← Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
How To Escape Mediocrity, Find Purpose & Master Power (Get Ahead Of 99% Of People) | Robert Greene (Fan Fave)
01:36:06
Loading summary
Transcript86 lines
- [00:00]
A
When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters, but when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery so you can keep your facility stocked, safe and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [00:30]
B
If you work in university maintenance, Grainger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena is always ready for tip off. And Grainger is your trusted partner, offering the products you need all in one place, from H Vac and plumbing supplies to lighting and more. And all delivered with plenty of time left on the clock. So your team always gets the win. Call 1-800-GRAINGER visit grainger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
- [01:00]
C
If your goal is to climb the ladder of success, you have to avoid the common traps that devour most people. Laziness, drugs and alcohol, porn, nihilism and things like doom scrolling that take your time but give nothing in return. You're not going to stumble upon the path to success. You're going to have to hack your way through a jungle of potentially life destroying behaviors that will grab at you on your way to developing discipline. To help in that fight, Robert Greene and I are going to discuss the best path through this minefield. A lot of people are feeling hopeless right now and they are gravitating towards alcohol, porn, Netflix, etc. But nobody is coming to save them. If they want to get out of that hole, they are going to have to do it themselves. So what is it that people can do, do and quite honestly avoid doing if they want to stop being aimless and make their dreams a reality?
- [01:58]
D
Well, sometimes you have to get deep enough in that hole that you really, really want to get out. So the key factor in life is motivation, is desire, is the energy that you bring to it. So if you don't believe in yourself, if you only half heartedly reading my books or listening to Tom or listening to me and you go, yeah, I kind of want to change. It won't matter, it won't change anything. You'll just go back to your old habits, right? Because habits are very powerful. You're a product of the cultural moment. It's very hard to resist it. It's very hard to swim against the tide of the times that we live in. So if you don't have the motivation, if you don't have the energy, if you don't have the idea that, damn it, I'm going down fast if I don't turn this around, you know, you're only alive once it's, you know, yolo. And it goes past really fast. I can tell you that as now as I get older, faster than you think. So you've got to be desperate. You've got to tell yourself, I've got to get out of this. I've got to change my life. I've got to swim against the tide of the times that I lived in. I have to change my ways. Because if not when I'm 32, when I'm 35, when I. All of my hopes, all of my horizons will narrow so much that it's going to look very, very bleak, right? So the younger you are, the better. And you have to have that desire. You have to look yourself square in the eye. And the number one thing to think of is you have much less time than you imagine, right? It goes past really quickly. Your 20s will go past faster than you could imagine. Suddenly you're 30. You go, Whoa, what am I going to do? Then you're 40. Shit, it's too late, you know, okay, so just realize you. You don't have as much time as you think you have. Now. The other thing you have to realize is what builds strength, what builds character, is resistance, right? So if you're trying to make your body physically stronger, you need resistance, you need weights, because weights are natural resistance, you need to swim, water is resistant, you need to run, you know, gravity is resistant, etc. That resistance builds muscle, builds strength, builds aerobic power, et cetera, et cetera. Life, mentally, it's the same thing. The times that you live in are providing incredible amounts of resistance towards success, towards power, towards a sense of fulfillment. They are flooding your face with all kinds of qualities that you have to resist. And to the degree that you're aware of these qualities and to the degree that you resist them, you will build inner strength. You will build the kind of life skills that are necessary to survive and thrive in a very, very tough world. So one of these resistance factors is social media is the level of distractions that we're all facing, right? That's never, ever, ever been so intense. And you have to realize you don't let everything into your body. You don't eat all this sugar, I hope at least you don't eat all the pizza that you think is great for you. You understand that you have to limit your diet to be healthy, particularly as you get older. You have to limit your sugar intake, among other things, et cetera, okay? You have to limit the amount of stuff that's coming into your head. You have to put your head on a diet. You have to go, I can't be distracted. I can't absorb all of this information. The human brain is. We can only retain so much in our short term memory, let alone our long term memory. You're flooding it with too much. And what happens is you're losing the ability to focus on simple things, right? So to be successful, you have to have primarily the quality to focus, to concentrate. And that begins on small banal tasks like, I mean, this is, you know, a simple example. But if you're playing the piano or you're learn. Want to be a chess master, you have to learn the basics. You have to learn the moves, the different games you can play, you have to learn how to do scales, etc. Etc. You have to be very focused and attentive to it. So if you're trying to learn scales and learn how to play the piano and your mind is in 20 different places, you'll never master it. You have to develop the ability to concentrate, to focus. And the times that you are living in are making it increasingly so difficult for you that it's splintering your brain and your attention into a thousand different pieces to the point where you can't even focus on your body, on yourself, on who you are, on what makes you strong. So you got to put your brain on a diet, and that means you got to limit how much social media you let into your life. You have to limit how many different sources you're listening to. You can't be listening to a hundred different podcasts every week, although you should be listening to Tom's podcast, right? So put yourself on a diet and say, what is it that matters? What is important? And then that brings you to the second question, which is tied to the first one, which is by far the most important step in your life. With all of these things coming at you that are creating resistance, that are going to make it hard for you, which is, who are you? What makes you unique? What were you born to achieve in this world? You have to be aware of that, and to be aware of that, you have to be able to focus. You have to have introspective. Introspection is a skill. It's not given to you. The ability to tune out things and to look at yourself and go inward and go, this is what matters to me, this is what I hate. I realized early on, I've said this before, I hate politicking. I hate office politics. I hate working for other people. They annoy me. I feel like I can do a better job than they can. So I hate that. Therefore, Robert, you need to be an entrepreneur. You're not meant in this life to be working for other people. So you have to be attuned to yourself. You have to look in and go, this is what I hate. This is what I love. And you have to be honest because you can fool yourself. You can think that you love rock music and that you're meant to be a rock star, but it's only, that's because of the culture that you're living in. What your friends think is cool, that isn't necessarily who you are. You have to look at yourself. You have to focus deeply. You have to go through a process, process being honest and going, what excites me, what do I feel like makes me unique? And what does the, the power that you have in life is mining that uniqueness, mining that individual quality in whatever field you go into, even in business or being an entrepreneur. And so you can't have that self awareness if you can't focus, if you can't concentrate, if you can't be bored and take a notebook and start writing things out about your childhood, about who you are, about what you love and what you hate. If you can't do that, I'm sorry, but there's, there's no hope for you. There's really no hope for you. So you have to be able to put yourself on that information diet and go into that introspective process.
- [09:13]
C
That, that's really heavy. And I think a lot of people are gonna, they're going to hear that there's no hope for them. That's gonna feel right. And before you and I started rolling, you said, um, things really are bad for them. And if I grew up in their generation, I would probably be in the same boat. Why, why is it bad right now? What, what is it that's creating this sense of hopelessness?
- [09:37]
D
Well, we live in a very nihilistic culture and I find it in our entertainment, you know, so the idea of having a set of principles that guide you in life, man, that seems so old fashioned, that seems so fussy. So no, man, I'm just going to be who I am, you know, Know. And the values that are implanted in entertainment are completely nihilistic. They give you no focus, they give you no direction. They don't tell you what actually matters in life, Right? They give you all of these false. These illusions about what life is about. And so some of it stems from the kind of fractured society that we live in. So, fractured in what way? Well, most cultures up until the 21st century had a kind of cohesiveness to it. There were certain myths that people ascribed to that set the boundaries. This is what unites us all. These are the things that are good. These are the things that we hate. These are the values that are good. These are the values that are bad. Now, sometimes those cultures, those conventions, those myths, we were not good. But then you had something to rebel against. So me, as a product of the 60s and then in the 70s, when I came of age, you know, in college, I didn't like the culture that was there, the kind of monolith, the myths and things. I wanted to rebel, but I had something to rebel against. What are you going to rebel against now? You don't even know what to rebel against now because there's nothing. It's just pure chaos. I can't point my fingers, figure to what are the guiding myths of our particular cultural moment. Maybe in a hundred years they'll be clear. But I think a lot of our myths come from technology, you know, so my study of history is every cultural moment has a kind of guiding metaphor for it, something I'm writing about right now. And so, like in the 18th century, the guiding metaphor was theater. Life is like theater. We're all actors, we're all playing roles. Early in the 20th century, it was the unconscious and Freud and discovering the unconscious and exploring that which had a huge impact on culture. There were other myths, but I'd point to those today. It's technology, it's AI, it's all those other things, right? But that is like, that kind of devalues the human element. So I recently gave a couple of talks with a conversation with Ryan Holiday, and you can look at these on YouTube. It was like an hour and a half here in LA and in Seattle, and Ryan asked me my thoughts about AI and I went on a kind of a rant. I'm not a Luddite, I understand, and I use technology, etc. But my point was, instead of fetishizing AI and ChatGPT, which I admit I've seen it, it's powerful how it goes like that. Whoa. It's like magic. Fetishize the human brain. Fetishize human powers. Fetishize our sociabilities, our theory of mind. Theory of mind is what Makes humans human. And what that means is we have the ability to put ourselves in the minds of other people, to imagine what they're thinking, what they're doing. That's what makes us a preeminent social animal, which is the source of our power. What is your power? Your power is your ability to be social, is your ability to navigate difficult social environments. Your second power is your brain and all the incredible things it has. One of them is the ability to focus. One is the ability to learn, is the plasticity of the brain. So the guiding metaphor, if it's all technology, it kind of makes us think that, you know, with your smartphone, you have all of these powers, and you can't believe it. It makes you so impatient. Everything should be like my phone. Everything should be instant. Everything should be at my fingertip. If my Internet service goes down for a few hours, I get so cranky, like a little baby whining and crying, right? No, what really should matter is not you don't have those powers. You can't press a button. Your brain isn't designed that way. It takes years to develop true skill. To be a master at something, you need to go back to these elemental, primal human qualities, our sociability. So get out of the virtual realm. Learn social skills, which is what my book, the laws of Human Nature will kind of help you and grind you, ground you in, as well as the 48 laws of power. And you need brain skills. You need to develop skills, actual skills that you can use in this world.
- [14:28]
C
Man, that's really interesting. So the idea of the guiding myths, that's something that's sort of been in the back of my mind, but I hadn't pulled forward. So thank you for that. Because now that you say that, I think one of the biggest issues that I see people struggling with. I would have used different words, but it's the same idea. People look at the world, they look at the here in the west, they look at the game that we're playing. They see capitalism. Ew, this is gross. Like, it's predatory, whatever. And, and because they have such a negative view of the system, because the system right now isn't working for their generation, they just want to opt out. But it creates this incredibly cynical, incredibly aimless, incredibly hopeless vibe. And I think you and I agree that's dangerous. Now, I, I, I will say for my own sake, I think it's dangerous for them. I think the punchline of life is all about fulfillment. I think that's what people should be pursuing. I think fulfillment has an evolutionarily imbued formula. And that recipe, maybe is a better word, is you're gonna have to work really hard to gain a set of skills that you care about for your own intrinsic reasons that allow you to serve yourself and others. If you do that, you're gonna be fine. If you don't, you're gonna have a profound sense of disease. Because people wanna check out of the system. They are, to your point, acts. They're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. So they're trying to check out of a system, which, by the way, I think is a phenomenal system. And I advise people not to check out of it. But anyway, even if you want to check out of that system, if you then just dive into any setup that isolates you, you're going to be in for a bad time. Because we. The brain works in a certain way. And so I've said many times on the show on my tombstone I wanted to read, you're having a biological experience. And the reason I want people to understand that is because your brain works a certain way. There are certain things you can do that will align yourself to feeling good, feeling engaged, feeling fulfilled, loving, communication, connection, meaning and purpose, all that. And there are things that you can do that will lead you exactly away from this and so rejecting the system, but without a cause. So rebel without a cause. Style is not going to move you towards anything. That's a pure move away from play. And if you're just moving away from something, you're going to find yourself accelerating that sense of aimlessness. And so I. There's a compounding variable here, which is people. There's a rising sentiment. Burn it all down. And then we'll build utopia, for lack of a better word, in its place. And that is people that don't understand the absolute hellfire of chaos that will reign if your meaning and purpose becomes destroying instead of building. Because if, if they really do succeed in tearing down a system, you don't have scaffolding left to build upon. And that bad things happen in that vacuum.
- [17:32]
D
Well, first of all, also, it's not possible to tear things down because the world is larger than just individuals. It's larger than a movement. It's larger than your generation, I'm afraid to say. So you don't even have the power to tear things down because the world will go into its own kind of system. It's on. The human unconscious has moved us throughout history. Human nature has. It's going to continue. It's beyond, it transcends you as an individual. So you don't have as much power to burn things down as you imagine. So just get over that childish fantasy. But the second thing I would say is I began by saying what matters is your level of energy, your level of motivation in life, right? And when you're cynical and when you're nihilistic, it just drains you of energy. Why do anything, man? It doesn't matter. You know, 10 years down the road, it's climate change. We're all going to be dying anyway, what matters. Okay, but I'm writing a book right now on the sublime, in which I'm trying to say the world that you live in is not ugly, it's not horrible, it's not destructive, it's insanely beautiful. The fact of being alive is one of the most weirdest things. I even have a chapter called Awaken to the Strangeness of Being Alive. It's chapter number two. And so just the fact that you are alive now as a human being is an incredibly unlikely set of circumstances that occurred. So the world that we live in is utterly sublime and utterly weird. And a lot of that interesting stuff comes from science. So at the same time that technology is kind of making our brains into mush, scientists are uncovering things that just are so fantastic, they're extraordinary. What we're learning about the cosmos, what we're learning about the origins of life, what we're learning about evolution, what we're learning about the brain, I mean, if you just think about it, it's staggering. And so being part of that wave of knowledge that's overwhelming us right now should be incredibly exciting. But if you have no excitement in life, if you think it's all just crap and it's better just to not care, and you know what that comes from, It's a common adolescent pose. And I probably had it when I was 16 years old, man, I don't care. Let's screw everything. You know, it comes from insecurity, it's not strength. Being that kind of rebel without any reason for against nothing is actually a sign of incredible weakness. And you know where it comes from, comes from the fear of failure. So if I don't try to do anything, if I just say, oh, it's all going to hell, I'm just going to go in my van, I'm just going to tour around the United States. I'm just going to take videos and things, you know, what the hell, you know, as. As King Louis XIV said, after me, the deluge. I don't care if that's your attitude towards life, you know, then that's what, that's what you're going to get. So you have. So it comes from a fear of failure. It doesn't come from strength. Because to try something, to try to build a business, to try and write a book, to try and make a film puts you, you're putting yourself out on the line and you could fail. And with failure comes criticism. And with failure, you're exposing yourself, you're exposing your ambition, you're exposing that you weren't up to the task. Better to not even try and to just say, oh, I don't care. Because then you're not exposing yourself. So that kind of pose is actually a form of childish insecurity that you need to get over. But you need to have a sense of excitement. And if you don't, if you think everything is just gray and equal and bad and we're all heading to hell in a handbasket, then that's what becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. So I'm writing a book to just make you get that energy, that excitement again. And you know what? When you were a child, you had it. I don't care if you grew up in this culture. Now that is kind of, I think, deadening things. You're a child. Children have this energy that nothing can suppress. You actually live in a world of enchantment. Things are like amazing to you. You want to learn, you want to read books, you want to explore, you want to explore, you want adventure. You had it when you were a child and you've lost it. You've lost it in adolescence. You lost it when you were 12, you lost it because the culture sucked it out of you. But it's there, it's still waiting to come back to you. But if you don't have that enchantment about life, if you don't see something really amazing about the one life that you have that can go by very quickly, then nothing will ever change. You're just going to end up, as I said, it'll be a self fulfilling prophecy of doom.
- [22:25]
C
Okay, I agree with all that. It's easy though to step into their shoes and look back at you and say, hey, listen, old man. Who remembers the late 60s that worked because of the time you were in and demographics are destiny. And the time that I'm born, it's just an absolute shit show. Baby boomers are hoarding all of the wealth. They refuse to leave the workforce. I can't buy a property you. And when you were first getting on the property ladder it was like A$50 to buy a house in Beverly Hill Hills. And so, yeah, it seems great for you. And Ops, I've taken on $180,000 in college debt. It's non dischargeable, even in bankruptcy. So you found a way to put me in indentured servitude. And I can't expect my, oh, I'm not done. I can't expect my Social Security to be there when I get there because you won't die. So that's how they're going to look back at you. What do you say to somebody with that frame of reference?
- [23:26]
D
Well, you know, there's obviously some truth to that. And I said, I understand why people are the way they are, you know, but not every time is this sort of golden period in history. You know, I lived through the 1980s, which I thought was a really, really ugly period in history. I found it very bleak and very horrifying. And I didn't have this kind of golden thing that you might imagine. I did not have success until I was 39 years old. I struggled. I was more like how people are nowadays in that I wandered from job to job. I had 60 different jobs. I never held a job for more than 11 months in my entire life. Okay, so I know. And I got very depressed. I even had moments of being suicidal. I lived in a crappy one bedroom apartment in Santa Monica. I know Santa Monica is very nice, but back then it wasn't so nice. And so I know what it means to struggle. I didn't have debt, but I didn't have any money. I was very poor. Living in many, most of my life, I was very poor. So it's not as golden as you think for me individually, but I understand the baby boomer scenario and everything that you're facing, but so what? Stop whining. Stop whining about the circumstances. My parents grew up in. The depression times are nowhere near what they had to deal with. My grandparents really more, but even my parents to some extent. So stop your goddamn whining. It was pretty awful back then. They faced the stock market crash in 1929. They had to live through the depression of the 1930s. Then they had World War II. You think you have it bad? Try having to deal with the Nazis and the Japanese attacking you both at the same time. The 1960s, we had the Vietnam War. I was of the age where I had a draft number. My draft number was so low that I was certain to be drafted. But fortunately the draft ended like six months before my age. Came of whatever. So, you know, you think it's the worst ever. It's not the worst ever. I could point to a hundred other periods in history that were equally incredibly bleak. The generation that came out of World War I. Do you know the massacre that young people faced in World War I? That's why we had the 1920s where the flappers. Because people didn't want, they wanted to drink themselves into oblivion. Millions of young men died for a senseless, stupid war, okay? You have no historic sense. You have no sense of proportion. Just because you live in the 2020s, you think that this is the worst time. You don't read history. You don't understand that it's not the worst, worst ever. So stop your whining. There are plenty of humans that have dealt with things far worse than you've ever dealt with. Our ancestors who were pioneers in the 19th century, they felt faced privations and poverty that you would have no conception over. You have it much better than a lot of other people in the past. So stop your goddamn whining. People had it worse in the past. A lot of times. You don't have it so bad, okay? You have a lot of debt, all right? You have to make a plan. You have to be strategic. But if you give up, if you just say, oh, it's the baby boomers, oh, I can't own a home. If that's your energy, then that's going to be the fate that you have. There are always circumstances that are going to be resistant to you. I understand the resistance factors now are very powerful, but are you going to meet them or are you just going to give in and surrender? You can make that choice and that's fine if you want to live on an organic farm in Oregon. I have nothing against it and I'm not making fun of it because that is a good life. That could be fine if that's your ambition. But maybe you can't make it that way because that's not an easy life either, right? So you have to make a choice. Do I want something else for myself or do I just want to wallow in self pity and, and blame other people? And you can blame other people and there's a lot of things to blame. Just as when I was growing up, I had a lot of things I could blame. But you have to look at it differently and you have to say that kind of energy is self destructive. How can I get out of that energy? I can only get out of. I have to control what I can control. I Have bad student debt. I have $100,000 in debt. All right, I got to make a plan for the next five years. First of all, you didn't have to get that hundred thousand dollars in debt. So you take a little bit of responsibility for that. You know, I mean, I know they had little things that you signed that you weren't aware of, but for a long time, we've been aware of some of those predatory practices in lending. So it's partially your responsibility a little there. But, okay, you have your $100,000 in debt, you make a plan. I'm going to have to work it off this way. I'm going to have to get a job that pays well, but at the same time, I'm going to be building other kind of life skills, et cetera. I'm going to get myself out of this hole. I'm going to have hope. I'm going to have energy. Fine. That's the alternate path. But if you don't have that, if you don't think that that's possible, then there's nothing really that I can say. I could just waste a lot of words. It won't mean anything. But don't think that you have it worse than other people because you have no sense of history. You're living in this bubble, this illusion of the present. You don't know what people like. We're living in the Middle ages, in the 18th century in America, in the 19th century, World War I, the Depression, the Vietnam War, Watergate era, the recession we had then stop it. You don't understand. You're not reading history.
- [29:10]
A
When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Granger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery so you can keep your facility stocked, safe, and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [29:40]
C
Man, I agree with that very much the way that I think about it, because one, I have a feeling that even with the, like, intense energy, you say that from a place of you want to see them do well, you don't want to see them be stuck. And that's certainly where, when I get riled up on this topic, it's from that perspective and what I used to ask people that would, you know, come to me and say, look, I've got it really Hard for whatever reason. And I've worked in the inner city, so I've seen poverty just absolutely demolish people. It's really brutal to see up close. And, and the only question that I can think of is, okay, you've got $180,000 in student debt, boomers are sucking up all the oxygen in the room. Whatever, whatever. All the bad things, terrible economy, no way to get on the property market, all that climate change. The question that remains is and now what? And if your answer to and now what is I give up, I will say that that is not a life frame of reference. That I'll, I'll refer to it as that that is going to lead you anywhere neurochemically advantageous. Now, okay, going back to you're having a biological experience. So when I say a neurochemically advantageous experience, what I mean is you're not going to feel good, it's just going to feel terrible. And so it's an incredibly self destructive frame of reference to adopt. Now, we all see the world through a distorted lens. That's what I mean when I say frame of reference. So your frame of reference is a pair of glasses that you wear and this glass are distorted and they do not show you reality, they show you a distortion of reality. The great news is, even though it doesn't seem like it, you get to shape those lenses. And the thing that worries me is that people have shaped the lens to show them a world that is against them. It is a hostile universe.
- [31:32]
D
Well, and let's say that these, all these things are real. Like about the. They're very real. I don't deny them and I don't deny the reality of people living in inner cities. And I have a huge readership among people from inner cities who've used my books and have helped them a lot. And I did a book with 50 Cent who's. I agree, understand it's an exception, but he came from the worst part of America and he managed to pull himself up in an incredible story. So I, I understand that. But let's say that these are the circumstances that you have and you're young and when you're young you're idealistic, which is part of cynicism, is just the flip side of idealism. So your idealism you can't really hold on to, so it just flips into cynicism. But the two are very much related. And so if you believe that these things that are so unjust in this world, then there's your energy, there's where you put yourself, there's your cause. Your cause isn't to destroy, is to say, wow, there's a lot of injustice in this world. There's a lot of poor people that are suffering because there's no opportunities out there. Boomers have created this awful world, all right, how do I construct a better world? How can I create a movement? How can I create more opportunity for other people? How can I start a business that will employ thousands of people instead of just wasting away and not contributing at all? How can I contribute to helping climate change? You know, it kind of ticks me off that there's so much technology in Silicon Valley that goes to entertaining us, to masturbating our mind, so to speak, with all kinds of trivial bullshit things that don't matter in life. Take all of that brilliant energy and do it to solving some real problems that we're facing, problems that we've just outlined here about the lack of opportunities, about home ownership, about climate change. But pour your energy into something productive if you feel that way, and then contribute a sense of contribution, you know, it will fulfill you in a way as a social animal. The sense of, I just didn't whine and give up, I actually did something to help change this world. And if you think that's impossible, if it's just like Don Quixote tilting at windmills, then fine, then that's what end up happening. But even Don Quixote had this illusion that he was actually going to change it. So you need to have those illusions. Even if it's not true that you could change this world, you at least need to believe that you can kill those windmills with your sword. You need to at least believe in the illusion. And then, then your energy will change. So if there's so much against you, there's so much injustice in the world, there's your cause, there's your energy, there's your hope.
- [34:24]
C
So if it really is an illusion, why would they be better off believing in an illusion than trying to contact ground truth, figure out what is real and how to operate moving forward so that they can make whatever change it is that they want to change.
- [34:42]
D
Well, I'm not sure quite understand. I mean, what I meant by illusion is maybe you as an individual can't really stop climate change. Obviously you can't. And it's bigger problem that you than what any of us can really tackle. But believing that you can make a difference will give you the energy to create something, to do something, as I said in human nature, change your attitude to change. Your circumstances. So if you believe in it, then you will do something towards that and maybe it won't be enough, but if enough people believe that, then it will be enough. But what was the second part of your question?
- [35:24]
C
No, that was it. I wanted to know. So my thing is, it's what I call the only belief that matters. So the only belief that matters is that if you put and energy into getting better at something, you'll actually get better at it. So if, like my advice would be very different if I actually thought there was nothing they could do. The reason that my advice is to ask and now what? And to come up with a positive vision for their future is that they really can make a change. I mean, there's just the litany. I mean, you've already gone through the litany of people that have had it way worse and they've still managed to do something productive with their time. Anybody that doesn't know Winston Churchill story, it is truly incredible. This was a guy that was watching his city be bombed nightly. He was constantly in danger. He was on the front lines of World War I being shot at. Like, this was not somebody who was tucked away.
- [36:09]
D
And he had severe bouts of depression.
- [36:12]
C
Indeed. And he was, he just always said, you know, one, I'm grateful that I live at such a pivotal moment in history so that we can do something about this. So to your point, it's like if you really see a lot of things you want to make change on, then it's like, okay, what do I need to do in order to make that change? So going back to frame of reference, if your frame of reference is cynical and there's nothing I can do, it becomes that self fulfilling prophecy because only behaviors matter. But your behaviors are downstream of your beliefs. So if you don't get your beliefs right that, hey, if I engage in this, if I go do something, if I want to pay off my student loans, there is a path to getting this done. And that doesn't mean that the deck isn't stacked against people. It doesn't mean that there aren't worse times in human history. But at the same time, if you. The only way to make a bad time worse is to have a negative attitude about it. And I mean, look, there's two books written about Auschwitz where that's the punchline, man, search for meaning. And then the book is called the Choice. I forget the woman's name. She's still alive as far as I know. She was doing podcasts very recently and her whole family is killed in the Holocaust. She was in the Holocaust and she was a dancer and the Nazis used to make her dance while they were like selecting people to be killed. It crazy. Just like unimaginable amounts of psychological torture. And she realized, I have a choice to make. Now that I've survived, is that going to be my life or am I going to find a way to find meaning and purpose and go after something? And so it's. I don't want to adjudicate whether worse time, not worse time. I just want to say, such as the human condition that everyone is going to encounter difficult things. Your frame of reference is going to control what you do and what you do will control the quality of your life.
- [38:00]
D
I mean Auschwitz, I mean, who had it worse than that? Can you imagine? And I've read many, many accounts of it. As somebody who lost a lot of my ancestry in the Holocaust and I highly. I can't recommend enough reading Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl. It's an amazing book that accounts what he lived through, but also a philosophy of life that will serve you very well and exactly the struggles that we're talking about.
- [38:29]
C
So yeah, talk to me about envy. Life is driven in large part by envy. How much of that do you think is at play here with social media exacerbating all the comparisons and.
- [38:44]
D
Yeah, well, you know, it's been a subject that has interested me for a long time because I think it is a huge motivating factor that people don't talk about. I had a chapter in the 48 Laws of Power called Never appear too perfect and the dangers of being seeming perfect and great, you're going to attract envy. And then in human nature I had a whole chapter on envy and kind of where it comes from and how you yourself are prone to feeling envy. And so the first thing you have to realize is these negative qualities that are embedded in human nature and I think we can all agree that they're seemingly negative, like envy, like overt aggression or passive aggression or grandiosity or being irrational or being only able to think in terms of the short term, etc. All of these qualities, envy being a very, very potent one of them. The main thing is to not externalize it and to say, oh, people on social media have envy. Oh, it's this person, it's my friend, you have it, I have it. I feel envy all the time. I know it, I sense it in myself. And it's because the human brain is a comparing machine. Our brains function by taking in information and comparing it to Things that have happened previously. So we can say this is familiar, this is unfamiliar. If it's familiar, I can deal with it. If it's unfamiliar, I have to be creative. I have to think in the moment. Our brains compare, that part of our brain is now operating in the social realm because we're social animals. We're continually comparing ourselves to other people. What they have, what we don't have, the great vacations they're taking, the incredible girlfriend or wife that they have that's much better than mine, the much. The greater income that they're making. They're younger. You know, I've talked in previous podcasts about the envy that I have for Ryan Holiday. And it's very real and I'm not joking and I deal with it and I turn into something positive because I love Ryan. I admire him, but damn it, he's younger than me. He's had 20 best selling books before I even wrote a single book. He's got all this incredible energy and all this. He's got a family. Yeah, I can feel envy towards it. I'm honest. I understand that. I feel it. So that's the first thing to understand. You have to come to grips with. You have envy. Okay, you think that we are so sophisticated, we live in this modern 21st century world that we've, that we're so superior to anybody in the past. But when it comes to envy, we are the most primitive animal on the planet because of our technology, right? So having Instagram that shows you pictures of everybody's vacation, everybody's fun that they're having in life. And, man, I look at it too right now, you know, I'll go, damn it. My friends in Istanbul, it looks fantastic. Why could I, Why can't I be like that? They're climbing this mountain. I had a stroke. I can't climb the mountain.
- [41:49]
C
Damn it.
- [41:49]
D
Why do I have to see this? It's in your face. It's making you feel envy all the time. It's making you compare yourself to other people and it's feeding that cynicism and nihilism that we're talking about, you know? So if you're looking and you're seeing that boomers are living in these great houses that they own, all the companies that they own, Amazon, although he's not a boomer, you know, they own all the wealth in this country, etc. Etc. Then why bother, man? Why even try, you know? You know, and anyway, I hate millionaires. They're ugly people, they suck, you know, kind of thing that's your thinking, you know, so all that envy is going to feed into this kind of negative thing where it's hopeless. I can't even do anything. It's also going to make you passive aggressive. It's going to make you leave bitchy comments on YouTube, which, believe me, I see all the time, or. Or wherever you. You go on social media. It's infecting you in subtle ways. It's draining you of positive energy. And you have to come to terms with the fact that you feel envy. And you have to turn it into something productive. You have to channel, like we were talking earlier about channeling your aggressiveness. You have to channel it into something productive, which is, instead of trashing people who are better, who have more than you, I'm going to emulate them. I'm going to use them as a role model. He's got much more money, all right, I'm going to make some money. I'm going to do so as well. He's a better athlete in this particular sport. All right, I'm going to raise my game. You know, I'm going to become a better seducer. I'm going to become better at this, that or the other. Instead of feeling envy, the other thing you can do is you can tell yourself the people you envy don't really have it any better than you do. I talked about how in. In Laws of Human nature in the 60s, not many people will remember this, but there was a man named Aristotle Onassis who was married to Jacqueline Kennedy, the widow of John Kennedy. He was the wealthiest man at the time. One of the wealthiest men at the time. He was a Greek shipping magnet. He had yachts galore. He had every light, everything that you could dream about. And he had Jacqueline Kennedy, you know, the most desirable, beautiful woman in the world. He was the most miserable, depressed son of a bitch on the planet at the time. He was incredibly unhappy. So these people that you think are so wonderful, you're seeing all these images, you're only seeing the good side, but they're probably just as miserable as you are inside because they don't have any inner qualities. They're just out there trying to show you the best stuff, but they're actually very insecure. So these people aren't as great as you think they are. And the other thing is to practice the opposite of envy. And this is a hard thing to do, but it's a very positive trait. So when people have good things, your friend. So let's say envy is very common among friends for Reasons that I explained in the book, I'm not going to tell you about now, but it's very common among friends. So your friend got a better job than you. Damn it. Oh, God, I'm really. I'm gonna smile, say, yeah, that's great, but deep down, oh, shit, what a jerk. He probably didn't really deserve it. He probably got there by some nefarious meat, et cetera. Instead of going through that envy process, which you don't admit that it's envy, you think that it's just because he's a bad person, go through the opposite and go train yourself to go to be happy for other people's success. You won't believe what a great relief it is and how, how it'll help you benefit you therapeutically in your mind, in general, to be happy, to celebrate other people's success. It's a very wonderful, great human quality that you have to develop because it doesn't come naturally to us. So just be aware that it's something that lives inside of you. And the worst thing are people who feel envy but aren't aware of it.
- [45:45]
C
Yeah, the inability to control one's mind. I'll narrow it down to emotions. I think one of the things that gets people into so much trouble is they do not have control over their emotional mind. Part of that is just lack of self awareness. So they've never even taken the time to say, what is this thing that I feel? And then, and this is another thing that I'm ranting and raving about. So if my tombstone is going to say, you're having a biological experience, like a little subhead under that, that says, oh, and by the way, don't trust your emotions. People think if they feel it, then they should act on it, and it must be true. And when I have a strong emotion, I get so skeptical of myself. And I have just learned, man, there are times where I feel so certain that I have so much righteous indignation only to then be like, oh, yeah, that actually was stupid. And I think people would save themselves a lot of pain and suffering if they went, hmm, that's weird. I feel depressed or I feel nihilistic, or this all feels like bullshit. Hold on, I'm gonna check that. Or I'm mad at that person. They upset me, or I'm envious. They must not deserve this. Like, all of that if you check yourself and get goal directed. So, okay, what are you trying to do? What are you trying to accomplish? What's the emotional state that you want to exist In I think a lot of people don't even have the North Star in their life. So for me, the North Star of not just my life, but any life, to me seems like it should be to reduce as much human suffering as possible and to promote as much human flourishing. Okay, cool. Well, then are the things you're doing, believing, saying, are they in line with that? Like, is it reducing human suffering to lean into envy? And I think if people had that North Star, then they could get into just a question of what's effective. And when I do this, I get this result, and that isn't the result that I want. Or when I do this, I get that result, and that is the result that I want. Cool. If you're getting the result that you want, you're doing the right thing by definition. If you don't get the result that you want, you're doing the wrong thing by definition. So if you don't feel the way that you want, you're doing something wrong. If you're not getting the result that you want, you're doing something wrong. Again, that doesn't mean the deck isn't stacked against you. Just means that given the hand you've been dealt, you're not playing the cards right in a way that's giving you the outcome that you're looking for. Now, I want to get back to this idea of consumption versus creation. So Netflix has become shorthand for, you know, just sort of a meme life of a guy sitting in a dark room, smoking weed, red eyes, not going to bed, almost sort of staying up out of spite to, like, you know, you. To my boss, who I guess controls my day. And so by me staying up late, I'm. I'm controlling my time. But I have a feeling that what's going on is people aren't in control of their emotions. So they're not framing this hard time that they are legitimately going through. They're not framing it in. In a way that will allow them to act productively. So they then feel a way they don't want to feel. They don't see an outlet through behavior to fix it. So they start consuming, consuming, consuming alcohol, weed, porn, Netflix, whatever, which all of those things can be fun in the right amounts at the right time. Does that seem true to you, that this is ultimately them trying to numb out effectively?
- [49:07]
D
Well, it's very difficult to be a human being. Let's. Let's start at a very basic level, going back to our earliest ancestry. So unlike animals, we are not programmed. Now, animals aren't completely programmed, that's a myth. But they're much more programmed than we are by their instincts. So a leopard doesn't wake up in the morning and go, what am I going to do today? Am I going to hunt this animal or that animal? No, I think it's kind of cloudy. No, they don't. They don't have that choice.
- [49:35]
C
We do.
- [49:36]
D
And that's what makes us aimless. That's what makes us wake up in the morning, go, man, what am I going to do? So what that means, what that translates into is the human being has emptiness, has a hole inside of ourselves, a hole that we need to fill in some way because we have incredibly active minds. The, the brain, if you break it down, as I said earlier, we should be fetishizing it. If you study the brain in, in a larger sense, it's absolutely astounding, the powers that it has, the amount of neural pathways that connect, the complexity of it and the activeness of it. I meditate every morning, and as I try and still my mind, whoa, thoughts are coming like this. You can't believe how active your mind is. You're just not aware of it. But we have this emptiness. We don't know what to fill it with. This mind is active. We're not programmed. We don't know what to do. And because of that emptiness, we have to fill it with something. We're restless. And if we don't know what to fill it with, we're just going to consume, consume, consume, consume, consume as a way to kind of deal with that empty feeling, as you say, to numb ourselves. We're going to eat, eat, eat. We're going to watch movies, we're going to binge watch, we're going to get addicted to porn because it's filling that emptiness. It's taking that active mind and it's dumb, it's numbing it, and it's like, you know, it seems satisfying because we don't have to deal with these other things. So you have to be aware that you have this emptiness inside of you. Everybody does. I have it. Everyone does. But my life, the way I go, and I don't mean to be put the focus continually on me is I wake every up every morning now because I've reached this position and I want you to have this, this privilege that I have. I'm not saying that I feel so great. I want you to have it. I have this feeling. I wake up in the morning, I know what I have to accomplish. I know what my goals are. I Know what I have to do that particular day, I know what I have to do that particular week. These are the things that I can do to fill that empt, to program, to give me self purpose, to have that North Star that you're talking about. And yes, within those parameters I can waste some time reading about the lakers on, on lakersground.net you know, it's website that I, that I lurk in or I can read articles that have nothing to do with my life. You know, I can go on and on, I can waste time, but I have a general parameter. I don't have that gnawing emptiness that has to be continually filled by consuming, consuming, consuming. So be aware that your mind is so active that you have to have something to fill it. But it's your choice whether you're just going to consume mindless stuff or you're going to actually use that restless active brain of yours and put it to some incredible function.
- [52:36]
C
How do they figure out what incredible function to put it to?
- [52:38]
D
Well, that's the million dollar question. And that's why I wrote my, my fifth book, Mastery. So I have a chapter one in Mastery called discover your life's task. And it's not easy and I don't have like a formula for it, but I kind of lay out the process that could lead you to it. So if you're 22 or, or younger then it's, it's pretty clear what you have to do. And it's not so difficult. If you're 29, 30 gets more complicated. If you're 40, it's very difficult. If you're 50, it's almost impossible. So the younger you go through this process the better. And what it entails is figuring out what makes you unique in life. And I don't mean like total weirdness unique, I don't mean that you have to be like some flamboyant rock star, etc, etc. It can be what makes you unique as an entrepreneur, as a business person, what makes you unique as a social individual, as somebody who likes to interact with people. What makes you unique in any endeavor, right? Going into looking at your childhood and being honest with yourself and saying I mentioned this thing now that I'm 22, but it's not really me, it's what my parents want me to be interested in. It's not really me because it's what other peers think is cool right now. It's not really me because of blah blah blah blah blah, what is really me. Okay? So you got to peel away these layers and you got to come at. So when you were born, I liken to what a seed is planted. That seed is your uniqueness because A, your DNA has never existed in the history of the universe and never will exist again. Okay? It's impossible. It's so unique. B, your parents are not like any other parents and they're going to raise you in a way that's different from any other parenting couple in the history. C, you're going to have early experiences that are not like anybody else. That is unique. That is you. That is what separates you from the hundred billion. I, I, I, I narrowed it down. How many humans have left lived in the. Because I had it in one of my chapters. I think it's 100 billion. Somewhere around that 110 billion ever. This is what separates me from Homo sapiens. Let's draw that line. Who have ever lived before? Okay? And it's real. It exists. And it's not like a single thing. It's not like, oh, I was meant to be a fireman. Oh, I was meant to be a politician. It's vaguer than that. It has to do with things that attract you, whether it's sports and in your body, whether it's mathematics or music, or whether it's words and literature or whether it's social things or whether it's building, building a house, carpentry, or building a business, etc. What is it that excites me? What is it that I'm drawn towards? What I call your primal inclinations. Going through that process and figuring out, digging up that seed and figuring out what it is is the most, should be the most exciting process in your life. Because if you do it, all the stuff that we're talking about, all the bad circumstances of the world, everything you're facing, you will reverse that power. You will discover your superpower. You will be motivated. You will find the energy. Right? You will know what to ignore. It's not worth my time to be watching this podcast or reading this book. It's not worth my time to be wasting my energy doing this, that or the other. I know what I want, okay? When you're 21 or 22 men, you can go. If you figure that out. It doesn't have to be so specific. It just has to be, this is the general direction I want in my life. These are the people that I want to end up being like, even though I'm going to be myself in that. Within those parameters, then the world will open up for you, and you'll have a little bit of that radar that will guide you through life. Okay, if you're 30 years old, it's different. And 30 years old, you go through the thing of, where did I go wrong? Because you wouldn't be going through this process unless you went wrong. If you're going right, then you don't need. You can ignore everything, most likely, where did I go wrong? Why am I in this shit job? Why am I unhappy? Why am I drinking? Why am I addicted to this or the other thing? My frustration, my unhappiness is speaking to me. It's telling me something. It's telling me that I took a wrong turn. All right, now go back and figure out where you took the wrong turn and what it was, where you. How you can perhaps correct your path.
- [57:30]
C
How do you solve for that? How do you go back and figure out where the wrong turn was?
- [57:36]
D
Well, you're. So oftentimes you choose a wrong path for reasons that have to do with money, with what you think is status, what other people think is cool. So look at your first choices. Like, you're 23 years old and you decided to go work for, like, a big corporation, and now it's sucking your soul out, and you feel empty and frustrated. Okay, I'm frustrated. I'm unhappy. Well, I chose to work in this kind of soulless environment, and I quit when I was 27. And then I started working as a barista. Okay, okay, I went wrong there. All right? So that's not where I was meant to go. All right, what was it out of college that I really wanted to do? What was it that excited me? What is the path I would have taken? Perhaps if I hadn't listened to my parents, if I hadn't followed this dumb idea, what is it that I could have done? And at that point, if you can be. Have just a tincture, a little flash of enlightenment about that, then you can start building on it and you start going, all right, I took this wrong path, all right? Now I have to head it in a different direction. I'm not going to give up. I'm not going to stay being a barista because that's not going to lead anywhere. I have to figure out a career for myself that I can't give up the eight years I spend out of college, because that's. That's useless. That's not going to go anywhere. You're not 22 anymore, all right? I have to adapt what I learned in that time, and I have to apply it in a different direction. So you're going this way. Your decision now isn't to go this way, it's to go this way or this way. A subtle little deviation closer towards what you were meant to. What excites you? And I have people who've written to me about the course corrections they've taken. They went from being a lawyer to being a writer about legal issues. They went from. A lot of podcasters, believe it or not, have a very similar story. They went into the wrong profession and then they discovered that what they really liked was podcasting and they applied. So I just had an interview recently with Andrew Huberman, you know, one of the most successful podcasters of our era. Brilliant man, a neuroscientist. He was a neuroscientist working for a university, etc. He was really, really unhappy about all the politicking. And he told me that he read mastery and mastery had a very huge impact on him. And I don't want to take credit, but it kind of to him, it saved his life. He decided he had to get into podcasting, that he loved interviewing people, that he loved the interaction with other people. Instead of having to do all the research, he wanted to be able to take that research and apply it to his interviews and interview fascinating people. Okay, it's a very common scenario among people in the podcasting business. But there are other scenarios that people have written to me about who have made that course correction in their late 20s. I talk about in master. I talk about Paul Graham, who was a master in artificial intelligence in the 70s when it was just a little baby about to be born, was just in the first instances, and he was a computer hacker and he didn't enjoy it and he hated working for companies. So he went off and became an artist. He just studied painting in Italy. He came back to New York. He was kind of living in a loft in New York, very poor, but he was kind of enjoying it. And then he heard an ad on the radio for this new online. This is 1994, mind you, this new online world of advertising and marketing and selling products. That was about to happen. And he got very excited and he goes, well, I'm poor, I don't mind being poor, but maybe I could make some money and still have my life. And so he decides he's going to take all his computer skills and he's going to combine them with all that he learned in art. And he's going to design a very aesthetic, a very pleasing, a very user friendly site for selling products on the Internet. It ended up turning to something that yahoo bought for $5 million back then. And then he became a billionaire. On and on and on. He made a course correction kind of thing. So it's possible. It's very common scenario when you're 29, 30 years old. It's not so common when you're 40, but I have heard some stories. It's pretty much. I've never really heard it when you're in your 50s.
- [62:20]
C
So tell me about that. So what is it that makes it impossible? Is it just the people can't muster the will because they don't think they have enough working years left?
- [62:30]
D
Well, nothing is impossible, so I overstated the case, but it's unlikely. First of all, you're.
- [62:35]
C
Is it unlikely due to a character flaw or.
- [62:38]
D
Well, as you get older, you get rigid. You think you know all the answers. You used to. You have habits.
- [62:44]
C
My life isn't at all what I thought it would be. I'm 50 years old, but I know all the answers. Yeah, that's terrifying.
- [62:51]
D
Yeah, I have habits. You're not aware of it, but you're not so fluid, you're not so flexible. You think that you know what. You know what the right path is. You're not willing to admit your mistakes, because then that throws open when you're 30, you go, okay, I made eight years of mistakes. When you're 50, I made 28 years of mistakes. And that's a painful realization. And we don't like to have painful realization.
- [63:17]
C
What's your advice, though, to somebody like that? Because let me tell you, if you and I are friends, I'm dangerously close to 50 as it is. But if I get to 50 and I'm like, hey, made a lot of mistakes. Pick the wrong path. I want you to kick me in the ass, make sure that I don't just resign. What would you say to somebody in that position?
- [63:38]
D
Well, it's actually not so difficult because you have accumulated, hopefully, a set of skills. Maybe one skill, maybe two skill, maybe three skills. If it were, in the case of you, it was creating a product, marketing it, then being a podcaster, then creating this. This animated world, then this educational stuff. You've got four, five sets of real skills there, but you're not satisfied. How can I take these skills and package them and move in a different direction? That is a new frontier for me. That excites me, that builds on what I have. So it's actually an advantage in a weird way. But the disadvantage is you're rigid. You're set in your hat, in your ways. You think you Know the answers. You're not so fluid anymore. You're not willing to make a change in your thinking to going, it's 2028 whenever you turn 50. I'm just speculating. And the world is really different now. It's not the way it was in 2012 when I was building my empire, etc. Etc. Am I willing to now face 2028 and the altered landscape, which means altering how I think and how I adapt and not. Not being so said in ways like Robert Greene is about AI Maybe AI is a fantastic tool. You know, I realize my limitations. I know I'm an old man. I know I'm a dinosaur. I'm aware of that. But am I willing to shake myself up and going, It's 2028. The world is different. People are young. They don't think the way I think anymore. To whole new generation, I have to be sharp. I have to alter my game. I take those skills that I have. I adapted to this new world, to this new AI frontier. I hate to say it kind of makes me nauseated, but okay, I have to adapt myself to this new frontier. Can I do it? Because when you get older, it's hard to do that. It's hard to say, I'm dealing with a new generation, I'm dealing with a new landscape. I'm dealing with my own obstacles in my set ways of doing things. Can I overcome them? You know, kind of thing.
- [65:52]
C
Okay, so if I did all that calculus and I was like, yeah, no, I'm. I'm done. I don't. I don't have any to keep going, what would you say?
- [66:07]
D
Well, you have to find energy and love in life. And so maybe there's something that you're doing that maybe isn't going to be so thrilling, like this new career path that I'm saying, but it will be more energizing. You have to challenge yourself. So a lot of feeling stale and lifeless is you've run out of challenges, you've conquered, you've done with certain things, but now it's. It doesn't. It's not. You don't need to rise to the occasion anymore. You've kind of reached this plateau. You need to create a challenge for yourself. So within the business that you have that you've been doing, whether you're working at. In an office for someone else or you've started your own business, I'm going to do something a little bit bold. I'm going to start a new venture that's been just like my old venture. Based on all the same skills. But it's a bit of a risk to take a risk to shake yourself up a little bit. You know, it's not a similar thing, but with me and my books, I never try and do the same book over, right? Because I know if I did, I'd be bored as hell. I need challenges. My mind is so active, I can't even describe. It's terrifying sometimes. And if I am bored, I don't have the energy and I get frustrated, I get depressed. So each book has to be different, has to challenge me. It has to go, you've never done this before. You might fail, you might not make it what you thought you did. You better be up to the challenge. It excites me. So if you're stale, you need challenges. It doesn't mean you have to make a career change, but you have to take some kind of risk.
- [67:56]
C
If you come to me after this next book, which I'm sure will be amazing, and you even half reach towards the I'm tapping out bell. If you're just done and retired and you're super passionate to go travel or something like that, cool. I'm going to clap and I'll help you ring the bell. But if you're doing it because some part of your spirit has been broken, I'm going to be, hey, listen, this is an identity problem. Right now. You are allowing yourself to be cowed by a terrible set of values. And you need to right now decide what ought someone do with their life? Like, what should you be doing with your life? And this is where everybody hates moralizing, But I think people need to moralize in their own life. People need to have a sense of, like, what should life be like when we look at the landscape of a life well lived? What, what ought it be? For me, you should be trying to wring every bit of potential out of your life. So cool. Maybe your last book bored the out of you. Fine, do something totally new. I'm here for it. But find something that's going to make you feel alive. I have done jobs that made me feel the exact opposite. And I would give up creature comforts, I would give up money, I would give up just about anything to feel alive. And so when I watch people live lives of quiet desperation, Most men lead lives of quiet desperation with Thoreau.
- [69:24]
D
Whoever said Thoreau?
- [69:26]
C
So it's like, hey, no way. Like, that is crazy. People need bright lines in their life. I, I will never get addicted to drugs because I just would tell myself there's a Bright line, you can't do whatever substance more than twice a week, three times a week, whatever. The second I'm doing it more than that, I know that I have a violation and I'm going to immediately address it. It's like if I'm feeling, I'm not going to allow myself see how many people I can piss off with this. I'm not going to allow myself to sit in depression. I may not be able to stop myself from getting depressed, but I'm not just going to allow myself to sit and wallow in it. This goes back to, I'm not going to trust my emotions. I'm going to ask myself what my value system is. Is my value system that hey, if you're suffering, you just sit in it? No. So it's like people need to address this stuff. So having a biological experience or something going on in my brain in that case or gut, and I need to address it. And so figuring out what exactly that is and then making sure that I'm making changes based on value system, frame of reference beliefs to ensure that I'm moving towards my North Star. And I can only imagine if somebody doesn't know me and they're hearing this for the first time, this is going to sound so Pollyanna. Everything in my life is. Because that's how I respond to everything. Every time I've had just a grotesque challenge. Yeah. Jesus Christ. The number of things that I've been through in 20 plus years of business, it's crazy. And inevitably you hit hard times, brutal times, soul sucking times, whatever, whatever. And I have realized that all of my success is predicated on one simple thing. I never quit. And I don't quit because I'm able to recharge myself by going through the process that I just walked through. Should you come to me and say that, yeah, I'm. Some part of my spirit has been broken?
- [71:21]
D
Well, I don't think that'll happen. You're not talking about me personally.
- [71:24]
C
No, I'm just saying, like this is obviously at the end, I'm talking to myself in all of this as a reminder to how I'd want to react. But I really do try to frame episodes around, okay, there is a person watching this show, they are, in this case, they're feeling hopeless. They are being consumed by this moment in time and the realities of their life. Because I. The most horrible thing about excuses is that they're valid. And so people have valid reasons to feel hopeless. But. And now what, like, what are you going to do? And so if people just allow themselves to sit in that, that. That is a value system problem. You have to build a frame of reference that moves you towards your North Star. And unless hopelessness is your North Star, there's clearly a problem.
- [72:14]
D
Yeah, yeah. So to me, that North Star is a sense of purpose which makes everything else kind of fold into what you're talking about and fit so you don't need anything else. So when you have a sense of purpose, when you know what makes you unique, when you know what your calling is in life, then if you hit a moment where you want to quit, you know, all right, I'm not going to quit. I just need to go a slightly different direction here because I know that this is what I was meant to do. These are my strengths, these are my good qualities, et cetera. And, you know, I don't like talking about myself so much, but here I go talking about myself again. When I was in my mid-20s, I was in my journalism career. I was very unhappy. It wasn't working for me. I was depressed. So I go and I leave and I go to Europe and I travel Europe. And I had a heck of fun. I was seducing, I was seeing incredible things. I was learning languages, I was trying to write novels, but I was poor and I was starting to get older and I was going, God, this isn't working. And I got very depressed. Then I came back to Los Angeles and I go, I know I'm going to become a screenwriter. It's Hollywood. Hooray. I'm going to make money, but I'm going to write. It's going to be fine. I like theater. It's going to be exciting. I start going, and I hate Hollywood. It's soulless. I'm not very good at it. I start getting very depressed. Probably the most depressed I've ever been in my life at that point in my one bedroom apartment in Santa Monica. As I said, I probably had moments where I was slightly suicidal. I know I did. I'm not. It wasn't slightly. I was. I was depressed. And I was like, God damn it, what am I meant to do in life? And then I had a fortuitous encounter with a man who produces books. He asked me for an idea for a book, and I kind of improvised the 48 laws of power and it all fell into place. But my lesson is, my long. My long winded story is I got depressed. I got down on myself, but I never gave up. Up. I kept saying I meant to write. I'm a good writer. I Have a way with words. I'm undisciplined. I have flaws. I'm not good at anything else. But I can write. I have a message. I have something to say. And it kept me going. It kept me going after all of these circumstances in which I think a lot of people would have given up at that point. And I didn't give up because I had that inner voice saying, you're meant to write. You're. You're good at it. You've developed skill. Don't give up. Keep trying, keep trying, keep trying. It picked me up every single time. And so when I look at people and I go, they don't have that. And I understand that it's very sad because if they face situation like that, they do. They give up. And then they. They go funnel down a dark tunnel, a dark path in life. And so. So that's why I wrote Mastery. I don't want you to get into that downward syndrome. I want you to see the fact that you have an overall frame, an overall purpose that gives you that radar. So when things are bad, you don't give up. You just say, I need to make a slight course correction to where I'm going in life.
- [75:38]
C
Yeah, it's interesting. I think people have a really hard time building out the roadmap. I think that. But to be nearly 40 for things to not have worked out, I think, as you well know, that's a very hard place for people to be in. I think the scarier thing is to want to be a writer, but you're not a good writer. And I can imagine there's a lot of people that finally figure out, okay, this is what I was, quote, unquote, meant to do, but they actually suck at it.
- [76:06]
D
It's very true. And people have presented that to me as if it's like maybe a kind of a flaw in my theory. And I. And I. And I knocked my head against it. And the only thing I can say is, if you were young, if you were three or four years old or five, and you decided that you wanted to write, then you would have built the right skill. You would have known that because you had a flair, you had a love of language, and you realized it because you were reading books and you just were attracted to words, and you would have built those skills, you would have developed them. But the reason you're a bad writer is you chose writing when you were 10, 12, 15 years old because you thought it was cool. Because you read a book, you thought this would be something you thought it was easy. You thought, I write, everybody writes. I can become a writer. I think you chose a false path. Now, maybe I'm justifying that to myself, but I think if you had a true love of words, you would have found yourself a niche to where you would have mastered, you would have spent lifetime developing those skills like I spent 18 years more developing writing skills. I was terrible. I failed again and again, but I was developing skills. You weren't developing those skills because you were kind of half assed about it. And that's why you failed. It wasn't what you were meant to do. And you know, somebody once said, robert, you talked about 10,000 hours, which some people dispute is actually valid theory, blah, blah, blah, which I think is. But I've been painting since I was 18 years old. I'm now in my 50s. I put in my 10,000 hours and I'm not Leonardo da Vinci. What are you talking about? Well, I go, you put your 10,000 hours in over 33 years. If you had put those 10,000 hours from the age of 18 to 24 and starved because you couldn't make a living, instead of becoming insurance brokers, which is what you are, you would have developed those skills in that year. You would have put the 10,000 hours in a condensed period of time. But you didn't because you really heart wasn't into it. Your heart was into making money and being comfortable. Because to be an artist, you have to be willing to starve. To be a writer, you have to be willing to be a failure and you have to be willing to be alone. Do you know how lonely it is to be a writer? You're not out there having drinks with friends, going to parties. You're in your goddamn office alone without any distractions. You have to have a stomach for loneliness, for facing a blank piece of paper. It's not easy. And if you're not truly into it, you won't make the effort to get over that mountain and develop the real skills. So that's why I think people generally become like a mediocre writer at 40. They go, man, Robert Greene is wrong. I, I don't, this isn't meant for me, blah, blah, blah.
- [79:08]
C
It's interesting. I think all of that is true. The only thing I disagree with is I don't think anybody's meant for anything. I think there are definitely things you're going to get a disproportionate return on. But I'll give you an example of a no longer super young man that I know who went to film school, graduated, thought he would get the three picture deal, he didn't. He went into business as a way to get rich so that he can build his own studio. Thought it would take 18 months, it took 15 years. And in the end he realized, oh my God, I spent 20 years plus. Now at this point, this he is me.
- [79:49]
D
It's you.
- [79:50]
C
Oh, yeah. I always knew I wanted to be a storyteller, but I got to my mid-40s before I actually was able to put time and energy into doing it. And so for you could certainly say that I made a whole series of bad choices. It's hard to cry about it recording this in my fancy house. But the reality is, if I had to do it over again, I would certainly do it differently. But the way that I approach it is that now I just need to get good at the thing. So what I worry about is that what people are really doing is measuring themselves against a financial yardstick or they're measuring themselves against, oh, that person has a best selling book and I don't. And my thing is, okay, you're asking yourself the wrong question. The question people think they're supposed to ask themselves is, what would I do if I knew I couldn't fail? Terrible question. What you should be asking yourself is, what would I do and love every day even if I were failing? Because, hey, the odds of you failing are very high. But if you're pursuing something that you actually love and care about, then it's like, cool. Pour yourself into getting good at it. Value yourself for the sincere pursuit. Maybe you never get there, but man, if you actually value yourself for the sincere pursuit and you're pursuing something that you actually enjoy the doing of, which is the only part of it I can guarantee, because no one can guarantee success, then cool. You. I won't say you can't lose, but I will say that, man, do you take the sting out of that loss by being like, I've really enjoyed this. So for instance, when I first founded Impact Theory, the number of people that offered me ownership in a company come run this new food company or whatever, because I had so much credibility in that space. And I turned them all down. And they were, why I'm starting a media company. I'm going to beat Disney. And everybody was like, well, that's dumb because you don't have any experience in that area. You just had a historic exit from a food company. You should be doing food. And that would have made me more money, but that would have also made me miserable. And so I Had to figure out what do I value myself for? Because if I build my self esteem around money, success, accolades, whatever, I'm going to be miserable. But if I build my self esteem around the sincere pursuit of something that makes me feel alive, cool, now we're in. But you have to be very thoughtful about what you value yourself for.
- [82:12]
D
Okay, a couple of things. So it's very hard to keep at something if you get no validation for it. So if you want to write, and I know this from personal experience, and you never get anything published or you get it and only a few people read it and you get bad reviews, it's very hard to keep going. It's very difficult to keep pushing and pushing and pushing. Right. And so if you. I actually believe that if you spend the time, that apprenticeship phase and you are earnest about it and you're self aware and you're looking not just at yourself and what you love, but you're aware of what the world is and what the market is for books, that you will find an audience, that you will find a niche. But you somewhere went wrong. And where you went wrong was you didn't pay deep attention, you didn't pay deep attention to your, to where your business was going, to the times, to your audience. And you failed in that way. So it's not just a matter of the 10,000 hours. It's also being aware of the cultural moment that you're living through and being just aware in general of how things are changing and what your audience is and what will feed the public right now as it is. And so you failed at that. And if you hadn't guarantee that you'd be a successful author now, as far as your story is concerned, I have a much different take on it, but I'm not you, which is nothing you did was wrong. Everything you did was right. And it was a link and a chain that led you to your mid-40s or you're about to have fantastic success. So if you were 30 and you went through a different process and you go, I'm just going to go right ahead into animation, I'm not going to do this other stuff that distracted me. I don't know if I'm going correctly into your story, but something else would have happened, something else would have turned wrong. But everything fits into place. Amor fatih. Everything has a purpose. You were meant to go off into these side roads and discover yourself and you're tougher for it and you're stronger and you've learned incredible lessons that are now going into what will be a mega successful business. I have that attitude because I think it's the best attitude to have no regrets. Everything, what I learned from. So even my bad jobs and I've had. Do you know how many bad jobs I've had? I've worked in, in construction in Greece, a miserable job. I worked in a hotel. I worked in a detective agency, which might sounds like fun, but it was very depressing. I was a waiter. I had a whole string of crap jobs. I know what that's like, you know, But I learned from every single one of them. I learned about human nature. I learned about how horrible people can be, which went into the 48 laws of power. I learned how manipulative people can be, which went into the 48 laws of power. I learned how to observe people. I learned what I didn't love. Everything. My motto in life on my tombstone is, everything is material, everything is wood for the fire. As to quote Marcus Aurelius, it's all going into that fire and it's all for a reason and a purpose. And maybe it's not true, but it's the most beautiful philosophy you can adopt in life.
- [85:38]
C
It's interesting. We are achieving the same outcome but viewing it incredibly differently. So for me, I don't mind being wrong. I don't mind having mistakes. And so I don't mind. And this may just be how we think about the word regret. I don't mind having regrets. I don't. I don't mind that I would do it differently if I had to do it over. I can't do it over. And I love the way my life turned out and I don't have a beef with it. It's just, I don't want to lie to myself and say, oh, no, no, I did it perfectly. Everything happens for a reason. I don't think things happen for a reason other than that. Well, you know, when it, when it goes awry, it is because I am dumb and did the wrong things, that that is a reason. But yeah, I don't know. That doesn't bother me. In fact, I find it more empowering to say, oh, yeah, I fucked that up. But I learned from it. And so that was useful in the end anyway.
- [86:28]
D
That's the same thing that I'm saying.
- [86:29]
C
That's what I mean. We've, we've come to like, the same conclusion, but through a different means.
- [86:33]
D
Okay.
- [86:34]
C
Because very much I, I don't know why I rebel against the idea of fate. I suppose I can quote the Matrix and say I just Hate the idea that my life is not in my control. So it's far more interesting to me to say, oh, no. Things don't happen for a reason. There is no net under this tightrope I'm walk walking on. If I fall, I may truly fall to my death. Things don't happen for a reason. There is no grand plan here. No one's coming to save me. I have to do this myself. And I won't do it perfectly. I will make mistakes. And so I'm not going to value myself for doing things perfectly. That's a suicide mission.
- [87:11]
D
But I never said it's perfect. All the twists and turns in my life weren't perfect. They were terrible. They led to depression. But they happened for a reason. They made me stronger. I learned from them. So you can have a bad experience and you can throw your hands up in the air. Go, damn it. Why did that happen? I should have done something differently. Or you can go. This is what amor fati means. I can learn from happened for a reason. It taught me something. It taught me that this was the wrong thing I should do. It taught me that I am intended to do something differently. Everything in life is a lesson. It is teaching me. And I do believe in fate, and I do believe in.
- [87:53]
C
Do you believe your whole life is on rails, though?
- [87:56]
D
No, that's mechanistic for me. Well, there's a great book written by Robert Hillman that I recommend for everybody called the Soul's Code. And he explains in modern terms that's not so woo woo about what that fate can mean.
- [88:14]
C
Can you channel it?
- [88:15]
D
I'm getting tired and it's hard, but I'll try. So you have your genetics, okay? You don't control your genetic makeup, right? It's sending you on a path. You think that it's all luck and chance, but no, you have genetics. You have DNA that is controlling some of your behavior, and it's setting you into patterns of behavior. Okay? Some of those patterns can be very positive, and some of them can be negative. But what happens in life is kind of actually under your control. And the fate is saying that because it's something that is sort of inscribed in your genetic code, it was meant for you to happen that way. And you see it and you actualize it, and you make it a positive thing. You discover what that seed is, what you were meant to accomplish in life. You realize your fate. So there's a quote that I use in Mastery by Pindar. I hope I can remember. See who you are by becoming who you are. So you see what your fate is and you become that fate and you realize it by your self awareness. So a lot of people don't realize what they were meant to accomplish in life and then they're just failures and that's what their fate is. Right. But I realized what my fate was. It guided me. It didn't mean I was destined to work at Esquire magazine when I was 23 years old and hated. Didn't mean that I was destined to work for this director in Hollywood and have a terrible experience. It just meant that I was fated to have paths in life that didn't lead to what I wanted and that I would realize and go, I need to keep doing this. It meant I was meant to be a writer and I hung onto it. I'm not giving Robert Hillman justice. As I said, I'm kind of tired. But that's, that's how I look at it. It's not this woo woo thing that everything in life is determined. Do you understand the difference?
- [90:24]
C
I do. I feel like for me it's almost certainly just semantics. There might be some real thing that I just don't like because clearly, Robert, your life's amazing. So if that's the way that you have dealt with everything, then that's phenomenal and it works for you. And the last thing I'd want to. I'm not trying to convince you my way is right. I'm just laying out. The way that resonates with me is that I like to remind myself that sometimes things go wrong because I was stupid and I didn't think about it properly. I'm not. It wasn't faded for me. I don't need to love what happened. I can just say, cool, learn from this. And so there is a, A self. I'm poking myself in the ribs to remind myself, hey, if you go on autopilot again, odds are you're going to make that same mistake. So you need to be.
- [91:20]
D
We're just arguing over semantics because we're saying the same thing in the end. Okay, maybe. I think we are.
- [91:27]
C
We'll see. There could be second and third order consequences I'm not anticipating, but yeah, look, no, I think that we ultimately keep getting to the same place through a slightly different means.
- [91:37]
D
Yeah. Because I'm not saying that my mistakes were perfect. I'm just saying that they. It's the same thing. We're just. We should, we should move on here because I believe we're saying the same thing. It's just that I am Stupid. I have flaws. I make mistakes, but I learned from them. I realize that they happen for a reason, and they're teaching me something about myself. So we're saying the same thing. I believe.
- [92:03]
C
Yeah. It's interesting. I want to let it go. But you use the words. It's teaching me. And I think it's important for people to understand. It's not going to teach you. You're going to have to learn. Like, you have to be the active participant in this. It won't happen by accident anyway. We'll stop there.
- [92:19]
D
Yeah. But if. If you're aware of what you were meant to accomplish in life, you will learn.
- [92:25]
C
Yeah, I don't agree with that.
- [92:26]
D
All right, all right.
- [92:27]
C
So interesting. Okay, so what's that?
- [92:30]
D
Arlante.
- [92:31]
C
What does that mean?
- [92:32]
D
That means just forward in Spanish.
- [92:33]
C
Okay, perfect. Forward we go. Let's. Let's build people back up. We've talked a lot about the problem. We've talked about how you can find yourself in some pretty dire straits. So for me, it would be all right. You have to figure out where you want to go. You have to know that with a clarity. That's terrifying.
- [92:52]
D
Yeah.
- [92:52]
C
You have to have a set of values and beliefs that are going to essentially force you to act in the ways you would need to act in order to accomplish that. What's your setup for people, if they want to really do something?
- [93:05]
D
The problem with how you laid it out as it sounds kind of dire, it sounds kind of dreary. Man, I have to go through all of that. Yes. That's like, man, it's not even worth it. I'm just going to give up, just going to keep smoking pot. It's a lot more fun.
- [93:19]
C
If that were true, I'd leave people alone.
- [93:21]
D
I think what I try to appeal to people is it's fun. When you figure it out, life becomes thrilling. It becomes an adventure. You know that. Okay, I'm in my 20s. I can go out and have fun. I can waste some time. I can have this adventure, but I'm learning from it, and it's helping me grow. And I know that I have a sense of direction. So, you know, if you want to be. Be a great basketball player or a chess master. In the beginning, it's tedious, it's boring, it's hell. You're frustrated. Five years down the line, it's kind of getting easier and better. Ten years down the line, you're able to shoot 60% on three point shots. You become a grandmaster or whatever the step below that is. You're having fun, it's exciting. So following this path is actually the most thrilling thing you can be on because you're not going to do it if you think it's all drudgery and pain. And I've got to spend so many years self sacrificing, not being able to. No, man, you're going to have fun. Overcoming challenges, getting good at something is the greatest high you can have. If you want to be an entrepreneur and you're 23 years old and you go, nah, I'm not really ready for it, I need to go back to business school. Okay, no, you start your business now and it fails and it's painful and you go, shit, I don't know. But then you go, I'm going to do it again because I learned some terrible lessons. And you do it again and it succeeds. And this is like seven years later. Man, what a feeling. You've overcome yourself, you've mastered your own weaknesses, you're having fun, people are admiring you, you have the attention that you want, women are flocking to you. Whatever you want, however you want to say it, it's a high, it's great. So mastering something, becoming great, figuring out what you want to do is not painful. It's the most fulfilling decision you can ever make. And it involves some tedium, it involves some, a couple, some years of frustration. But if you can, if you can delay immediate gratification, if you can say it'll come to something in three or four years, if I'm focused, if I'm energized, then you're going to reap the rewards, I guarantee you. Because that's how the human brain is structured. So I like to flip the script and make it seem like something that's incredibly fun. And that's why I wrote Mastery, where the last two chapters are about being creative and about the feeling of being a master at something where you have an intuitive feel, it's like a superpower at that point. And it's an incredibly intoxicating sensation. And I set it up that way because I wanted you to realize that this is a goal that you can have. And it's incredibly. It'll give you life, a sense of direction. So I just want you to feel that there is another path. Even in these miserable times, even with all the problems, there is a path that will lead to something so different and it'll turn your life around. And I mean, I don't know, it's hard to convince people with words. And that's why I wrote that book, but I honestly believe that.
- [96:42]
C
What a beautiful description of the very difficult but so worth it adventure of doing something great. Where can people follow you?
- [96:50]
D
Robert Greene well, they can follow me on my ancient, ancient website called Power, Seduction and war. The and is spelled out power seductionandwar.com it literally dates from the mid 2000s. But on that ancient dinosaur website I have links to all of my seven books, to my YouTube channel, to Instagram, to Twitter, to TikTok, to Facebook, to everything where everything you need and all of links to all my books on Amazon. So that's the best site to begin in. I like it.
- [97:30]
C
All right everybody, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care.
- [97:36]
D
Peace.
- [97:37]
B
If you work in university maintenance, Grainger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena is always ready for tip off. And Grainger is your trusted partner, offering the products you need all in one place, from H vac and plumbing supplies to lighting and more. And all delivered with plenty of time left on the clock so your team always gets the win. Call 1-800-GRAINGER visit grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.