to develop. The other thing is, every time something bad happens, you. You look inside of yourself and you go, that person manipulated me. That narcissist got into my life and did all kinds of damage. What is it about me that allowed them into my life? What is it about me that was so innocent, that was so stupid, that believed the things that we're saying? Okay? So if you're able to learn and grow from these events and look at yourself and go, why was I. Why was I allowing them to hit me and hurt me and instill these doubts and why did they affect me? What's wrong with me? Well, maybe I don't love myself enough. Maybe I don't have enough confidence in myself. How do I build that up? Well, I have to go back to my childhood. I have to think about the things that I've actually accomplished. I have to build it up slowly, slowly, slowly. And that's how you handle things. But if you can't look inside of yourself and go, the bad thing happened, and I have to learn from it, and I had to grow. And maybe some of it's my own fault. You're sunk in life for the rest of your life. You'll never, ever develop.

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[Robert Greene]

Phew.

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[Jefferson (Host)]

I want to take a quick second.

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[Jefferson (Host)]

Stage to speak to people.

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[Jefferson (Host)]

I want to make sure and touch on the project you've been working on. I believe it's called the Sublime.

[Robert Greene]

The Law of the Sublime. Yes.

[Jefferson (Host)]

Yeah, tell us about it. Is it. Do you have a release date for it?

[Robert Greene]

Well, I'm very finally happy to announce that yes, it should be out in October of 2026.

[Jefferson (Host)]

And I said fantastic.

[Robert Greene]

Well, yeah, I mean I've been working on it for five and a half years now, you know, and so.

Every day, constantly, it's been. It's been a roller coaster. So to see the end is almost. Brings tears to my eyes. I almost can't even. I can't even.

[Jefferson (Host)]

That's wonderful.

[Robert Greene]

Handle it.

[Jefferson (Host)]

This will be your ninth book.

[Robert Greene]

It'll be my eighth book.

[Jefferson (Host)]

Eighth book. Okay, eighth book. Wow, that's incredible. Can you give us a little preview of.

[Robert Greene]

Yeah, well, the Law of the Sub one.

So it's a little bit influenced by the near death experience I had eight years ago when I suffered seven and a half years ago and I suffered stroke and I came this close to dying myself. And my. My wife basically saved my life. I was driving my car here in Los Angeles. She saw my face just falling apart. Something weird going on. I was driving, I wasn't aware of any of it. She got me, she forced me off the road. She called 91 1. They came quickly. If any of those little things hadn't happened, if they'd been a minute later or she hadn't recognized it, I'd be. I wouldn't be talking to you right now. I'd either be dead or I'd be in a vegetative state. So life is this very thin thread, right, where things can, you know, you can definitely slip off the edge and you're not aware it can happen at any moment. And the sublime is this understanding.

That to be alive, to simply be alive, to see the world, to see things as they are, to see birds, to see nature, to see human beings, to see that you and I are talking on this instrument right now, which 50 years ago would seem like something from some science fiction story is utterly mind blowing. But people don't realize that they walk through their lives with their phone stuck in their face. They're thinking about, you know, reading about what people had for breakfast. Their minds are getting smaller and smaller. They're shrinking down. They're not opening up to the infinite, to the vastness of this world, to the amazing fact that we're on a planet with life in a cosmos. There's probably very little, hardly maybe no life at all. That it evolved to where we are today, that we're human beings, that we have. What we have is utterly unbelievable. And I'm trying to open your eyes to each of the different aspects of what I call the sublime. Then I talk about childhood and how our childhood was so. All of our childhoods were so intense, were naturally sublime, and what that means. How the brain and consciousness itself is utterly weird and sublime. How other animals and their consciousness and how we can kind of study and empathize with other species is utterly sublime. Love, which is a chapter, is a sublime quality. History in the past and our ancestors is an. Is an incredible thing. I talk about ancient civilizations. I described to you what the ancient city of Babylonia looked like, the ancient world. The cities back there were unbelievably beautiful in a way we. We can't even imagine. Right. So I have 12 different chapters, each kind of going into some of those different aspects. And it's been a journey because this lit. This hand here that I'm holding up is kind of dead because this is my stroke. I can't type. So I've had to handwrite everything and then dictated into the computer.

[Jefferson (Host)]

Wow.

[Robert Greene]

If you saw the process, you'd go, my God, I can't believe you even got one paragraph of this book out.

So.

[Jefferson (Host)]

Well, that is. That is incredibly impressive. And I look forward to everybody taking a. Making sure they can go take a look at it when it comes out there in October. I'm.

[Sponsor Announcer]

That's very.

[Jefferson (Host)]

That's something to very much admire. So I appreciate you sharing that with us.

[Robert Greene]

You're very welcome. Very welcome.

[Jefferson (Host)]

I wanted to wrap up with this question, one that you've probably gotten before now that you've had 20 plus years to, you know, look backwards.

And you said, well, you know what? I stopped at 48. If there ever could be now looking at it, another law, maybe one or two that you thought, well, I'd add this one. Do you have one?

[Robert Greene]

The 49th law is. There is no 49th law. Right.

You know, Jefferson, to be honest with you, when I finish a book, I kind of move on. I'm on to the next project. Yeah, I'm on the Seduction. I'm onto war. I'M on the mastery. I'm working with 50 Cent. I'm doing them all. I'm so absorbed in them. I don't really go back and think, what did I miss in that book over there? I try to tell myself, psychologically, you covered it all, move on onto the next project, don't look back kind of thing. That's sort of my guiding philosophy in life.

[Jefferson (Host)]

I think that's a pretty good philosophy. One I can, I can certainly relate to. Well, I appreciate, from me to you. I, I appreciate your dedication.

[Robert Greene]

Oh, thank you.

[Jefferson (Host)]

To your, to your art, into your projects and what you've chosen to share in the world. And I know that you know, as I've read them, anybody can same with my content. You can always take them in the way that you want to choose to receive them and how you accept them. But they are what they are. They in many ways. Power, like you've mentioned, is a neutral tool. And so what I've learned in our conversation today is number one, power is the ability to control or influence another to your desired outcome. And those that don't have the power, they're the ones that they feel powerless in many ways, feel like they got left behind and didn't learn these tools. These are the kind of lessons that you teach in that book that you.

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Didn'T just write off the top of your head.

[Jefferson (Host)]

You researched it from globally, from different ages to all across the world. And these are things that can help a lot of people. If anything, give them a really genuine perspective of what the real world is like. Two, when it comes to dealing with people that are attacking you and trying to put you down and instill doubts in you, their ability to do so is corresponding to the level of self love that you have invested in yourself. And those with higher self love, they're going to be less affected by those trying to sow doubts into them. And then three, I want to touch on the law of the sublime. Gave me just such a wonderful picture as you were even listening here and you saw a coyote run by. The appreciation for life and how precious it is is something that we should never forget. Robert, thank you so much for taking the time to share share with us in my audience.

[Robert Greene]

I hope you're able to see me. I see all this light coming in. God, I should have moved over.

[Jefferson (Host)]

I just thought you were glowing. Yeah, you know, I really.

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It's just.

[Jefferson (Host)]

You're just glowing. That's awesome. Robert, thank you so much. I appreciate.

[Robert Greene]

I'm glad that we finally feel to do this. Thank you take care, man.

[Jefferson (Host)]

Me too. Absolutely.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Yes, sir.