Why Emotional Weakness Destroys Men—and How to Take Power Back | Robert Greene (Fan Fav)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Why Emotional Weakness Destroys Men—and How to Take Power Back | Robert Greene (Fan Fav)

Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu
Guest: Robert Greene
Date: September 1, 2025

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Episode Overview

This high-impact episode features bestselling author Robert Greene in an unfiltered, deeply reflective conversation with Tom Bilyeu. Together, they dissect the illusions and emotional traps underlying modern life, the nature of power, emotional awareness, conditioning, and the importance of reconciling light and darkness within ourselves. Greene shares practical frameworks for personal growth, details of his personal challenges (including a major stroke), and previews his anticipated new work, "The Law of the Sublime". The tone is candid, philosophical, occasionally irreverent, and profoundly insightful—delivering both theory and actionable tactics.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Culture of "BS" & Emotional Illusion

[01:21–08:03]

• Greene explains how human consciousness, while extraordinary, is layered atop primitive evolutionary wiring. Our "lizard brain" and emotional center wield more influence over decisions than most realize.
• Modern culture, especially social media and marketing, exploits our emotional, irrational nature—often without our awareness.
• Quote:
  “We walk around thinking that we’re making decisions rationally... but we’re infected very, very deeply with emotions.” — Robert Greene [05:33]

2. Emotional Awareness & Rationality

[08:03–12:10]

• Rationality isn’t about repressing emotions, but developing a tiny bit of distance—being able to examine and understand them.
• Emotions are crucial triggers for rational thought, but unchecked, they can overwhelm us or lead to disproportionate reactions.
• Quote:
  “The ability to step back and analyze your emotions and tell yourself, ‘Why am I feeling this way?...’ That is what divides people who are truly able to be rational.” — Robert Greene [09:41]

3. Practical Tools for Emotional Mastery

[13:41–17:40]

• Self-discipline begins with awareness: you can’t change what you don’t recognize.
• Greene advocates daily meditation to create inner distance from thoughts and emotions.
• Journaling is another powerful tool for self-analysis.
• Practice identifying your emotions in the moment, investigating their roots (personal, media, childhood, environment)—and questioning their reality.
• Quote:
  “Practice this one thing... something happens and you step back and you go through that process: What am I feeling? Why am I feeling it? What are the roots of it? And is it something that’s real or isn’t real?” — Robert Greene [16:54]

4. Conditioning: Recognizing & Rewiring

[17:40–25:07]

• Modern society and media bombard us with information, shaping thoughts and reactions beyond conscious awareness.
• The line between one’s own thoughts and those conditioned by environment is inherently blurred, but space for individuality remains.
• To reclaim agency, consciously “turn off” media and practice self-analysis, honing what is truly “you” versus what’s been programmed.
• Quote:
  “The first step is to realize that you are someone who’s been conditioned just as deeply as one of Pavlov’s dogs.” — Robert Greene [22:56]

5. Unwinding and Reconditioning

[25:07–28:20]

• Awareness sparks curiosity, analysis, and the pleasure of thinking for oneself—studying rather than reacting.
• Recognize how media triggers anger for ratings/clicks; study your own triggers as a path to empowerment.
• Greene shares personal accountability: he too falls into social media traps, but uses those moments for self-inquiry.

6. The True Meaning of Power

[30:07–35:14]

• Power is not inherently dirty or evil. Defined here as “having control over yourself and, to a degree, your emotions, to realize your unique goals in a complex world.”
• Lack of power—over your life, relationships, or environment—results in misery and lost potential.
• Time wasted on rage and outside manipulations erodes your uniqueness and drains your power.
• Quote:
  “If you think power is a dirty word, you’ve got a problem. And usually the people who think power is a dirty word are the people who are the most manipulative and passive aggressive animals on this planet. Because we humans naturally want power.” — Robert Greene [30:13]

7. Integrating the Shadow / Dark Energy

[35:14–52:03]

• Drawing on Jung’s concept of the “shadow,” Greene and Tom discuss leveraging anger, ambition, and dark emotions for growth and productivity, not destruction.
• True mastery is recognizing, not repressing, the dark side—then channeling it productively (in art, social movements, business, etc.).
• Quote:
  “That dark side contains incredible creative energy, incredible motivating power. ...Don’t be afraid of it, but use it.” — Robert Greene [51:39]
• Greene traces his own motivation (anger at Hollywood hypocrisy) as a driver for writing “The 48 Laws of Power.”
• Integration means turning destructive emotions into creative force, not lashing out at others.

8. PC Culture, Conformity, Creativity, & Generational Change

[52:03–66:29]

• Greene suggests that PC/cancel culture and heightened conformity are not unique, but cyclical patterns in history.
• Cultural, political, and generational dynamism (like Athens vs. Sparta) is what keeps societies vibrant; rigidity breeds stagnation and collapse.
• Greene expects eventual backlash—a new generation’s “explosion” of freedom in response to repression.
• Quote:
  “Our brains have incredible capacity to think anything... But we love that mental freedom. And so a repressive, puritanical PC culture is actually counter to our nature. …There will be an incredible reaction.” — Robert Greene [55:18]

9. Change, Revolution, & The Value of Anarchy

[66:29–86:52]

• Change is essential. Even revolutions (messy, painful, sometimes “anarchic”) can yield cultural and political advances (e.g., French Revolution).
• Not all change is positive, but stagnation and ossification are greater threats than upheaval.
• Anarchy here represents the disruptive force sometimes required to break rigid, unresponsive systems.
• Quote:
  “In the long run, decades later, [revolution] had a very positive impact because it broke up this incredibly rigid system that was strangling Europe… We need dynamism in our culture. We need change.” — Robert Greene [82:41]

10. Individualism, Mortality, & The Sublime

[90:27–100:42]

• Tom and Greene lament the decline of “rugged individualism” and stress the necessity of carving out one’s own identity and fulfillment—especially under the pressure of groupthink.
• Mortality—the fleetingness of life—is the core reminder to live meaningfully and pursue wonder.
• Greene discusses his work-in-progress book, The Law of the Sublime, which explores how awe and the confrontation with mortality (mixing pain and pleasure) can profoundly enrich life.
• Limitations (like Greene’s recovery from a stroke) can serve as gateways to deeper appreciation and creativity.
• Quote:
  “Mortality has this ability to sharpen our senses, to sharpen our appreciation of life, and that turns the pain into pleasure. But the pain and pleasure always go together. So underneath, that kind of ecstatic feeling… is always going to be mixed with that tincture of pain about how I’m going to be gone and I won’t be here to appreciate it. But that mix… is what makes it so powerful and so insanely addictive, right?” — Robert Greene [92:34]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Emotional Reality:
  “We walk around thinking that we’re making decisions rationally... but we’re infected very, very deeply with emotions.” — Robert Greene [05:33]

• On Emotional Mastery:
  “The ability to step back and analyze your emotions… is what divides people who are truly able to be rational.” — Robert Greene [09:41]

• On Meditation:
  “Meditation is a very powerful tool… I try to picture it like my thoughts and my emotions, they’re out there. They’re like two feet away from me. They’re not inside my head, they’re over there. And I could watch my mind creating this little theater of all these little problems and dramas.” — Robert Greene [14:59]

• On Power:
  “If you think power is a dirty word, you’ve got a problem. …We humans naturally want power. We want a degree of control over our lives.” — Robert Greene [30:13]

• On Channeling the Shadow:
  “That dark side contains incredible creative energy, incredible motivating power... Don’t be afraid of it, but use it.” — Robert Greene [51:39]

• On Cycles of History & Repression:
  “I tend to never think That a moment is unique, because I’ve read about moments like this throughout history. And I’m definitely a believer in cycles that we go through trends in culture...” — Robert Greene [52:47]

• On The Sublime and Mortality:
  “It’s a mix of pain and pleasure. That’s what makes it so powerful. The idea of our mortality is obviously very painful... But the idea of transforming that into something beautiful, into something enlightening… Mortality has this ability to sharpen our senses, to sharpen our appreciation of life, and that turns the pain and into pleasure.” — Robert Greene [92:34]

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Key Timestamps

| Timestamp | Topic | |---------------|---------------------------------------------------------| | [01:21] | Introduction to “culture of BS,” emotional illusion | | [08:03] | Emotional awareness and rationality | | [13:41] | Practical tools: meditation, journaling, and reflection | | [17:40] | Conditioned thinking and information overload | | [30:13] | What is power? Debunking common misconceptions | | [35:14] | Jung’s shadow: integrating and using dark energy | | [52:03] | PC culture, cycles of history, generational revolution | | [66:29] | Change, revolution, and the value of dynamism | | [92:19] | Mortality, awe, and “The Law of the Sublime” |

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Final Reflections

This episode is a masterclass in self-examination and empowerment. Greene argues for radical awareness—for seeing through layers of conditioning and harnessing emotions consciously. He champions integration of the shadow (dark impulses) as a wellspring for authentic creativity and drive, all while cautioning about societal forces (media, social conformity, group identity) that erode individuality. The conversation ends on a transcendent note, with Greene’s reflections on mortality, awe, and resilience through limitation.

Core Takeaway:
Awareness is the lever for reclaiming power—emotionally, intellectually, and existentially. Accept and channel your whole self (light and shadow, pain and pleasure), stay wary of conditioning, and pursue your own unique path—mindful always that time is limited and wonder lies everywhere you look.

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For more on Robert Greene:

• powerseductionandwar.com
• Socials & YouTube linked on his website

For more on Impact Theory, follow Tom Bilyeu and explore prior episodes with Robert Greene.

Transcript

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[Tom Bilyeu]

Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of Conversations with Tom. I am here with somebody that if you don't know your brain is about to get melted. He's written so many best selling books, it's insane. It is the one, the only Robert Greene. Robert, welcome back to the show, man.

[Robert Greene]

Thank you for having me, Tom. My pleasure, dude.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I could not be more excited. You are somebody that the way that you think I find so intoxicating. You talk a lot about the things that I think people are shy to talk about. Power, seduction, war, the sort of underlying nature of humanity. And I am obsessed with that topic because to accomplish anything in your life, you have to be in step with what is real. And, and some of the things that I've been hearing you talk about now, which are certainly echoes of the books you've written, are just what's going on right now. You've referred to as a culture of BS and that the world needs a nice slap of reality and thought. It would be really interesting to have that conversation given the moment that we're living in. When you talk about magical thinking and a culture of bs, what do you mean?

[Robert Greene]

Well, you know, we humans are gifted with a form of consciousness. As far as we know, there's no other animal on this planet that has it. Perhaps on another planet there's something similar. We don't know yet, but it comes with a price. You know, basically it's the same sized brain that was developed through the course of evolution hundreds of thousands of years ago in circumstances that are completely different from where we are now. Right. So evolution is a very slow process. So our brains haven't really changed that much. What has increased is the incredible exponential explosion of our knowledge, particularly in the sciences. But at the same Time, that part of our consciousness, our awareness, lays on top of a brain that is very primitive in its nature. I mean, you know, the brain is structured in a kind of a hierarchical manner, and at the very bottom are those most primitive layers. But it's often in cliched terms, called the lizard brain. But it's very real. And then there's a kind of a midbrain that's more, you know, evolutionary, that's more where our emotions come from and kind of a connection between the lowest part and the highest part anyway. So we have this knowledge, this ability to think of, to stand back from our immediate circumstances and contemplate possibilities. Oh, I don't have to react like an animal to this thing happening. I can step back and I can think, perhaps I could do A, B or C, as opposed to just reacting. And that is incredibly powerful. It's what has made us who we are today. But the problem with it is we don't know how to use our brains because we still are trapped in that very primitive model that we have. And so we feel emotions, and emotions tend to govern so much of our thinking because they're much more powerful than the kind of weak little signals that come from the frontal cortex. And so we're not aware of how deeply our emotions are infecting our or decisions in our day to day life. And the people who know this the best are people in marketing because they have been Studying since the 1950s all of the amazing psychological experiments about how you can kind of manipulate people. How if you're a salesman and you just lightly touch somebody on the arm as a friendly gesture, they're 80% more likely to buy your product. Right. If you use their name, all these other little tricks, they've been studying it and they know deeply how much that emotional part of us governs our decisions when we buy things. They call it the effective heuristic. It means that our decisions are largely based on emotions. And the problem that we face is we're not aware of that. That was the whole subject of the laws of human nature. We walk around thinking that we're making decisions rationally, that when we buy a product or that when we choose a partner to get involved with, you know, to marry or whomever, that we're basically basing this on certain kind of rational, you know, protocols. But we're not at all. We're infected very, very deeply with emotions. And so that lack of awareness, that belief that we are rational when we're not rational, is very, very dangerous. Because. Answer me this. Tom, how many people do you know who admit to the fact that they are irrational? That a decision they made in life, even one that was a mistake, came from an irrational part of them, that it wasn't something that was thought through, that it wasn't something as strategic. I bet you could count them on one hand, you know, and I'm as guilty of that as the next person. It's very much part of our nature to deny the fact that that mostly were governed by emotional responses to the world around us.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah. One of the things that I find the most interesting in psychology are the studies of people that have one brain defect or another. I think it was v. S. Ramachandran that did the study on. I forget what the damage was to the guy's brain, but he had no short term memory. So a doctor would come into the room and they did this test and they put a pin. The doctor put a pin in his hand and. And he shook hands with the guy and it jabbed him. And the guy jerks back, he's like, what the hell? Dr. Leaves, comes back three minutes later, goes to shake the guy's hand, and the guy won't shake his hand. Now remember, he has no short term memory. So the doctor says, oh, why won't you shake my hand? And the guy's like, well, you know, I'm really uncomfortable with people in white coats. And, you know, obviously he's doing it because some part of his brain retained the fact that when he shook hands with this guy that it caused pain.

[Robert Greene]

He.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And the conscious mind, though, is pasting over some rationalization to explain away this weird behavior. And the fact that our minds are working so rapidly to deliver these socially acceptable reasons for why we're doing something, when a reality that isn't at all why we're doing something that gets really scary really fast. But the other thing, and I've heard you talk about this before, again, one of the most interesting things I've ever come across, where people's brains get damaged and they no longer have access to their emotions. And so now they're frozen out. They cannot make a decision. Because when you're trying to, you know, think your way through something, we're relying on a feeling, an embodied feeling of one is better than the other. So if it is impossible for us to move forward without emotion and dangerous to be unaware of our emotions, how do we move forward?

[Robert Greene]

Well, it's not that complicated. So you bring up a good point. A lot of people have a misconception that rationality is the Ability to repress your emotions, to somehow subtract them from your decision making process. And that is exactly the wrong way to approach it. Because think of it in your own life. If you meet somebody who turns out to be very toxic, like a toxic narcissist, you're going to get a gut reaction and emotional response from them, right? Something's wrong with this person and then that causes you to start thinking about, maybe I shouldn't involve myself in a partnership with this person, maybe I shouldn't get in a relationship. So your emotion will trigger a dangerous response, which was sort of the reason why we have emotions, a fear response, oh, there's a lion hanging out over there, I better be, you know, aware of it. That emotion then triggers your kind of awareness. So emotions are essential to the rational process. The problem is you have no distance from your emotions. You're not able to take a step back and analyze. Is this a rational response? Is there really a lion over there? Well, you know, I live in Los Angeles. There's probably not a lion over there. It could be a coyote or something, right? So I'm able to step back and kind of analyze the nature of the threat, the nature of what could be something exciting or not. So that's the dividing line, you know, I'm sorry, don't go away.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I was like, it sounded like it was coming from my side. I'm like, I've never heard that ring before in my life.

[Robert Greene]

I should unplug it. There's going to be one more ring. Hopefully it's telemarketing. I'm just getting inundated lately with telemarketing anyway. So the ability to step back and analyze your emotions and tell yourself, why am I feeling this way? Why am I angry? Why am I excited? That is the key point. That is what divides people who are truly able to be rational from those who can't be. Right. So you have to train yourself. It's not natural to who we are because our nature is to simply react, right? So the ability to stand back and say, no, I better wait, maybe I should wait a couple of days before I send it. Let's see how I think tomorrow. And then tomorrow shows you that it was irrational, that your emotion wasn't really proportional to the event. So if your emotional reaction is proportional to the threat or to the opportunity, then, you know, then there's a reason for it. But so often, particularly in this hyper social media environment where it's kind of like we're all feeling constant rage and anger a lot of times it's not related to anything real or it's out of proportion to the actual problem or threat. So you. You don't try and repress your emotions. You can't write a book, you can't start a business. You can't make a decision about what you want to do without the richness of emotions. The brain is an organic thing. Everything works together. So people who have had that damage where they can't feel the emotion, that the emotions are blocked, and there are brain damage that causes that. It's been shown that they can't make rational decisions because they can't decide, they can't feel what is, what is good or what is bad, what is an opportunity, what is dangerous. So you want your emotions. You need them. You're not trying to repress them. Repressing emotions will lead to other problems. What you want is just that tiny little bit of distance, that ability, when you're feeling it, to go back and go, hmm, why am I really feeling this? What are the roots of it? That's very powerful ability that you can use, that you can develop through practice. Just like exercise will develop your muscles through being able to think before you react, it will slowly become natural to you. But you have to practice it and you have to be aware of that's the source of your problem.

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[Tom Bilyeu]

Do you have a method for how you practice that?

[Robert Greene]

Well, the main thing is to be aware of it because, you know, we're creatures that definitely don't like anything kind of painful. We want our lives to be pleasurable. We've had painful experiences in our life, generally in social situations. I maintain the most pain is psychological and it comes from bad social interactions. Okay, so you don't want pain in your life. Obviously, everyone's going to answer that, right? So you don't want to make bad decisions. You don't want to have your emotions dragging you along and causing all kinds of havoc. So if you understand that that's the problem, you're now motivated to then try and tackle it. So I could give you the best techniques in the world, but it won't matter at all if you don't feel that need for it, that hunger for the ability to have a slight degree of control over your own actions. I practice meditation every morning, and I highly advocate it. I think it's been one of the best things I've ever done for myself. Been doing it now for over 10 years. It's like a ritual. And as you're meditating and you're emptying your mind, suddenly emotions and things will start welling up. You don't even know from where, like anger and all this kind of pissy stuff and things about your parents and about all your bad relationships, etc. And now you're thinking, why am I thinking about that now? The sun is shining. I'm trying to empty my mind. Why is this garbage welling up in me? And you start to have some distance and you start to see. I try to picture it like my thoughts and my emotions, they're out there. They're like two feet away from me. They're not inside my head, they're over there. And I could watch my mind creating this little theater of all these little problems and dramas. That's a beautiful thing. I catch myself now because I'm not perfect. I'm very human, and I have the same problems that I'm talking about. But I catch myself maybe 50% of the time now. Wow, you're reacting here. That emotional idiot part of you, that lizard part of you is taking over. And I can step back. So meditation is a very powerful tool. Ryan Holiday, you know, my good friend. Friend of yours, he has very much advocated the use of journaling, of writing things down, and I do that as well. So you can analyze yourself, but the main thing is you've got to train yourself. So in the course of a day, what I tell people is, let's say tomorrow, something triggers an emotional response, and it happens every single day in our lives, right? Something, somebody says something, somebody you read in the newspaper or online triggers it. Okay, Practice this one thing. Just. I ask you one thing. Tomorrow, try and do this one little step and go back and go, okay, what am I feeling right now? I'm feeling anger. All right, okay, first, that's the first step. What am I actually feeling? All right, what is the cause of this anger? All right, this person is saying something that really, really annoys me, that really gets my. Gets my go, et cetera. Okay, why? What are the roots of that anger? Is it something that I personally experienced? Does it go back to my childhood? Or is this just something that's in the media sphere that's kind of. That I'm catching. It's contagious from what other people are getting angry about. Just try and do that one thing tomorrow where something happens and you step back and you go through that process. What am I feeling? Why am I feeling it? What are the roots of it? And is it something that's real or isn't real? And then if you just do that once, it'll be very interesting because you never do it, and then maybe you'll be inspired to try it a second and a third time. That's sort of kind of the process that you can go through.

[Tom Bilyeu]

There's a one, two combo, as I'm hearing you explain that, that I worry about. So, one, I don't know. As you were walking through that and you were differentiating between, is this something from my past or is this something in the media sphere? And I thought, oh, dear God. Like, do most people actually have that layer of nuance in terms of being able to understand themselves and then also who. When I think about how easily we. Like, I will put myself in this. But how easy? All of us humans are swayed by the media, by other people. Like, if somebody knows more about a topic than us, it is all too easy to just be like, oh, that must be true, because we don't know enough about it to question it. And when. When we first started talking and you said, you know, there's this one exponential thing that we're not used to and I thought for sure you were going to say the rate at which information comes at us, because that's the thing that's really freaking me out is information is coming at us so quickly. And it is very hard to have the level of self understanding that you're talking about, where even if you're willing to do the work, to turn inward and ask the questions, will you be able to understand, discern all of the different things that could be influencing you, which I want to talk about childhood at some point. I've heard you talk about them before. We'll stay focused here for now. But like the number of things that could be influencing you that you may be totally blind to. And then on top of that, you've got just so much data coming at you so fast, it feels hopeless to keep up with it all.

[Robert Greene]

Yeah, well, you have to. You know, one thing that happens to me in my meditation that's very interesting is I realize how deeply I have been conditioned and that how deeply we've all been conditioned by what? By other people, by what we hear, by what we read, by the people who talk to us, by our environment, by the culture that we're in, by the times that we're living. The separation from being conditioned is what is truly my own thoughts, what comes from within me. Now it's a very artificial dividing line because really none of my thoughts totally come from me. I've inherited language that goes back thousands of years. I was conditioned by my parents to respond a certain way. Right. And you know, I've obviously a lot of my ideas come from books that I've read. So not all of it. The dividing line between what's truly me and what's not is fluid. But there is something that you can say is me. It's like this is how I think. This is what my needs are. This is where I am right now in December 2020. This is my reality. Right? Okay. It's who you are. It's what your needs are and what your experience is. And then there's that artificial element of all the stuff that you mentioned that's so blasting in our faces from our culture at like, you know, light years speed, incredible speeds that are just filling our brains with junk, with information that we don't need, with heated opinions that really aren't our own opinions. Right? So you have to be able, first of all, to be able to turn that shit off. I'm sorry to use that language here. You got to be able to turn it off, you know, if you can't you know, take breath breaks from social media, from your Instagram account, from Facebook, from Twitter, then you're a prisoner of it. You know, just admit it to yourself. I am a prisoner of social media. I can't control it. It controls me. And they. We talked earlier about marketing. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, these people are masters at marketing. They know exactly how to put press all of your buttons. They know that if they give a topic that's very controversial, that's maybe not necessarily true, but it's very heated. They'll get more views, more likes, more posts, more reposting, etc. They know how to use certain colors to grab your eye, to grab your attention. They know sounds, little beeping noises on your stupid smartphone. I like that word. Your stupid smartphone that are going to, like, engage. You go, whoa, I better pay attention. They are manipulating you. You are conditioned. You are a prisoner of social media. You are not in control of it. You're not. You think you're the one that's posting all these things that you want to post about your life, but really you're not. You're responding to what everybody else is doing. You're being a conformist. You're being. If you really want to control it, you would have some distance and you would know, all right, here's something that's really affecting me as an individual. That's part of my life that I'm excited about. I want to share that with people. And it comes from instead of the need to get attention, instead of the need to get people to like you, instead of the need to just vet your rage. It's something that, like, I want to express a reality, that I've discovered an idea. How many times is social media used for the spreading of an actual idea that's been rationally thought out? Well, then that if you're able to do that, then you are the one in control of this monster, this beast. And you can be. You can use it for your own purposes. But just think about. And I'm not getting on a high horse here. I am as much guilty of this as anybody. I know how powerful it can be. I know how when I meditate, I go, whoa, where's that idea coming from, Robert? You have been conditioned. You've been brainwashed by the media around you. So I'm just as guilty as anyone. It's very difficult. You're submerged in it. We're social animals. We're creatures of our culture, of our times. It's not easy, but you have to be able to realize the first step is to realize that you are someone who's been conditioned just as deeply as one of Pavlov's dogs in those experiments. Right, right.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So that idea of being conditioned is, it's something that really worries me in terms of beginning to craft your identity. So I think a lot about sort of two things. I think about how do we help kids and make sure that they don't have to go through this huge unwinding process so that their mindset, their belief system, their conditioning, for lack of a better word, is actually moving them in a direction that leads to a fulfillment life, an enjoyable life. And I think about how we unwind. The conditioning that you're talking about, whether it's from parents, whether it's from media or what have you, how do you think about that process? And we'll take the harder one for an adult, for somebody that realizes, like man, having just gone through an election cycle, the like absolute sense of urgency with every message at all, like it's life and death, like, ah, pay attention. And everybody's like fighting. And it really feels sort of terrifyingly divided right now. And so thinking about, okay, people are splitting into camps, they're conditioning themselves more and more B team players thinking the right way. How can people begin to unwind that so that we can be more open minded, more mentally flexible, finding a way to find a common ground for it. I'm not sure my real question is around conditioning. How do we recognize it and how do we recondition ourselves?

[Robert Greene]

Well, the process is always sort of the same. I'm going to sound kind of monotonous in it, but it comes down to awareness, which is the key to all of the things that I talked about in the laws of human nature. You know, we're.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So let's assume then that we go, okay, cool, I'm aware of the fact that this is happening now. How do I take control of that process? Like, is it be careful about the books you read, be careful about the TV shows you watch, or is there something beyond that?

[Robert Greene]

Awareness will spark everything it means, alright? Now instead of reacting, I'm going to think and I'm going to study, okay? And it's actually, you know, we humans, we want things to be fun and pleasurable, but trust me, the process of analyzing things instead of reacting is one of the most fun, pleasurable mental exercises you can ever go through. Because now whenever I see a television show, whenever I see an outraged talking head on television or, or whatever, I'm going, hmm, I'm studying their body Language. I'm going, what are the non verbals? They're communicating? Where are their ideas coming from? Is this something real? And stepping back and analyzing it is incredibly exciting and it's more entertaining than just getting all emotionally involved in it. So if you know that you're conditioned. If you know that, for instance, and they've. I think it was, I can't remember who it was that wrote an article recently about how social media and media in general is designed to hit those anger buttons, right? That's how they've been met. That's how they've been navigating these whole four years of Trump. You know, it's why their ratings have been through the roof. So you know that that's what they're doing. You know that that's what's happening now. It's exciting to actually see how they're doing it. Wow. I can. Okay, I pressed on that button that Zuckerberg wants me to press on. Not Zuckerberg, but the technicians there. Okay, why, why did I do that, Robert? Why am I getting sucked into that? You know, I recently, you know, because I say I'm guilty of it myself, so, you know, I'm not a Trump supporter. I'm on the other complete other side. So let's just get that out of the way. But so during, when things were getting really heated, I guess about eight or nine months ago, I was starting posting things that revealed that I don't like Trump, right? And then I would get in these arguments with these people and then, and I was going, God damn, why am I doing that? It's so pointless. You're not going to convince anybody of reality on a Facebook argument. They're the most meaningless things. Why are you doing it, Robert? Then I go through a process of looking at myself and looking at how I get sucked into that sphere, how easily Facebook does that and how it's so easy to respond to the emotions of other people. So I'm telling you first, okay, I have been conditioned. Why am I thinking this way? Why do I hold this opinion? All right, now I'm watching something or I'm seeing something on Instagram or wherever you navigate and you find for a split second you're getting that reaction that you used to get. Analyzing it is incredibly exciting and, and self empowering, right?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Because it starts to show in what way I'm not. I can see why you, as somebody who really enjoys understanding why people do what they do, that doesn't strike me as something universal. And when I think about, okay, people are Conditioned. Most of them are blind to it and most of them, unlike Robert Greene, are not going to enjoy the process of unwinding that. They are going to enjoy the rage porn of it. They do want to get in screaming matches with people. They, I mean do they feel like it's a job well done going on and yelling? Maybe. But it's like when I think about for something to be, for you to say that it's better to, you know, to really self analyze it makes me think you have a goal. What is your goal? Maybe for your life that might be the right place to start. Like what to you is a life well lived in the context of you judging, doing the self reflection and understanding how the way the world works becomes this exceedingly fun thing for you.

[Robert Greene]

Well, I mean you're asking really good questions and I'm glad you're pressing me on that. I like that. But it comes down to what you want with for yourself, right? So are you somebody that's interested in actually having power in this world? Are you someone that's interested in being successful in your venture in real.

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[Tom Bilyeu]

Define power for me. Most people think it's a dirty word. You've sort of made your your life around that.

[Robert Greene]

If you think power is a dirty word, you've got a problem. And usually the people who think power is a dirty word are the people who are the most manipulative and passive aggressive animals on this planet. Because we humans naturally want power. We want a degree of control over our lives. So imagine the scenario where you can't control anything about your children. They just run wild. You can't influence them them. You can't control any of the behavior of your spouse that's irritating the fuck out of you. You can't control your colleagues who are plotting all these things. You have no and your boss is making you crazy. You have no control. That's a recipe for incredible, not only misery, but depression. For turning into all kinds of health problems, for turning to drugs and alcohol, for going off the deep end by the time you're 40, right? So you want power in your life. Power is. I have goals, I have a fate, I have a destiny in life. I want, by the time I'm 40, to reach them. The ability to reach that, to have control over yourself and your. And to a degree, of your emotions. Not repressing them, but some control, right, Will help you realize those goals. That is power. Power isn't like some politician up there weaving all these Machiavellian things to hurt and destroy people. That's the cliche. You've been watching House of Cards for too long. I know nobody watches that anymore, but whatever the new show is. So that's not power. Power is the ability to guide yourself through a very dangerous world, very competitive world where every. We're almost all having to kind of work for ourselves, where we don't get much help or cooperation from the world. We're thrown out of the university if we go to college. And here we're in this world where there are no rule books telling us how to navigate it. It's very complicated and very difficult. And you make mistakes that you can suffer for. And power is knowledge, is ideas, is understanding how to navigate a very dangerous world. Okay, so you want that to get back on track to what I was saying. So you want that, right? You want to be. This is something that I talk about in mastery. The idea of wasting your potential, of never realizing your goals, of never being able to create that business you wanted to create or make that film that you think is in you or start the business that you're starting. Tom, you know, that's what you want in life. And if you don't want that, there's nothing I can say that'll help you. Right? I'm starting with the assumption that you want that, and I think most people do want that. Okay, so your. Your rage, you're. You're constantly being. Wasting time on the Internet. You're constantly being infected by the emotions of other people, is wiping away, day by day, second by second, all of your own power. Right? Because what is your power? Your power as you, Tom, is to be able to realize what makes you different, what makes you unique. You had. I don't quite remember the full trajectory of your career, but I remember you early on with the health company that you had started and all this. And then you had a plan. Your plan is to create this kind of empire. I'm not trying to reveal your secrets here, but you had.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I'll reveal a way.

[Robert Greene]

You have this idea of creating a new kind of empire, sort of the new Disney Right. And that comes from something within. I'm assuming that there's something of the child in you that wants that, that you've wanted that for a while, that it, it represents something that's unique about you. It's not something that comes from social media or the people around you that could play a small role, but it's mostly something from within you. It's you, okay? And that's you. What makes you different or unique is your source of power. And the days you spend getting angry about things that aren't have nothing to do with your day to day life, they're corroding that uniqueness of you and they're making you a conforming Pavlovian dog. That's just like everybody else out there in the world. If you look at the people who are truly successful and powerful, see them as kind of models or icons to reach. Okay. It's not to say that we all have to be incredibly successful to feel fulfilled. I'm not saying that. I know people who are really great carpenters, who are great at that, and that's really fulfilling. And I know people who just want to be parents and that's their life's task and it's tremendously fulfilling. But the people who are really successful even at those things, we can say that they're unique, that they're one of a kind, that there's nobody else like them. And that is the source of your power. Right? So you want that. If you don't want that, I can't help you. But if you do want that, the time you're wasting getting enraged and being manipulated and feeling all these things and getting into that lizard part of you is time you're wasting. And your life is a lot shorter than you think it is.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Who ending on a big one there before we get to mortality, death, all that, which I think is incredibly powerful, I want to talk about that, the idea of Carl Jung and the shadow side. So no, I don't think there's anybody writing today that speaks as eloquently as you do about the shadow, about the sort of dark energy that we all have inside of us that can be extraordinarily powerful. And I know you well enough to know your beliefs around this are nuanced. But listening to you as you were talking there, it's like, you know, don't get sucked into rage. You're going to be wasting your life. Life is shorter than you think. That is true. But there's also an element of capture that rage, my friend, Leverage that Rage pointed at something that makes sense. And this is where it gets incredibly complicated. Because if you have a goal and there's something that you want to go after, letting something piss you off can actually be quite powerful. And I talk to my students in Impact Theory University about this idea of having an animus, having something that literally animates you, that you can't live in a world where that thing is true and holding onto your anger enough to turn it into something usable. So you're not just flailing around, reacting, freaking out. But it's like, hey, this is not okay. I'm going to fan the flames of that. Not going to let them burn me to death, but I'm going to fan the flames of that, get angry, and go do something about it. So how do you think about that? As you point out very aptly that the anger can cause you to waste your life, but also it's a tool. How do you help people reconcile that idea?

[Robert Greene]

Well, these are all great. Another great question. Well, you know, I'm thinking back on myself and the anger that propelled me to where I am today, which was largely my experiences in Hollywood. And just to tell that story very briefly, I worked in Hollywood from, like, the very late 80s into the mid-90s. And I saw a lot of very, very manipulative people and a lot of hypocrisy, where it was supposedly all about creating great art, making a film, but really it was about power. It was about using people and getting what you wanted out of it and getting more power than the other person, getting recognition. And that was the true subtext of what everybody motivated most people in Hollywood. And, man, that pissed me off. The hypocrisy of that pissed me off. Okay, now, is that something that comes from. Is that just sort of a superficial reaction to me, feeling like because I wasn't successful, was I just simply hurt? Was it more like envy because I wasn't very successful myself in Hollywood, to be honest? Or did it come from something deeper and in analyzing it, yes, it came from something very deep. Since I was a child, I've always been very, very sensitive to people's hypocrisy, to people pretending to be something that they're not. And I think a lot of children are like that. They're very. They have antennae for that. And it really angered me. And then you could ask yourself, why?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Why does that anger you?

[Robert Greene]

Because I feel like, you know, it's like people pretending to be something that they're not, you know, and you just

[Tom Bilyeu]

have an inherent Value that that's a bad thing.

[Robert Greene]

It's not just an inherent value. It's just that we're all flawed creatures. And I must have been aware since I was a child that I am a flawed individual. ROBERT I have dark emotions. I can be kind of bitter and aggressive and ambitious and hurtful. Right. I knew from very early on of my own flaws. And it really irritated me that people pretended to be something else, you know, but they weren't. You know, they weren't true to themselves. And you could. I could see that in children who were pretending to be the little princess or the prince in their family. Like, they were perfect. They were really good. And then I would see the other side when we, you know, for Mommy and Daddy, they were all perfect. But then when we played, I could see the little nasty rascal come out. Right. I hated that. You know, okay, we could go. We could dig deeper and deeper. Why did I hate that? But I think it came from something very real about something about me. So my irritate, my anger at Hollywood wasn't really. I don't deny that there was an element of, you know, I didn't get success. So I feel kind of envious because we all feel that. But I don't think that was the full picture. There was something very real about it because I've been feeling it throughout. When I was a kid, it was feeling it throughout my 20s. It was the subject of all the short stories, novels and plays and screenplays I was trying to write. So it came from a very deep, real place. So when it came time to write my first book, the 48 Laws of Power, beginning in 1996, I had to draw on that anger, you know, and if it had been something that wasn't really me, if it was something that, like, was just a gimmick, I don't think it would have worked. So if your emotions don't come from something that's very profound about who you are, about that dark side isn't something that you are. But it's like a gimmick. You're just pretending to be angry, and there are a lot of people who do that. Or you're pretending to have some other kind of emotion. And we humans, we can smell that. We can sniff out phoniness fairly well. But I felt it very deeply, and I disguised it in the 48 laws. I channeled it into a book where you never really knew that it was from Hollywood. In my experience, I never talked about myself, but you could feel the subtext of some kind of little bit of anger there at people's hypocrisy, right? So I took some. An emotion that was part of who I am, right? And I used it in very constructive, channeled, productive way, which is what I say about the dark side. So, you know, to get back to the. To the theory behind it. You know, when you were a child, you were what I call, like, you were like a round ball, a ball that had a front side and a dark side that's not visible. Like the dark side of the moon. Right? The front side was, you're saintly, you're sweet, you're nice and loving to your parents. You treat your sister and your brother so well. You get along with all your friends. But the dark side was, wow, man, I really hate that kid. I'm gonna pull her hair. I'm gonna mess his homework. I'm gonna do this. All the things that kids naturally do, because we have an animal nature, we have aggressive impulses. This includes boys and girls. I'm not certain girls can be just as part of this as boys are. Okay? And then as you get older, that you, like, cut that ball in half, and you only present that. Only. It's not only that you just present the good side. It's that you kind of forget about that other half and it drops away from you. And you just pretend to be this good person because you're socially motivated to make people think that you're a nice, pleasant, socially aware person. And then that all that dark energy gets repressed and repressed and repressed, but nothing ever goes away. That's the law of human psychology. Things you felt when you were three or four or five, they don't go away. They just sit in you. And they either sit in you and stew and then explode when you're 30 into some irrational behavior, or you're aware of it. You're aware that I feel this way. You're aware that I feel envy. You're aware that you feel aggression and anger. You're aware that you sometimes actually want to hurt people. Okay? You're aware that you're a full human being and you're not a fucking hypocrite like so many people are out there. I have a dark side. It's part of who I am. All right?

[Tom Bilyeu]

But don't you try to keep that in check. I mean, it's not like, what's your prescription on that? Is it, like, what does it mean to integrate the shadow?

[Robert Greene]

It means we keep coming back to this, you know, I'm so boring because I keep repeating the same idea. It means you're aware of it, right?

[Tom Bilyeu]

But being aware that I'm angry or that I have bitterness or whatever, like, isn't it really the cause? What I'm trying to figure out is you and I react very differently to the sort of bullshit of Hollywood's. A great example. Because now I, as you have exited, I am now trying to enter. And because I am so hyper aware of how people talk about Hollywood, I came in and said, look, I'm just gonna make my reputation on. I'm always gonna tell you where I'm at. So when I see somebody being fake, full of shit, whatever, because I'm attuned enough to see it, for the most part, I'm sure people pull some things over on me, but for the most part, I feel like I can sniff it out, like you were saying before, But I have, like, almost a sadness that that's the only tool that they've learned to leverage. And so I don't get the sort of anger towards people that are manipulative or whatever.

[Robert Greene]

Good, that's fine. What's your point?

[Tom Bilyeu]

So where I'm going is where. How do you get to the point where now you're not just being aware of it, but you're using it? So it's. How can somebody who's listening to this go, I am going to take my. So you gave us the example of how you channeled it into your book. But now, just like in terms of daily life, I'm guessing when you see somebody being fake, you don't rage out on them. So you are restraining. So in. When I talk about integration, is it the awareness leads to just being able to hold it back? Or is there like, I will use it. If somebody's bullshitting me and they're trying to be aggressive to me, then I just be aggressive back. And so there's an element. I feel like I can control it. Aggression, anger are tools in my tool belt. And I pull them out when I think they're appropriate.

[Robert Greene]

Yeah, well, that's good. But, you know, you're. Are you conscious? Are you aware that you're doing that? Or are you just simply reacting to people? Are you able to.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's certainly been an evolution. So there.

[Robert Greene]

Are you able to use it in a somewhat strategic way? So, for instance, there's somebody you come across in Hollywood who is a manipulator and you can smell it, but you go, if you like, simply call them out on it. You might create some problems for yourself. You might create a Counter reaction that will work against you. Are you able to step back and go, hmm, I need to be strategic with this asshole. I need to not just simply react. I need to say something that will either show him or her this is what they're being like, or I need to take some kind of action that will thwart them. Are you able to do that or are you just simply getting angry in response?

[Tom Bilyeu]

I'm very strategic, but at the same time I want to feel good about who I am as I walk away from that exchange. So I don't want to feel like I'm just bullshitting people either. So normally I put it into asking questions about, like, what's your goal? Or I'll even say, like, it feels like you're angry with me or upset with me and I don't why, you know, and if you can help me understand, I'm certainly not trying to piss you off. And it has like, I won't say it. I, I haven't been in it long enough to know what the long term repercussions of my strategy are going to be. It's created awkward moments. It has certainly ended potential relationships. But I am, I'm constantly trying to think about who I want to be in the exchange when I walk away and what I want my long term reputation to be. And that means having the uncomfortable conversation up front so that what I say to you doesn't end up being different than how I actually move, if that makes sense.

[Robert Greene]

But how is that your dark side?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Well, so what I'm trying to figure out in terms of the. What you mean by integrating? So I'm guessing at, hey, here's what I do, which is if somebody's being aggressive towards me and it seems like the right answer, then I will like let off like that little valve of, instead of repressing everything, I will let a little bit come out. But I don't know. The only way that I leverage my shadow is as energy when I'm alone. So I don't know that I'm integrating it in an intelligent way in these exchanges. And I think that's part of what I'm looking for is feedback on if there's a way that I haven't got. So here's how I present it to people that ask me and I say 80% of your time should be in the light, should be in the beautiful things, the wonderful things you want to create. Optimism, hope, compassion. 20% of the time you're going to lean on. I call it the dark energy, the shadow side where it is. I, for instance, when I am fucking exhausted to my core and I just do not have energy to keep going in those moments, I think about the people that want me to fail and I'm like them. I am not going to let them be right. I am not going to let them see me fail. It is a dark, ugly, petty energy and it's intoxicating and it gets me up and it gets me going and it keeps me pushing.

[Robert Greene]

Your question right there. You're answering my question. There's your integration right there. You're taking an emotion that could be destructive if you acted on it in the wrong way and you're using it as a way to motivate yourself. You, you're not, you're not spewing this at people. You're making it sort of sharpen your own ambition, your own goals and go, I better get up in the morning and prove this idiot that they're wrong about me. You're not hurting them, but you're channeling it into something productive. So you just answered your question. That's very much integrating it. It's whether your dark side is used for destructive purposes. I'm not advocating that you hurt people. I didn't go out and ever name a single name of anybody in Hollywood ever did. You could read my book. You'll never know that that's what it was about, right? I didn't want to hurt people. I don't like you. I don't like hurting people. It makes me feel ugly. And that ugly feeling ends up costing me more than any kind of benefit I might have gotten from venting it. Right. I don't want that. But. So you're not actually trying to hurt people. You're using it to make yourself more productive. So, for instance, you know, you have a business, you have ambitions, you have goals, and you use all the people who doubt you like you're doing. And you're gonna make that a motivating device that's very powerful. Let's say you're an artist and you've had a lot of. Your parents were really nasty to you, they were very abusive. And you carry that around with you. And it's like this 500 pound rock on your, your whole life, it's just pressing you down. And now in your, in your play or your book or your movie, you let it out and you, you, you don't say this is who they are, but you express it indirectly about very manipulative people and you show your kind of anger in a work of Art, and some of the greatest works of art have an underpinning of some kind of motivating anger that's productive. Let's say there's something that really pisses you off in the world, some form of injustice, whether that's sexism, racism, whatever it is. Instead of, like, just getting on Facebook and posting all kinds of stupid little things and not getting anywhere, you go out and you decide, I'm gonna start a movement. I'm gonna create some kind of social movement that's going to actually get something done. I'm actually going to contribute to society instead of just venting and spewing my own personal pet peeves. You're taking that dark energy and you're channeling into something productive. That's the integration. You're not using it to hurt people. You're using it to motivate you to create something. And the other thing is, we live in a culture that is so politically correct, where people are so worried about, if I use this pronoun, am I going to offend that person? If I say this, am I going to lose my career? We're all so repressed that to see somebody who expresses some of that. Of that repressed emotion in their work, particularly in a work of art, it's like, wow, that's great. It's an attraction. It's a form of charisma that we'll have because you're less repressed than other people. So I'm trying to tell people that Dark side contains incredible creative energy, incredible motivating power. Like you said, when you get up in the morning and use it, don't be afraid of it, but use it. Does that kind of answer what you're doing?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Oh, man. Powerfully. No, that's. I totally get that. Now. When you think about that sort of charisma that can be born of that, and you think about the PC culture that we're living under now, what do you think about that? Like, is. Is this moment crushing creativity? Is this moment a filter for the people that have the balls to speak up? Like, do you want to see us get on the other side of this? How are you conceptualizing this moment? That I will say is it's certainly unlike anything I've ever seen in my lifetime. Now, I don't you have a much broader view of history to know if we just constantly loop through moments of this sort of PC madness or if this is unique to this time. But where do you come down?

[Robert Greene]

Well, as somebody who reads a lot of history, I tend to never think That a moment is unique, because I've read about moments like this throughout history. And I'm definitely a believer in cycles that we go through trends in culture, that we have this illusion that we're just progressing, evolving to some higher place. And my conception of history is that it goes around and around and around and around. Not, but. And so there's cycles of incredible conformism. We could say, how often does it have. I don't have a numerical answer to that. But there are periods of incredible conformism where people are all upset, and there's, like, standards and conventions and codes that become very rigid. So it's not like something new. We humans always have codes and conventions of behavior because we don't like anarchy. We don't want people going around saying whatever they feel like and doing whatever they feel like. We always have codes and rules. You can say this. You can't say that. And the people who rant against political correctness are often very guilty of it themselves because they have their own conventions. It's just that they don't like your conventions. They prefer their own conventions and rules. Okay, so it's human nature to do that. Right. But there are moments of incredible looseness, like the 1960s, their incredible moments of very rigidity, like the 1950s. It was a reaction against all the conformity and the codes and the McCarthyism and all that kind of rigid stuff that was going on in the Eisenhower era. Right. So these things go in cycles. Now, I could be wrong. It could be that we're just going further and further and further to some incredibly puritanical, you know, era where you just better say and do the right thing or you're in trouble. Kind of like 1984, you know, thought speak or whatever it was called. Thought control. I forget the word double speak.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It was double speak. Yeah.

[Robert Greene]

Okay. You know, so we could be going up in that way. I don't have a crystal ball. I can't say. But my instinct is to say that this will turn around. Why? Because we're creatures that really, actually love freedom. It's something I'm writing about a little bit in my. In my new book. It's that our brains have incredible capacity to think anything. That's our benefit of our human brain and the deficit of it. So we can imagine anything. We can imagine unicorns. We can imagine, you know, whatever it's called in Nevada where there's space aliens. We can imagine all kinds of things that aren't real. There might be space. I'm not saying those aren't Real, but we can imagine anything, right? But we love that mental freedom. And so a repressive, puritanical PC culture is actually counter to our nature. And my feeling is it's going to press down and down and then it's going to explode. People are going to be so tired of it that a generation, particularly a new generation, younger people, because they're the ones, they're going to express enough of this already that it'll happen, because that's our spirit, that we actually love freedom and liberty. And we want our minds to be as free as our bodies are free. We want to be able to express things. So in that sense, I would be a little bit hopeful that there will be an incredible reaction against all of this stuff. That's not to say some of it isn't legitimate. You know, it's not to say that there is something real about the racism that went on in the course of American history, something very real. And so to be aware of that and to be aware of how it's embedded in our culture, in our language, etcetera, Is not a bad thing. It's a very positive thing. But sometimes, you know, with some forms of identity politics, I'm not going to say which forms, because there are good things about. We all identify with our tribe. It's human nature. But some of it goes way too far, you know, because in the end, I might be get criticized as I might be Pollyannish, but we're all human. We're all part of the same race. It doesn't matter. Things like race are actually completely artificial constructs. We all come from the same source in Africa. We all share the same genes, we all share the same DNA. All forms of life come from the same source. So we're all in this together. And so a lot of this identity in tribalism is very false and very destructive. And I just think at some point people are going to be so tired of it because it's just so repressive. There's going to be an explosion. But as I said, I'm not Nostradamus, so.

[Tom Bilyeu]

You're not Nostradamus, but I know that you're pretty well versed in generational dynamics and the way that generations move in these relatively predictable cycles. And I've heard you say that preceding every crisis generation is the revolutionary generation. And there are many people that have called millennials the crisis generation. And if that's true, then you've got Gen Z coming up behind them as sort of the natural torchbearers for the revolution. Generation. When you say revolution, do you mean like literal overthrow the government revolution, or do you just mean a cultural revolution like we saw from the 50s to 60s?

[Robert Greene]

It could be both. I have no problem with either one. Whatever feels real, you know, people who get all. And I've had people criticize my own videos about this who get really upset about the idea of a political revolution. Well, I'm sorry, but the United States was formed by a political revolution against, you know, a monarchy. Right. And so England had its own revolution, the French had their own revolution. Yes, they're destructive elements and. And they can go way too far. But political revolutions, if they happen, they happen for a reason that the politics no longer serve people's interest. I'm not necessarily advocating political revolution, but they happen and they often can have, in the long run, positive effects. You know, they can also be negative. But also. I'm talking about cultural revolution. It's not up for me to decide. I'm not 18 years old right now. I'm an old borderline boomer, borderline Gen X or whatever you call it, you know, so I'm a dynast.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Do you feel like old people should. Old, Depending on where we draw that line. But do you feel that there is an age at which you reach, that you should sort of remove yourself from that discourse?

[Robert Greene]

Well, you shouldn't remove yourself because you have experience, you have things to say and you have things to teach people. But you should get off your high horse and think of this natural superiority that you have to the younger generation. And you should get off the idea that you're going to impose on them your own values and your own judgments. If young people have certain desires and things that they don't find are happening in the culture around them, don't get your back up and be this kind of reactionary person defending everything from the past. Understand that you were like that when you were in your twenties. You wanted something that was more. You were interested in change. You were interested in new kind of fashions and new ideas. Right. You've just lost touch with your own younger self. Right. So it's not like you have to go off and retire somewhere. Just you have to let young people, give them some space, start creating a new world. But If I were 18 right now, I would feel a bit of anger, and the anger would come from the boomers and the older generation. They've kind of dominated the world, and they have certain values and politics and culture that feel kind of dead to me. They don't relate to my experience they don't relate to the, the kind of digital world that I've grown up in. I'm hungry for something that relates to me and, and my generation and where I am at. And so I'm going to use that to create something new and different. And so that's where the Gen Z could be a revolutionary generation. It could happen on the level of culture. I also believe it could happen on the level of politics because our politics is pretty much very static and very dead right now. I don't think it relates very well to people's realities. So whatever that, I'm not saying it would be a full bloodshed, you know, guns in the streets, revolution, but some political change would be healthy in a way. So it's more like this world doesn't fit me, it doesn't fit who I am. And I knew I had that feeling when I was 20. I'm walking into a world of my parents who come from the World War II generation and their values. They don't fit me. I don't feel comfortable with them. I'm not comfortable with their music, I'm not comfortable with their books that they read. I'm not comfortable with their values. I want something that's more myself. And so, you know, you have that agitating spirit. And I think that's a positive thing because in nature and culturally change is to me always a good thing. And some change could be negative. But in the overall macro picture, change is always positive because it's what, it's what we humans thrive on. It's what drives all the innovation, all the changes that have been positive throughout our incredible evolution. So like Machiavelli, because he's sort of one of my prophets, change is something that's extremely healthy. Even in the moment it feels wrong or painful or step back in the long run, it's always for the better for the. For humanity.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It's interesting. We'll have to go farther in defining terms here before I know if I agree with you. So when I think about change for the sake of change, I don't think is it isn't always good. So you're. There are going to be times where you go backwards and people are not benefiting from that. But for a long time I was really hardcore about the idea of I wanted to live forever. And I really started to think about why has nature because there is at least jellyfish that are truly eternal and in barring something violent, they will live forever. And what's interesting though is for them to accomplish that feat what they do is they grow into a full blown jellyfish, but then they collapse back into almost an embryonic mush and then they grow back again. So it's very interesting that the strategy that's deployed is to go again into something that resembles sort of a neonatal state state. And I thought, is it possible that the reason that nature has not favored one thing living forever is that it stagnates and that you just aren't getting that fresh? Take whether it's physiologically fresh. Right. So it is not the strongest of the species that survived, nor the most intelligent, but rather the most adaptive to change. Is it that like you just constantly iterate, iterate, iterate and you basically have to kill the old so that the new can come. So I thought maybe that's it. Like maybe the reason that it would actually be problematic for one person to live forever is that it is so hard not to become dogmatic. And I think I do a good job. Like, I hunger for change, I love change. But I will stop just short of saying that I like change for the sake of change. I will say that change as an entity, if that's what you mean, like change as an entity must always exist. Things that calcify into dogma or ossify or whatever the right word is turning to solid stone, that terrifies me and that I'm sort of equally terrified. I'm terrified of chaos, which is just change for the sake of change. And then I'm terrified of ossification. Right. So where exactly that balance is. So I'm a little less rushing towards a bloody political revolution maybe than you. But I do like the friction.

[Robert Greene]

Well, you know, to me change is on a higher level. If you look at from a higher level is to me always for the better. That on an evolutionary scale, talking about thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of years, that's where all of the innovations, the new species, it's how we emerged as an animal, as the most powerful animal on the planet. Right. And it's also how was the engine that drove all of the civilizations and sciences and the arts, etc. So on a very high level, to me it's always positive and static is always a negative. Right. But of course there are things from the past, values that are positive, that are good, that are worth holding onto. So I don't like black and white thinking where it's either change or, or holding on to the past, that there's no kind of slight little fluidity to it all. Yes, sometimes the change that you want is a return to the past is a return to the values. So, for instance, if I were looking at it politically, I would say that what America needs, and I'm imposing my own values on this, and I'm aware of it, is to return to its own core, to the republic that we started in the 18th century. That is a little bit outdated. We're going to update it to the 21st century. But at its core, it had a kind of participatory democratic ideal that we've distanced ourselves from. Right.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Can you. Can you say that again in a different way? I'm not quite sure what you mean.

[Robert Greene]

Well, it's not such a representative democracy so much anymore. There are vested interests, there are powers that have much more power than the single voter. I think if our founding fathers were around right now, they would be rather aghast at the power that, you know, certain media companies have that certain billionaires have over it. Right. And so a kind of return, sort of. I'm just throwing this out there. I'm not saying that this is universally true. It's just how I feel. But sometimes a return to the past is actually the revolution that you want. Okay, but there are things in the past I don't want necessarily to get rid of their values that are very good and human. Okay, but. So it's not just change for its own sake. But then I think a lot of what I. What comes to my mind is adolescence, and, for instance, my own adolescence, or the adolescence that many of us went through, where you're 15 and you're 16 years old and you react against your parents, you don't want to be like them, you kind of find them, you've spent your whole life kind of admiring them, suddenly, I don't know about that. I want something else. Right. And you join your friends and you have a little tribe there and you're reacting against your parents. That is one of the most essential phases that any young person could go through. If you don't go through that rebellious phase from your parents, you're never able to identify, establish your own identity. Right. But some of that reaction is childish, is stupid. Right. You're just trying to be the opposite of your parent. It's not very rational. Okay. But on the higher level, it's actually incredibly valuable because you're carving out your own space. You're carving out who you want to be, and that's a positive thing. So if young people are reacting against the world, the boomers, and they want something politically or culturally, that's different, some of it to Me might strike me as foolish and stupid and anarchic, but on a higher level, I go, it's for the better. Because people, we need. We need change, we need new ideas, we need constantly new values. It's like water that has to keep moving, otherwise it stagnates and it gets unhealthy and all kinds of bacteria start festering. That water needs to be constantly circulating to be sort of a healthy. A healthy environment. And so culturally, we need that constant circulation. It's not change to me. What I want is a culture that's dynamic. I want dynamism. I want the ability for a change to happen. I want the ability for people not to be afraid and to be constantly recycling and going through this process again and again and again. To me, that's the healthy aspect. And I talk a lot about it in my books. I contrast it in the 48 laws of power, the paradigm of Athens, perhaps one of the most creative, dynamic cultures ever in the history of humanity. What we look back to as a golden age. And I contrast it with Sparta, its arch enemy. This incredibly rigid, militaristic society that didn't want any change and for hundreds of years managed to keep out any kind of change in system. Whereas the Athenians were all very fluid. They were merchants, they were making money, they had all the arts. And to me, you know, that is sort of the ideal that we all want to return to. And Sparta is what we want to avoid.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's really interesting. Talk to me about what made that a golden age. I know that you're incredibly well versed in the classics, and I've heard few people talk about some of those things in as interesting a way as you do. Not the least of which was your take on Athena and strategy and, yeah, some very, very interesting ideas. So what is it about that period that makes it something to sort of look at fondly? How did they keep that circulation going in a useful way?

[Robert Greene]

Well, it didn't last very long. It really only lasted for about 100 years, even less so. It was kind of this fleeting moment. But sometimes those fleeting moments are the richest in history. The Renaissance didn't really last that long either, but. Well, it started from, you know, this is the first true democracy in the history. There were signs of it in other cultures. I don't deny it. There were little sparks of it. But this was the first true democratic culture. And to take that step was incredibly brave and incredibly dangerous.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So was there one particular ruler that had to give up power for that?

[Robert Greene]

No, what happened was they Had a system that was democratic, but people were kind of taking advantage of it. And so I talked about, in human nature, the kind of the role of Pericles to sort of realign Athens back to. Back to its roots, back to its democratic roots, where it wasn't the oligarchs, where the wealthy people weren't exercising power, disproportionate power. But, you know, so Athens came out of this situation where they were. They started off as a commercial entity. Their power was commerce because they were a seafaring nature. And so Sparta, its arch enemy, was landlocked, right? So they had a land very. That's why they were so rigid militaristically. They had to control everything. But the sea is this kind of fluid environment where, you know, it's very dangerous. You have to take a risk to go on the sea. There's no risk marching out from Sparta and crushing your enemy in a land battle. But going out to sea is inherently risky. So the Athenians were by nature, risk takers. And I'm always personally very attracted to people who aren't afraid of risk. So they slowly built this kind of merchant, commercial empire in the early 5th century BC and so people. Other cultures began to fear them, began to fear them as a rising power, particularly the Persians. And twice the Persians mounted these vast, vast armies with Xerxes, the second time to crush this empire, completely destroy it, wipe it off the face of the planet, which would have completely altered our own history, right? And the odds were incredibly in their favor. And this little tiny city state with much smaller population, they were able to defeat this mighty, mighty army. And so out of that, there was a tremendous rush of patriotism. Look at who we are, look at what we did. And the temptation in that moment would be to get conservative, to be. To become all kind of need to hold on to what we're doing. We need to hold on to our empire. We need to, you know, build to sort of stay where we are. And instead, they doubled down on their democratic roots, and they created this incredibly dynamic culture in which power was constantly changing hands. And the explosion culturally was insane. The theater, the visual arts, architecture, et cetera, and the sciences, it's what we all admire, what we want. But the idea of being able to change and to be able to embrace risk and to not be afraid of a kind of anarchic culture, because it was anarchic. So they had things like. They had this thing called the ostracon, which. Where our word ostracism comes from. And every year you could vote to have one person banished from Athens. What, the person that you hated the most. And the word came from a piece of ceramic called an ostracon. And you would vote for who was that one person you hated the most and wanted to get rid of in Athens. And everybody voted. And the person who got the most votes was thrown out of Athens. Right.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Even if nobody ever got more than seven votes or was there some sort

[Robert Greene]

of minimum, there would always be someone who would get thousands of votes. The most irritating demagogue in the culture. Right.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Wow. I had no idea.

[Robert Greene]

Yeah, that's where our word ostracism comes from. And sometimes it was good and sometimes it wasn't so good because there would be rabble rousers who would, who would say we got to get rid of this person. They would get rid of them for all the wrong reasons. But mostly it was this vent for the, for the populace to say who they thought was dangerous and that we could get rid of him. And it was incredibly populous. It was incredible. You know, the people had, of course we're talking about males, so it's all relative. Women weren't voting and slaves weren't voting. I know I gotta qualify all that. It's true. But for the time it was incredibly revolutionary. The amount of power that the people had in Athens was remarkable. And so they weren't afraid of that. Of course it all collapsed with the Peloponnesian War. And so this, this fleeting golden moment was very short lived. But it was.

[Tom Bilyeu]

No, I know nothing about that. So what, what ultimately brings it down? Just weak military?

[Robert Greene]

Well, no, no. So Pericles, so Sparta is trying to initiate a war against its rival. Athens are going to destroy it. And Pericles, I talked about this in the first chapter of the Laws, excuse me, of human nature. Pericles comes up with a strategy for how to defeat the Spartans. We're not going to fight them on land, we're going to defeat them with our navy. And he ends up dying from the plague that hits Athens in that year. I think it's 429, 426 BC, something like that. And then everything kind of goes berserk because he's gone. And the Athenians kind of go insane. That's why I use it as the paradigm of irrationality. And they decide, they get arrogant and hubristic and they think we're actually going to crush Sparta. Now instead of just trying to defend ourselves, we're going to turn around and we're going to crush them and get rid of them. We're going to invade this town of Syracuse, which is on the island of Sicily. Now on the island of Sicily, which was a major ally of Sparta. And if we destroy them, we've destroyed one of Sparta's allies and they're going to fall, they're going to sue for peace. They end up launching this enormous. All of their wealth and all of their ships go into this invasion of Syracuse and it's a disaster. And they're humiliated and they're defeated and it's pure hubris. And Sparta now has the upper hand. And in the course of a few years, they completely crush Athens. They take it over. And the democracy is essentially finished by about 404bc. And if you ever want to read one of the greatest books ever written, it's the History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, the ancient Greek writer. It's one of the most amazing documents. You can't believe that this is something that you're reading from the 5th century BC. It is so modern and his way of thinking is so beautiful. And he kind of chronicles the rise and fall of Athens in a very kind of iconic way.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And what were his key insights? That it was hubris and that is sort of what really took them down or.

[Robert Greene]

Yes, more or less. They kind of lost a sense of their ideals and they got drunk with the idea of empire as opposed to preserving their democracy. They became drunk on power and they thought that they could assert themselves all over the Mediterranean and kind of ruled by force instead of by persuasion. And they kind of got distanced from their own values and generations of demag. It's very kind of oddly similar to what we're going through, where a series of demagogues and populists rose to the top and kind of perverted the values of Athens and led to its. Its destruction. So it's. It's this incredible parable of what can happen to any civilization. So, yeah, all right.

[Tom Bilyeu]

If I were watching this interview back, I know I'd punch myself in the mouth if I didn't go back to this idea of anarchy and there being elements of that that are good. Tell me more. I have always had a default assumption. I will admit I have never thought about anarchy as having anything positive to offer. So I'm open minded. Bring me in. Tell me why anarchy is. Has elements that may be useful.

[Robert Greene]

It's not anarchy per se, it's change. I mean, so let's go through an example that I know very well, which is the French Revolution, something that I've studied a lot. And it Excites me for some reason. And here you have a monarchy in France that has existed for, at the time, 700 years, very static, in control of France. By the time you arrive in the 18th century, it's kind of ossified into this very silly culture with Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI with these silly rituals and these courtiers and everything. And the populace is suffering from famines and, you know, they're going. They're starving to death, and there's incredible inequalities of wealth, and it's basically a dead culture. And then slowly the fans of revolution start churning. Beginning in the early 1780s, there's some revolts against the famine, et cetera, and against the king. And then it explodes in 1789, right? And, you know, we're all more or less aware of what kind of ensued with the guillotine and the terror and how it goes way too far and it turns into something. A bloody nightmare, you know, okay. And then after the. After that falls apart, then Napoleon kind of rises to the top and he's sort of part of the French Revolution, and then he slowly turns it into something very conservative, etc. On and on and on. But the argument that most people have is, you know, the French Revolution, all that bloodshed, what was it for? You know, that kind of anarchy, as you might put it, what did it lead to? What good was it? Well, it led to the formation of what became modern Europe. It led to the decline of all monarchies. It became an ideal. It showed the people of Europe that there is another way of being. There's another way. We don't have to live in these incredibly rigid cultures that were pretty ossified, like in the Austrian, Hungarian Empire, et cetera, or in Spain, that the ideal of revolution, which spread to South America, which spread, you know, of course, some of it was from the United. From our own revolution, which preceded the French Revolution. But other people have shown that the conditions before the revolution were actually a lot worse. There were many more deaths and executions and suffering than after the French Revolution. So it was bloody, it went too far, it created a reaction. But in the long run, decades later, it had a very positive impact because it broke up this incredibly rigid system that was strangling Europe, was strangling it culturally, economically and politically. So that's an example of change that in the moment looks negative and bloody and anarchic and unruly, but in the end created a very positive effect. I'm not saying that happens all the time. It's not a law, but oftentimes what seems to be anarchic and ugly and awful in the moment does end up serving a higher purpose, because we need dynamism in our culture. We need change.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So, because that sounds so horrendous, because all of us only have one life to live. And if you're the one living through the guillotine. And, like, I've heard stories about how absurd it got, where it had that sort of. Was it in World War II where people were, like, clapping? Oh, no. I think it was in China, where people are, like, so terrified to stop clapping for. I think it was Mao that, you know, they'd be there for, like, two hours, like, just clapping, clapping, clapping, clapping, clapping. And because you could get ostracized or killed if you were, you know, considered the first one to stop clapping. Or I've read the Gulag Archipelago and, like, the nightmare that it would be to live through that moment. And I get it from a macro perspective, it's like, we want that change. So Robert Greene is going to tell us how to do revolution the right way.

[Robert Greene]

What's the right way?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Please tell me what I missed.

[Robert Greene]

So the Russian Revolution began with that, right? Began with these sort of peasant rebellions. But from the beginning, the Bolshevik Revolution was an incredibly conservative movement. It was not a revolutionary movement. It was a movement about amassing power for the state, for Lenin and the state and Stalin. It was a very repressive machine from the beginning. So it's not at all what I'm talking about. And the Chinese Revolution is very obviously, incredibly interesting story because Mao began with this idea of, like, the Trotsky idea of a permanent revolution. We're going to have a culture that's constantly changing, etc. Etc. And then it turned into this incredibly rigid, conservative, ossified culture. And I wrote about, in the Laws of Human Nature, the Cultural revolution in the 60s in which he wanted to completely turn things upside down, like what I'm talking about. So here I'm going to contradict myself, and here I'm going to show my own. Here I'm wrong. Robert's wrong. Here was a chance. He wanted to turn everything upside down, and it became a nightmare, and it turned into massive conformity, like what you're talking about, where you better keep clapping or if you stop, right? It turned into a nightmare. So that kind of just change for its own sake can lead to something very destructive. I don't deny that. And look what happened to China afterward after a moment like that. They turned extremely conservative and rigid. In the late 70s and it's something that still affected them to this day. So, you know, history is not like this logical little thing like science or physics where these things all happen the same way. I can pull up examples of change that lead to something very negative. I understand, I agree. And they are exceptions to what I'm talking about in the long run, in the higher picture, from looking from above. I'm more worried about cultures that are rigid, that are ossified, that cannot change, that don't have that kind of constant churning of the waters. And it's not just culture or politics. It's also business. It's also technology. It's also the ability to innovate. You know, social media was a great thing with the 90s and the early aughts. We were all so excited about it. Kind of the freedom of it, the ability to communicate with anybody. And it's turned into this kind of rigid megalith, you know, like dinosaurs chomping around these giant brontosauruses that now dominate the landscape and nothing else can thrive. Right. So that's kind of the dynamic where having something, it's not good for us. We want that. We're the country, the country that, that sparks all of the innovation because that's what America is. We're a country of change. That's why Europe admired us. We weren't hold. We weren't beholden to the past. We were willing to take risks and create new kinds of businesses, etc.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So do you worry at all that we're moving to with the PC culture, with cancel culture, all that, that we're moving closer to something like, you better not stop clap.

[Robert Greene]

Very much so. Very much so. So, you know, and this is the way of all cultures. So we started off with a kind of a pioneer spirit where, you know, it's. It's the rugged individual and it's a kind of a culture where people can kind of be different and express who they were. And Even in the 19th century, in a time very different from our own, where, you know, there were some kind of rigid codes of how to behave, there was incredible freedom going on. When you look about at some of the weird kind of cults that were forming the kind of utopian societies and some of the writers and some of the things that were going on, and even the business environment, which was very cutthroat with the robber barons, it was incredibly dynamic period of time where we celebrated the entrepreneur and we celebrated people kind of creating their own. You, you could, you know, the rags to riches myth that is so much part of America. And we've really.

[Tom Bilyeu]

You called it the rags to riches myth.

[Robert Greene]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Well, tell me more. Why is it a myth?

[Robert Greene]

Well, it's not a myth in the sense that it's wrong, because myth is misinterpreted nowadays to mean false. It just means it was part of our culture. Just like Athena and Zeus was part of the Greek myths that people believed in. It was an ideal. Maybe that's the better word than myth, but it was part of what held up. All Americans could reach for that ideal, whereas in Europe you couldn't, you know, sort of thing. So maybe myth was the wrong word. But, you know, and so the reason I've written about this before and talked about it before, but the reason that was there, that that started was we. It was a culture that was hungry, that we were. We. We felt. We felt that there were risks out there, that if we didn't do this, that America was going to suffer something, that we felt compelled to create new things. Right. And you look at it in the arts and the sciences and technology, it was incredibly vibrant. And then you can kind of watch it slowly, slowly, slowly get snuffed out. That spirit's kind of dying on the vine. Then Kennedy in 1960, he saw what was happening, particularly in the Eisenhower era, and he wanted to get back to that, what he called pioneer spirit. And he launched what he called the new frontier, which is part of the space race. And, you know, and the space race was what created the Internet. If it wasn't for NASA, we wouldn't have the Internet and the space race generated. I can't tell you how much of the technological innovation that powers everything nowadays. So, yeah, we're very much straying from that spirit with the cancel culture and everything like that, you know, so we're afraid of people with different opinions. We're afraid of things that threaten our own preconceived ideas. And that kind of, to me, runs counter to some of the spirit of our country. It's not. We're not. We've never completely lived up to our ideals, but that is the ideal that I think drove us for so many generations.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah. One thing I find just incredibly sexy is the idea of rugged individualism. That's something that, you know, I'm, I'm with you. Stagnation is bad. Change can be extraordinarily good. Change as a general element is incredibly important. But when I think about the way things are going now, where it's group identity over everything, that really worries me. And ultimately, I think a Group is only strong when the individual people are focused on, like, how strong can I become? How much weight can I. I carry for the group? And then the broader we make the group, I think the better off everybody is. But if you're not first leaning into, like, hey, this is my sort of one shot at things, I'm going to see how strong I can get. I'm going to see how far I can push myself. I'm going to think for myself, act for myself. That, to me, is where one, you just get strong mental health because people are chasing fulfillment. They're pursuing things that fill them up in a way that maybe nobody else gives a shit about, but, like, they care about, and they have the ability to pursue that. And then you marry it to an idea that we flirted with at the beginning that I think now is the time to talk about, which is mortality, man. Like, you've got precious little time on this planet, and are you doing something that you think is rad? You know, regardless of whether other people are telling you that that's what you should do? Like, is it something that fills you up? How do you. So I know you've talked in other podcasts about your book, so I don't think I'm talking out of school. To say that you're working on a book loosely titled or maybe officially titled, the Law of the Sublime and how that relates to mortality and the stroke that you had. Tell me more about that. How do you think about the fact that this is all finite? How does that tie in? Because when I think of sublime, I think of something so beautiful as to, you know, it's fleeting, it's beautiful and almost painful in its beauty. Is that close to how you think of it or you think about it?

[Robert Greene]

It's very wise. It's very intuitive of you. Because the thing about the sublime that I'm trying to capture the essence of in the book is that it's a mix of pain and pleasure. That's what makes it so powerful. So the.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's really interesting.

[Robert Greene]

The idea of our mortality is obviously very painful, right? What could be more painful? But the idea of transforming that into something beautiful, into something enlightening, into something that kind of fills us with a much different spirit, which. Which motivates us to get something done, which makes us appreciate what we can look at. We're alive and the sky is blue and, you know, and all that. So mortality has this ability to sharpen our senses, to sharpen our appreciation of life, and that turns the pain and into pleasure. But the pain and pleasure always go together. So underneath, that kind of ecstatic feeling that you feel when you're aware that there's eternal time and that there are all these insanely wonderful things around the world is always going to be mixed with that tincture of pain about how I'm going to be gone and I won't be here to appreciate it. But that mix of the two emotions of what makes it so powerful and so insanely addictive, right? Because pure pleasure on its own can almost get monotonous and it can almost go, I'm tired of it, you know, I'm bored. And pure pain. But the combination of these two things. And so in my book, I'm talking about how every element of the sublime has the mix of those emotions and why neurologically that is such a powerful thing to us. So, you know, people who've had ecstatic experiences, what Maslow, the great psychologist, called peak experiences, let's say one of the paradigms for me is climbing a mountain, right? Climbing Mount Everest, or the guy who wrote that great book about touching the void, Simpson, you know, people who've had those kind of mountaineering experiences to get there. What pain, man, how awful. You can't breathe, you could die at any minute. There could be an avalanche. But you're so excited, you're so happy because you're alive and you're testing, you're testing your limits. This is known as the dynamical sublime, where you're testing your human endurance against the forces of nature. And then you reach the top and you have this insane view that's like the paradigm of the mix of these two emotions. Now that might all sound kind of hoity toity, something very rare in life. You know, I'm not going to climb a mountain. I'm not going to feel that way about death. But I'm trying to bring it down to everyday things in your life so that the sublime is not just these rare moments where you climb a mountain or whatever it is, but it's in your everyday consciousness, right? That's the goal that I have. Because I think what people are missing nowadays is they don't have a sense of awe and a sense of enchantment about the world around them. They feel everything is kind of dead and everything is sort of the same. But the actual truth of it is, is that this world is so unlikely that you and I, Tom Bilya, are talking right now over Skype about these very issues 5000 years ago. Who could ever. It's impossible, it's insane. It's a dream. It's like it's not even real. It's like the Matrix. Who could even begin to believe it? Every moment of your life is like that, but you're not fucking aware of it. You're so wrapped in banality that you're not aware of the insane awesomeness. So my first chapter, which I finally finished, it was so difficult, was about the cosmos and about the Big Bang and about the universe and about the origin of stars and how the moon came from the Earth about four and a half billion years ago, collided with this other Mars sized planet, planet called Thea. It was this giant collision. And the pieces of dust from that collision started spitting around the Earth and by gravity it kind of coalesced and it became the Moon. And wow, the moon is just like this dust that came from Earth, right? And then in the beginning it was like much like a third, 2/3 closer to Earth than it was now. It was like this thing that was right there in your face, you know, to see the origin of the moon and to realize that is unbelievable. And that the moon that I'm looking at now, you don't have to climb Mount Everest. You can go out now and even in the daytime you can see the moon. That's the same moon that people in ancient Babylonia were looking at. And so you're having the same experience that they're having. You know, you can time travel. I do a lot of time traveling in this book where you can experience what it was like 5,000 years ago, 1 million year ago. You can travel through art. The Internet is the most sublime thing ever invented. Now I'm writing this book. I have one little question about a dinosaur that I'm wondering about and how it survived. I do three little clicks on my computer and whoa, I've got all the answers of all these experiments. It's insane. It's insane. The world we live in, it is so insanely beautiful and sublime, you're just not aware of it, you know, So I don't know if I'm answering your question. I'm going off the deep bit here, but that's.

[Tom Bilyeu]

No, you are. And in your words and in the way that you're saying your words, which is really interesting. And I think that putting it in context of what you've been going through in the last two years helps. And what I love is that knowing that you had a stroke, knowing that you were in a coma and I mean, that's about as near death as anybody is going to get. Knowing that You've struggled. And, you know, I know that you've said that you thought you'd be farther along in your healing than you are now. And then one final piece to the puzzle which made what you just said so powerful, is that I know that as a writer, you normally write the thing that you need. So the fact that you're turning towards the beauty and the sublime. Would it be accurate to say that this has been part of how you've reconnected to joy and wonderment as you've gone through sort of this incredibly difficult period?

[Robert Greene]

Yeah, it's probably what's keeping me alive right now, to be honest with you, because it really fills me because it's been very frustrating dealing with what. I mean, I'm not complaining. There are people dealing with a lot worse in this world, people with coronavirus, etc. But it's been very frustrating not being able to take a walk, not being able to hike, not being able to open things, not being able to type. Just little frustrations. But this. It's weird because the book. When I originally had the idea for the sublime book about 15 years ago, I was going to write it. Then I got sidetracked by the 50 cent project, and then I got sidetracked by Mastering Human Nature. And I'm coming back to it. But when. Excuse me. When I had the original idea, I was going to travel to all parts of the world and I was going to see all these weird sublime landscapes in Argentina. I was going to go to Antarctica. I was going to go dive and be with the dolphins and the sharks in these waters. I was going to have all these insane experiences and write about them. Okay? Now, the irony is I'm doing the book and I can't. I can't even walk outside my house, right? So my life is so limited that I have to find that now in my head. But it's an advantage. Talking about turning shit into sugar, that's how I'm turning that shit into sugar. Because it's. The limitation is I have to use my own brain to experience it. But for people out there who are trapped in a bad job, who can't voyage to Antarctica, Argentina, etc. I'm trying to make the book something that's going to relate to you. Just like me, if you feel trapped or you feel limited, you can explore. You can do all these things sitting at home and expand your mind and feel it and give yourself a greater sense of excitement about even the weirdness of just being alive right now. So that horrible disadvantage that I've had where I can't do the book that I wanted to is actually the best thing that could have ever happened to me. I think in the end, as far as how the book will eventually come out,

[Tom Bilyeu]

framing is everything. Robert, thank you so much, man. I enjoy every second that I ever get to spend with you. I'm super excited about your new book. Where can people engage with you in the meantime?

[Robert Greene]

Well, my. My old website is still there. I got to get my social media a little better. I don't deny that. Talking about change. So my old site is powerseductionandwar.com the and is spelled out and there you have links to all my other books and then you have links to my Instagram, my Twitter and my Facebook accounts. And there's an email address where you can write to me. But if I can get the time and I can get the energy going, I am trying to kind of. And I also have a YouTube channel that's new where I'm doing a series of podcasts. So you can go visit that. There's a link to that on my website. But eventually, the next time we speak, I'll have a much more modern, up to date, real, real looking social media presence. Because right now it's kind of. Whoa, what's wrong with that guy?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Well, I look forward to it, man. Dude, thank you again. This is a lot of fun. I really, really do enjoy hanging out with you guys. Dive into his world if you haven't already read his books. They are absolutely extraordinary. And by the way, we also have multiple episodes that we've shot together. I highly encourage you guys to go watch those. They are amazing. I've watched the episodes on his own YouTube channel. They are fantastic. So be sure to check those out. And speaking of something that's fantastic, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care,

[Robert Greene]

Sa.