The Guy Behind 48 Laws of Power Shares His Rules for Founders

0:00:03 one of the best parts about this is there’s so many levels to this so when i tweeted this quote
0:00:09 out darmesh who’s this you know co-founder of a 20 30 billion dollar company retweeted it says
0:00:14 this is exactly what i needed to hear today i feel like i can rule the world i know i could be
0:00:21 what i want to i put my all in it like my days off on the road let’s travel never man i am so
0:00:28 excited to talk to you i’ve read all your books and i’ve always thought that instead of whatever
0:00:31 they’re teaching at universities i was like man i wish i could just do a four-year degree
0:00:35 on like four or six of these robert green books because they’re amazing wow and in particular
0:00:42 mastery it absolutely changed my life i read that when i was 20 22 years old about 12 years ago 11
0:00:48 years ago it totally changed my life it changed my life because i thought that being a generalist
0:00:57 was the way to go but according to the book mastery it was not yeah well you know um we live in these
0:01:04 fantastic times with so much technological power it’s just almost incredible you know i mean yesterday i
0:01:12 was working on my new book and i had a question and i just did an ai search and it’s just insane what
0:01:20 it can do for you but the problem is the human brain is what it is it isn’t a piece of technology that
0:01:27 that somebody developed recently it’s something that has hundreds of thousands of years of development and
0:01:32 it has a certain way that it operates and a certain grain to it and you want to go with that grain and
0:01:37 you want to be excited by learning and you want to make connections in the brain between different
0:01:44 things and you want to be able to focus so deeply on something i like to think of the brain as this kind
0:01:50 of landscape and it can be rich and it can be one where all these different plants are emerging or it can
0:01:57 be like a wasteland and if you learn different things and you focus very deeply and you’re excited by what
0:02:02 you’re learning then all of these connections will start happening in the brain and so if you go through
0:02:10 that apprenticeship focused and developing real skills and whatever that is by the time you finish your
0:02:16 apprenticeship let’s say you’re 30 years old you’ll be set you’ll be able to create your own business
0:02:22 you’ll be very creative you will laid groundwork for something really important to happen but if
0:02:27 you’re distracted if you’re focusing on a hundred different things that’s not how the human brain
0:02:34 functions we function when we go deep into something when we bore deep deep deep deep deep into a subject
0:02:41 i know when i’m writing a book which i’m doing right now the first attempt that i make it something is
0:02:47 very superficial it’s not interesting you wouldn’t believe how bad my writing is on the first go but i
0:02:54 go deep deep deep into what i’m thinking i cross it out i do something else i edit it by the 10th time i go
0:03:01 into it something interesting is happening so when you focus deeply on something ideas will come to you and
0:03:07 sometimes those ideas will be brilliant how many books do you read um to write one book so for mastery
0:03:13 how many books did you consume to write that one or four eight laws of power it’s hard to estimate but
0:03:23 it’s somewhere around 300 some could be upwards of that and you know sometimes if a book is is bad
0:03:29 and believe me i get i read a lot of bad books i kind of skim them you know oh this passage is really
0:03:36 sucks or this chapter is meaningless i’ll kind of float through it but if a book is really good and
0:03:41 you know i could there are some books that are incredible i’d say maybe about a fifth of them
0:03:48 reach that level i’ll focus very deeply i’ll even reread it several times it’s probably why my health
0:03:55 suffered and why i had a stroke is because i read too many books i do too much research but i want to get
0:04:01 at the reality of what i’m writing about i don’t want to be superficial because so many books out
0:04:07 there at least for me don’t really go deep enough into the subject they’re kind of skimming along the
0:04:14 surfaces so sam was talking about mastery and you have this concept of people finding their life life
0:04:19 tasks their life’s task and i think that’s great uh but i know a lot of people who are maybe in their 30s
0:04:25 or 40s who don’t know that that is and maybe they feel like it’s too late or they’re stuck or don’t
0:04:32 know where to start um could you know what’s the sort of pocketbook guidance you have for somebody
0:04:36 like that who’s looking for who’s trying to figure out what that is and what are the tools they could
0:04:41 use to figure out that life’s task well it’s a question i get all the time and it’s an extremely
0:04:48 important question the idea that i have is that when you were born your your dna there’s something
0:04:53 completely unique about you genetically there’s never going to be anyone in the past or the future who
0:05:00 will be like you your parents who raised you they’re also unique so you are a unique individual you were
0:05:07 so at birth right and when you were very young two three four years old you were attracted to certain
0:05:13 things naturally i call them primal inclinations things that you loved very deeply that you were
0:05:19 drawn to that you were attracted to i tell the story in the book of steve jobs he’s seven years
0:05:25 old he’s walking with his father in sunnyvale california where he grew up and he passes by
0:05:32 an electronic shop and he’s just fascinated by these objects in the window the design of them and how
0:05:37 beautiful they are and it was at that moment that he sort of fell in love with technology
0:05:43 not just as technology as as a machine but as the design of it because he was a brilliant designer
0:05:49 so i’m saying you had those moments when you were five or six years old but your problem is
0:05:56 when you were 18 or 19 or 20 you took a wrong path you listened to other people you didn’t listen to
0:06:02 yourself you listened to your parents who said robert you should go to law school and this is what you know
0:06:06 some of what my own parents told me you need to go to business school you need to go become a doctor
0:06:12 you need to get something practical and make a living and you’re alienated from that deep deep love of
0:06:17 something that you had when you were four or five years old or six years old or whatever it is and then
0:06:24 you go down a wrong path so the way is to get back onto that path and the way is to reconnect with who
0:06:30 you are with what you truly love and what your interests are and there’s a process for that and i can go into it
0:06:37 and i’ve consulted with many people on this thing but the problem is you’re so in tune with what other
0:06:42 people are telling you you’re not listening to yourself you don’t know what makes you unique and if you look
0:06:49 at all of the really successful people in this world people the great entrepreneurs or in any field
0:06:57 they’re one of a kind right there’s nobody else like it a kobe bryant out there you know god rest his soul
0:07:05 my favorite basketball player they’re one of a kind okay so you lost that somehow and when you’re in your
0:07:12 30s you can get back to it but what you need to do is you need to be practical in life you can’t just
0:07:18 suddenly start all over and go i’ve been learning these skills i went into law school and and i’m not
0:07:25 happy with it you can’t now turn around and say well i’m going to be a poet or i’m going to be a rock
0:07:31 star you’ve already learned skills you have to build on what you have and take it in a direction towards
0:07:37 something that you really really love right you need to be practical and you may have to compromise a
0:07:41 little bit but when you’re in your 30s you can still do it and because you’re young enough and
0:07:48 your mind is flexible as you get older you get rigid you get set in your ways and it comes harder and
0:07:54 harder and harder to do this process when you’re in your 40s it’s still possible but it’s getting harder
0:08:01 when you’re 50s it’s getting almost very very difficult so the real lesson for people out there is
0:08:07 if you’re 20 years old do not go on that wrong path because it gets very difficult later in life
0:08:14 to adjust but if you’re in your 30s you have to reassess yourself you have to get a journal and
0:08:21 every day you have to write down things about what really excites you in life what it was when you open
0:08:29 a book and you read about something and you go wow that just attracts me i know personally whenever i see
0:08:39 an article or a story about early humans and how we develop 30 40 60 000 years ago i i can’t believe
0:08:45 it i’m so excited i can’t we were actually like that and look who we are now you have subjects like that
0:08:50 but you just become alienated from yourself you’re not listening to yourself you’re not listening to
0:08:56 that voice in your head and you need to find your way back all right i read a ton i would say almost a
0:09:01 book a week and the reason i read so much is because my philosophy towards reading is i want
0:09:05 to see what worked for the winners that i love and what strategies they use and then i want to see
0:09:10 what mistakes uh did they all make what were the common flaws that they all had and i just want to
0:09:15 avoid that and so hubspot asked me to put together a list of the books that have changed my life so far
0:09:22 in 2025 and i did that so i listed out seven books that made a meaningful difference in my life and i
0:09:27 explained what the differences that they had on me or what actions i took because of the book and then
0:09:34 also i listed out my very particular ways of reading because i’m pretty strategic about how i read and how i
0:09:38 read so much and how i remember what i read and things like that and so i put this together in a very
0:09:44 simple guide it’s seven books that had a huge impact on my life and you can scan the qr code
0:09:48 below if you want to read it or there’s a link you guys know what to do there’s a link in the
0:09:52 description just go ahead and click it and you’ll see the guide that i made so it’s the seven books
0:09:57 that had a massive change in my life this year so far and then also how i’m able to read so much
0:09:58 so check it out below
0:10:03 you know i um i’m only saying this to give you context um robert but
0:10:10 millions of people listen to this podcast and sometimes they look up to sean and i because we’ve
0:10:14 done some interesting things in the business world yes and sometimes they look down on us too
0:10:18 sometimes they look up to us a lot of times they look down on us uh no they
0:10:25 and uh and i can’t speak for sean but even you know we’re fortunate to have people look up to us and
0:10:31 even i am sometimes like i still don’t know what my life’s task is i still have doubts and i think
0:10:35 that you said something you’re like you have to listen to yourself and like maybe yourself is yelling
0:10:40 at you but so is everything else and so it’s kind of hard to hear can you actually walk me through you
0:10:44 said you consult with people and the interesting thing about being a historian like you is like very
0:10:51 billionaires i imagine they’re like be my oracle tell me what to do what questions do you ask to journal
0:10:58 uh or what is like your seven day exercises that you do with someone who is hiring you
0:11:04 to help you find or you know hiring you to give them their life’s task or help them find it
0:11:11 okay well you know as i as you as you point out the problem is in this era of social media
0:11:18 we have so much information coming at us that we’re confused and we’re distracted right there’s all this
0:11:23 noise the static going on in your brain you’re hearing what people are having for lunch you’re
0:11:30 hearing about this outrage this problem you don’t have a you’re not able to focus so the main thing
0:11:35 here is you’ve got to really really go into yourself you got to cut out all that crap you’re taking it
0:11:42 seriously because a lot of people who come to me i can tell right away they’re not serious about it
0:11:47 they kind of like well i’m not really happy maybe robert can help me figure it out
0:11:53 no damn it you have to figure it out it’s not up to me you’re not taking it seriously you’re playing a
0:11:58 game you kind of have dreams and you wish no you got to take this seriously your life is at stake
0:12:06 time is short you know you could die tomorrow life is shorter than you think so you don’t have time to
0:12:11 waste so take this thing seriously that’s the number one thing i tell people and what take
0:12:20 it seriously means is it requires time all right you’re going to carve out let’s say a week of real
0:12:26 focus and i think you can do it longer than that but let’s just say in in your scenario a week of
0:12:31 clear focus all right you’re going to get a journal a book or if you do it on a computer i recommend an
0:12:37 actual book because the brain and the hand there’s a there’s a process there’s a magic that goes on when
0:12:42 you hand write something i’m going to ask you to hand write everything but in this case writing in a
0:12:48 journal is the best idea i think okay so you’re going to start writing in a journal you can even
0:12:53 sometimes voice recorder because i do that too as well if that’s something you prefer
0:12:59 but i don’t want you to be on the screen all the time okay i want you to be really listening to
0:13:04 yourself deeply okay so you’re writing things down you’re going to start writing you’re going to
0:13:09 begin by saying these are the things that i love and these are the things that i hate and you can put
0:13:15 you can put it in and you can divide the page in half and do that if you want so to give you an
0:13:21 example things that you hate and dislike are a very important part of figuring out your life’s task
0:13:30 now personally i didn’t figure out what i was really meant to do which is writing these books until i was
0:13:38 about 38 years old okay i was kind of lost and i was kind of wandering but the one thing i knew and
0:13:47 i’ve known at a very early age is i hate working for other people i hate working for other people i hate the
0:13:54 politics i hate the egos i’m i like to control things so i need i need to be somebody who works
0:14:02 for myself right i can’t work for other people i’m really bad at it i never held a job for longer than
0:14:09 10 or 11 months in my entire life i was always dissatisfied quid and whatever okay so knowing what
0:14:15 you hate is very important for knowing what you love all right so you cut things out you cut all the
0:14:20 stuff out that you don’t want to do you you’re not interested in math you’re not interested in numbers
0:14:25 you’re more of an idea person i don’t know what it is but you’re going to write down the things that you
0:14:32 love the things that you hate in the present moment all right and you’re going to what this is really
0:14:37 about sam is you’re connecting with yourself right because you’re not connected to yourself and that’s the
0:14:43 number one problem people have in this world they’re listening to other people they’re imitating other
0:14:50 people oh this is a cool person i want to be like him or her no you got to be yourself you’re not
0:14:56 connected to yourself so this journaling process is going to take you through several days of reconnecting with
0:15:02 who you are the other thing that you need to do is you need to go into your childhood into your early
0:15:09 years so we begin by looking at the present moment i hate working for other people i love
0:15:15 this kind of subject or this kind of thing in the world now i want you to go deep into your
0:15:22 childhood i compare it to being like an archaeologist you’re making a dig right it’s you’re not going back
0:15:27 millions of years you’re going back to when you were four or five years old and i want you to because
0:15:34 in those early years you were open to the world you were really open as we get older we get really
0:15:42 closed certain things excited you in a way that you can’t even recall it’s not the same to you now
0:15:48 right it didn’t have to do with words it had to do with feelings so i tell the story i told you like
0:15:54 steve jobs there’s the story of tiger woods with his father in the garage he’s like two years old i don’t
0:15:59 know something like that his father is hitting golf balls in the garage you know there’s one of those
0:16:04 little plastic balls against the against the wall and tiger is sitting there in his baby chair and
0:16:10 he’s getting so excited he’s kicking his legs oh my god this is incredible right then and there he had
0:16:18 discovered his life’s task basically it wasn’t like an intellectual process it wasn’t well i’m two years
0:16:23 old golf is really interesting and i’m going to study it it was in his heart it was something deep you
0:16:30 can’t put it into words right you had that moment it’s almost pre-verbal but something really really
0:16:39 excited you for me when i was a child it was language and words i was obsessed with with words and books
0:16:47 and and just the magic of a word itself it like boggled my mind how incredible you had those moments
0:16:52 whatever it was so we’re going back into your childhood and we’re digging and we’re digging and
0:17:00 we’re digging you also have to cut out all of the other voices part of the journaling is i listened to
0:17:06 what my friends were telling me i listened to what my parents were telling me cut all that
0:17:11 shit out and listen to yourself that’s pretty great i do have one kind of follow-up or i don’t know
0:17:17 clarifying question so i have a five-year-old today and i think about like what i observe in
0:17:23 her but i would guess that you know most of the things that she really loves are pretty common like
0:17:29 she like since she’s in a baby like if music comes on she loves to dance my one-year-old is the same way
0:17:34 my four-year-old is the same way um does that mean she’s going to be a dancer right like they love to
0:17:38 play video games on the ipad does that mean they’re going to be a gamer or a game designer like there’s
0:17:41 some things that are just so common everyone loves they love cookies they love ice cream does that
0:17:45 mean they’re going to be ben and jerry’s like is there another angle to it which is like you know
0:17:51 you’re sort of uniquely into it or um maybe others are not you have to look for the things that others
0:17:56 are not into you know i guess like how do you differentiate just like common dopamine things we
0:18:03 all like versus my life’s task well it’s a great question um i like to refer people to this book
0:18:09 by howard gardner called five frames of intelligence i think i’m sorry i might not have the title exactly
0:18:17 right but the point of this book is that there are five kinds of intelligence and some of it has to do
0:18:24 with math and patterns some of it has to do with words some of it is kinetic it’s just the body and moving
0:18:31 the body some of it is social okay some of it involves music and or visual things he studied
0:18:38 this very deeply and he asserts that every human being has one of these intelligences that stands
0:18:47 out that kind of dominates their brain so it’s not it’s not a trivial thing of you know i like to play
0:18:54 video games or i like to eat cookies it’s something more deep it’s something more primal it’s about a
0:19:02 certain direction that your brain heads in so with your young daughter it’s is she into sort of just
0:19:08 physical things or does she have some kind of intellectual interest that draws her that’s very
0:19:15 exciting okay so you know all children like to move around and jump around and run around etc that
0:19:22 doesn’t mean that they’re going to be an athlete i understand your question but some people are like
0:19:28 that some people that is their dominant interest right and you can see that as i said by looking at
0:19:33 the negative they’re not into they’re not into math they’re not into words they’re just into moving
0:19:40 around and maybe at four it’s hard to see that but by the time there’s seven or eight it becomes very
0:19:50 clear but what is their mind their brain attracted to okay and the problem with parenting is you’re
0:19:57 projecting onto your child what you like what your interests are who you are you don’t understand that
0:20:03 they’re an individual your daughter is unique she’s something she’s not you she has your genetics but
0:20:09 she’s a girl she’s different gender she has a different experience from you right she also has the genes of her
0:20:16 a mother you’re projecting onto her so imagine that you’re in her skin and seeing the world from her
0:20:23 point of view and you can see the things that she doesn’t like that she hates but what is her mind drawn
0:20:31 to i’m pretty sure that if you focused on it deeply you could see some the outlines of what that is
0:20:38 but the main thing you want to do is you want to let your child discover that for yourself you don’t
0:20:43 want to push them in a direction that you think is better for them you want to let them discover it for
0:20:49 themselves and when you see it which you will with your daughter maybe it’ll happen soon or maybe in
0:20:55 a couple years you want to encourage them right even if it’s something that you think isn’t good for
0:21:01 them that oh you can’t make a living at that you want to encourage them because you want children
0:21:08 to be excited by learning if you turn your your five-year-old off from learning for whatever reason
0:21:15 man you’re a bad parent i’m sorry to say that’s the number one thing they’ve got to be excited by
0:21:21 something what is that thing that they’re drawn to i believe that you if you went deeply into it you
0:21:26 could almost figure it out right now you know we could even talk about it but i think that’s right
0:21:31 that would be my answer it reminds me of one thing sam i want to i want to hear your question about the
0:21:36 maybe one of his other concepts or books but just reminds me of uh warren buffett has said the best
0:21:42 thing his dad ever taught him was the was the importance of an inner scorecard so he says most people
0:21:46 live with an outer scorecard and the thought experiment he gives is like you know would you
0:21:53 rather be the uh you know whether his uh he the funny example he gives is would you rather be the
0:21:58 world’s best lover but everybody thinks you’re the worst or the world’s worst lover but everybody
0:22:02 thinks you’re the best and that your answer to that he says the same thing about investing what should
0:22:05 i be the bet if i was the best investor but everybody thought i was the worst would that be better
0:22:08 or if i was the worst investor but everybody thought i was the best would that be better
0:22:14 what’s the answer well he’s he’s like you know for him he attributes the most of his success to
0:22:19 the fact that he has a very strong inner scorecard i see that like he’s not immune to the idea of an
0:22:24 outer scorecard that like other you know caring what other people think of him however he listens to
0:22:29 himself first and foremost and he carries an inner scorecard and he marks his actions and his choices in
0:22:35 his life on what he thought would be the right choice and what he thinks is a good life for him which is
0:22:39 totally different than what other people have but he’s he says that that’s the importance of having
0:22:45 a strong inner scorecard yeah i mean this isn’t rocket science this is like very basic stuff it’s
0:22:51 very basic human psychology hey let’s take a quick break you know hubspot helped tumblr solve a big
0:22:55 problem uh tumblr needed to move fast they were trying to produce trending content but their marketing
0:23:00 department was stuck waiting on engineers to code every single email campaign but now they use hubspot’s
0:23:05 customer platform to email real-time trending content to millions of users in just seconds
0:23:11 and the result was huge three times more engagement and double the content creation if you want to move
0:23:19 faster like tumblr visit hubspot.com all right back to the show i want to ask you about silence your um i
0:23:26 think there’s two reasons why i love your book or all of your books i think the first takeaway is that it’s
0:23:32 about human nature and human nature generally doesn’t change uh that’s the point of it and so
0:23:37 you kind of like give a blueprint for that but the second thing is that particularly with the 48 laws of
0:23:43 power the most important thing is self-control which is quite challenging and in particular you write a
0:23:48 lot and you talk a lot about silence and you’re like it’s actually better to say as least as possible
0:23:53 because when you talk too much you make yourself look stupid or you reveal your true intentions which
0:23:58 you don’t always want to do with social media and like particularly sean and i’s job it’s like very
0:24:07 easy to talk too much or to talk a lot is there any examples of you think that someone who’s popular
0:24:13 or someone who’s doing a really good job of sort of a master class on how to use silence to their advantage
0:24:20 i think of various musicians like a michael jackson or beyonce i mean michael jackson is sort of before
0:24:27 the year obviously of social media but he was somebody who knew that occasionally he had to withdraw
0:24:35 completely from the public eye and um the thing about michael jackson was he was very clever and very kind of
0:24:45 savvy about things and he um actually had the 48 laws of power and um when he died his estate had
0:24:50 the book and they auctioned it somebody bought it for three hundred thousand dollars but if you look on
0:24:57 it he annotated everything in there right he wrote on the margins etc but the thing that michael jackson
0:25:04 understood before he even read the book was the importance of disappearing so he understood the public
0:25:09 very well in the magic of attention right because attention is the whole game when you’re a celebrity
0:25:15 and he understood that when you’re too present then people know you too well they take you for
0:25:21 granted so he would disappear for several years in between albums nobody knew what he was doing and
0:25:26 it made everybody talk about him made everybody fantasize about him made everybody wonder what’s
0:25:32 the next trick that michael jackson is going to perform beyonce will do the same thing you know
0:25:40 i was once asked by um by a famous female rapper named sawidi she we were having dinner and she asked me
0:25:47 the same question like i i’m in social media how do i disappear if i disappear well it’s not a matter
0:25:54 that like you you gone for for several months but you don’t have to post every day you have to create
0:26:01 some mystery around you and even if you do post you’re not so obvious you’re not say exactly who
0:26:06 you are exactly what you had for breakfast exactly the clothes that you’re wearing you create some
0:26:13 mystery around you that is a form of silence that is a form of disappearing because the whole point is
0:26:20 if people know exactly who you are there’s no fantasy element in anymore and they’re going to get bored
0:26:25 with you and they’re going to turn their attention to somebody else who seems interesting for the moment
0:26:30 right so you could be too present you could be too in in people’s face they know everything about
0:26:36 you and they start to take you for granted you’re too familiar so if you’re in the public eye you have to
0:26:44 shake things up people have to go i thought that you were like this sam but now i’m getting this idea
0:26:51 that maybe i didn’t know who you are you can do that by disappearing for a week or so and then people
0:26:56 are wondering what happened to sam why is it he posting or you can do it by putting things on social
0:27:03 media that kind of scramble people’s expectations of you scramble what people think of you i know in in
0:27:10 in my line of work if i wrote the same book if i did the 48 lost power part two for my second book
0:27:16 it would probably have some success people be interested in it but it starts to get predictable
0:27:22 right so i make sure every new book that i do is different goes off in a different direction so people
0:27:28 can’t take me for granted so people don’t know what i’m going to do next keeping them guessing as to what
0:27:35 the next subject is going off in a new direction and challenging them is part of the game so if you
0:27:40 become too predictable people are going to tune you out and they’re going to move on to somebody else
0:27:46 and so changing the scrambling their expectations is a form of silence is creating mystery because
0:27:51 that’s what this is all about sean do you ever think about this stuff
0:27:59 i thought of it when uh sam said something kind of amazing to me uh he said you know we’re doing
0:28:04 this podcast and not long ago a couple years ago we were in a group chat where a bunch of us who had
0:28:08 10 000 followers were like you know we want to get to 100 000 let’s make it and we called it the 100 000
0:28:16 club and we we all started posting and we got there and he said something like um my goal is by the time
0:28:22 i’m 40 to be off the internet like like just did just sort of disappear from the internet and i really
0:28:29 never i’ve only ever heard of people saying i want to become more famous yeah um not and more more
0:28:33 digital and have a bigger platform and a bigger audience and more followers and it was the first
0:28:38 time i’d heard somebody in my friend group say the exact opposite like the goal is to push delete
0:28:44 when i turned 40 i almost didn’t believe it in fact i still only half believe it um and but i loved it
0:28:50 it yeah and uh and i think sam also does a good job of the scramble he’ll you know on one hand he’s
0:28:56 will be a ceo of a media company and then he’ll post a video of himself skateboarding and like or dunking
0:29:00 i’m like wow you could i didn’t even know you’re athletic and you in many times on this podcast in
0:29:04 the last five years of this podcast he’s come on and be like i’ve decided i’m a fitness influencer
0:29:08 now and then he comes back and changes it he’s like i’m all about fashion and style and i’m like dude
0:29:12 no offense but you’re not the first guy i think of when it comes to fashion but this idea and
0:29:18 and he’ll annoyingly quote you robber he’ll be like whatever rule number seven reinvent yourself
0:29:22 i told him i was picking up the piano this year he’s like i love it reinvent yourself and i was
0:29:27 like that’s a much you know grander you know uh frame for what i’m doing but i appreciate that i like
0:29:32 that i like i do like going back to the bottom of the mountain and so um when you’re saying this
0:29:37 about silence about disappearing you know i don’t think there’s a lot of that which makes it i think
0:29:41 even more valuable yeah rare it’s more different um but i also think it comes with a season like you
0:29:46 need a almost a season of loudness to get people to care if you just if you’re nobody and you disappear
0:29:50 then you never were anybody right like but if you have a season of loudness and then it’s followed by
0:29:54 a season of silence that seems more optimal that’s what i wrote in my i’m as you can see i’m taking notes
0:29:59 while we do this that’s what i wrote on there is this this is seasonal and i think i have been
0:30:03 one track minded about too many things where it’s like this is good therefore always do this and
0:30:08 actually um you do need different seasons and how you’re how you’re gonna operate and that combination
0:30:14 is what’s more powerful yeah no i couldn’t agree with you more yeah so so what is sam gonna do when
0:30:22 he turns 40 then uh that’s a great question but uh the reason i said that was uh how old are you now
0:30:29 i’m 36 i just turned 36 the reason i said that was because i think that i i do believe in reinventing
0:30:33 yourself like i’m not you know blowing smoke i like your your work has had a profound impact on
0:30:38 me but i i believe in reinventing yourself but i also believe that wherever your life ends and wherever
0:30:42 you are like the goal is to file you know find your life’s purpose and go after it but there’s like
0:30:47 these weird pivots to get there it’s not a straight line and i believe in like these forcing forcing
0:30:53 functions to make you pivot to kind of find where you’re supposed to be so where will that pivot lead
0:30:58 you when you get off the internet you don’t know you’re going to discover when it happens you’re open to
0:31:06 it you just know that at some point you want something else yeah i i don’t know but i think that like
0:31:12 i think that i’m a i’m a gregarious person i talk a lot and i actually think that um i think that
0:31:17 i think that for the last 20 years since the internet has been around you know you you hear
0:31:24 the a word authenticity thrown around a lot yeah and i actually think that based off your
0:31:31 works and reading history being authentic is like that’s actually kind of a new thing like people that’s
0:31:36 a relatively new idea to be authentic because now you can just film yourself on a camera and you’ve been
0:31:42 been told to be authentic but people the most powerful people on earth they they’re not really
0:31:48 authentic they wear masks and they’re acting and i think that like an interesting takeaway from your
0:31:56 book is to understand what outcome you want and which masks you need to wear and i actually think that
0:32:03 being authentic is over glamorized and actually is actually ineffective when you want your particular
0:32:08 goal and i actually think that it’s for some reason we think being authentic is good and and i don’t know
0:32:16 if i agree with that i think of of um too often we humans get trapped in in kind of words and things
0:32:24 that are black and white throughout the this or that so you can create the veneer the appearance of
0:32:30 authenticity right which is very important it’s a very important quality in the public eye it doesn’t
0:32:36 mean that you’re completely faking it it just means that there is something about you that’s natural
0:32:44 that you that is very powerful about you but you’re a conscious of it you’re not just operating you know
0:32:50 without thinking about it you’re conscious of what makes you look authentic and you kind of up it and you
0:32:58 kind of lean into it and you kind of create it okay and then maybe in four or five years it’s a different
0:33:04 mask or a different form of authenticity that you have but it doesn’t mean that it’s completely fake
0:33:10 so i think it’s important for a politician for an entertainer for anybody in the public eye
0:33:17 to create the appearance of authenticity that they’re not somebody fake that they’re not saying things
0:33:22 just for attention that they actually believe it but you have to be aware that that’s the game that
0:33:28 you’re playing people who aren’t aware of the game that they’re playing have no control over themselves
0:33:35 they will say stupid things they will be authentic when it’s no when they’re when their authentic
0:33:42 character is no longer interesting right because tastes change and maybe right now kind of um
0:33:49 saying what you think about certain things is cool but in three years it won’t be cool and you’ll
0:33:56 look stupid so you have to be aware of who you are and you have to adapt to the times and you have to kind of
0:34:04 play a middle game where you know the importance of appearing authentic and and playing that game
0:34:10 but you’re also aware of it and you can consciously control it yeah you have a few of these quotes
0:34:15 that are so good i just want you to unpack them so i kind of want to read you something that stood
0:34:20 out to me that resonated and just hear you kind of riff on it um and maybe where that comes from or where
0:34:24 you think that that needs to be applied or like if you could shake somebody get them to sort of hear
0:34:31 this message you know what’s that because uh one of them i tweeted out today it was great it was you
0:34:38 talked about how being timid is very dangerous and you basically said um you know don’t take action when
0:34:43 you have hesitation or doubt it infects your execution and the quote was timidity is dangerous
0:34:49 be better to enter with boldness any mistakes that you commit through audacity are easily corrected
0:34:57 with more audacity everyone admires the bold no one honors the timid it’s a very important quote for
0:35:05 me because um timidity is is to me one of the worst sins that i think people have right and it’s what is
0:35:11 causing you to not be successful in life right boldness is the most important quality that you
0:35:17 can develop and first of all get rid of this misconception that some people are born bold
0:35:24 and others are born timid when we’re a child we’re bold as hell all children are born bold right they
0:35:30 know what they want they scream they yell they get their parents to do things the parents are their slaves
0:35:38 essentially children are born bold you become timid it becomes a habit you become afraid you become
0:35:44 deferential you’re always saying yes you’re always trying to please people it becomes your face just
0:35:51 becomes like that and you lose a sense of that boldness that you once had and the the the main thing around
0:35:59 that idea is that people are assessing you in these kind of non-verbal ways they’re reading your
0:36:07 body language and when they can sense that you don’t have confidence that you’re doubtful that
0:36:11 you’re hesitant they don’t want to join you they don’t want to be part of your team they don’t want
0:36:19 to listen to you they tune you out they don’t respect you okay so if you start something a project
0:36:27 a business you’re not quite sure of it that kind of radiates outward that spirit of your hesitation people
0:36:36 can feel it and it has a quality that that repulses people they don’t want to join you but if you
0:36:43 show boldness and confidence even if it’s not real you fake it even if you make yourself believe that
0:36:49 you’re confident and bold it excites people we want to be around people like that i know when i wrote the
0:36:58 50th law and i first met 50 cent i was amazed by how confident this guy was and it made me feel ashamed
0:37:05 that i’m not as confident as he is that i was even a little bit timid it excited me and excited everyone
0:37:10 around him they wanted to be part of his team they won because it fed off of them we all want to be
0:37:18 infected by the energy of someone who’s bold who knows what they want right so that’s the main thing
0:37:24 is your first impressions are critical and if people see you as timid and differential and all closed and
0:37:29 not so certain they’re going to run away from you they’re unconsciously they’re not going to want to
0:37:36 be part of your team well like one of the best parts about this is there’s so many levels to this so when i
0:37:42 tweeted this quote out uh darmesh who’s this you know co-founder of a 20 30 billion dollar company
0:37:47 retweeted it says this is exactly what i needed to hear today yeah not crazy i saw that i thought that
0:37:52 we just did a podcast um with this guy hayes barnard he’s probably i don’t know one of the
0:37:59 top thousand wealthiest people in the world and we we wanted to do this podcast and most people when
0:38:04 they come on the podcast they might agree to do it and then we sort of badger them to be like hey would
0:38:08 you um you know can we get on a call maybe talk a little beforehand or hey we’ve got some ideas
0:38:12 but what we might talk about you know you you’ve published so much work that it’s we know where we
0:38:17 know where your thoughts are already but for people who don’t publish like you kind of want to find
0:38:23 what are your big ideas and um most people put in you know very little effort he was the exact this
0:38:26 guy hayes was the exact opposite he takes a ton of action he calls he’s got his own brainstorm he’s
0:38:30 decided if i’m going to enter this if i’m going to do this it doesn’t matter if it’s just a
0:38:35 two-hour podcast recording like i’m going to try to do this as best as this can be done
0:38:40 and so he was like going full force and he said come out and hang out with me for the day come do
0:38:45 my morning routine let’s hang out all day and then he’s like what’s he’s like i do this thing in the
0:38:50 middle of lake tahoe i go i do the breath work i jump in the ocean i jump in the lake it’s cold um i
0:38:55 watch the sunrise and he goes i’m on such a high i’m in such a peak mental state he’s like i think if we
0:39:00 do the podcast right after that it’ll be the best podcast we could we could possibly do so i go out
0:39:05 there and i do i spend all day this guy and he’s so bold meaning the way he just approaches life is
0:39:10 super bold even after we do the breath work and stuff he’s like you know what every day i heard
0:39:15 you a great quote do something new every day it marks the day it keeps you growing keeps you fresh
0:39:19 keeps you alive you know what i’ve never done i’ve never swam to those rocks out there let’s try to swim
0:39:23 swim to those rocks and so we jump in the water we try to swim the rocks and i’m just around this
0:39:31 guy and i ask him about elon musk because he worked with elon for about 10 years and he talks about elon
0:39:36 the way i talk about him he goes i go tell me you know describe elon in a word he goes the ultimate alpha
0:39:43 and because elon i would say is probably the biggest um example of boldness and and like the solution to
0:39:49 making a mistake through audacity is more audacity i think he is the the number one on earth uh out of
0:39:55 eight billion people at doing that and um seeing that this guy was around him and had the same
0:40:00 impression of like he thought he was timid once he saw you know the the level that elon played at
0:40:08 um i just wow there’s so many levels to this yeah i mean um we’re infected by the energy of the people
0:40:16 around us right and we can we pick up things we’re too attuned to words and and we don’t realize that
0:40:24 we’re actually there’s an animal part of our nature and that animal part of our nature is picking up the
0:40:31 energy the signs that we can read and and how people in the tone in their voice in how they stand in their
0:40:38 posture and when we when we feel somebody who’s confident it kind of rubs off on us we want to be
0:40:44 around it and we want more of it right i have a chapter in the 48 laws of power called infection
0:40:52 and the opposite happens where people who are overly dramatic or kind of dramatic drama queens who are
0:40:58 always have some terrible thing happening to them they’re always a victim and they just you know and
0:41:04 they sort of suck you into their drama and they can destroy your life we’re infected by the energy of the
0:41:09 people around us that’s the most important takeaway that i would give here when you’re seeing what’s
0:41:14 going on right now um on social media or whatever it’s it’s kind of fun after reading your books because
0:41:20 i’m like oh that’s interesting there’s that thing there’s that thing is there anyone out there who uh
0:41:27 you not exactly look up to but you’re like oh they are playing the power game like textbook perfect
0:41:35 uh it’s a good question but i don’t really think i can answer it because the problem is that you do
0:41:45 need time to just to see what people are truly like you know so i remember um some 25 years ago or 24 years
0:41:52 ago i met a man named dove charney who ended up uh becoming the founder of the company american apparel
0:42:00 i met him when he was just starting out and man that guy was charisma in a ball he was insane his
0:42:07 level of confidence right he was incredible and he built this factory this vertically um organized
0:42:16 factory in los angeles he created an empire american apparel and i thought he was brilliant and he got
0:42:20 me to join the board of directors i was on the board of directors for american apparel for several years
0:42:30 until it ended but then over the time we realized this guy has incredible flaws right he doesn’t have
0:42:36 self-control he seems confident but in the end he was making some really bad decisions because he wasn’t
0:42:45 flexible so you know i could say you know certain artists who are able to serve stay on top of their game
0:42:51 seem to me to be kind of power players because they know how to mix things up but i mentioned someone
0:42:58 like beyonce i’d say somebody like 50 cent i’d say people like jay-z these are people who understand the
0:43:04 attention game how to play it and that’s a very important part of the 48 laws of power appearance is
0:43:12 how you appear but with politicians i will not go anywhere near that because we have no way of knowing
0:43:18 we have no way of seeing in the present moment i see i see so many stupid people out there who
0:43:23 immediately react to something in the news and make their judgment about this was great or that was
0:43:29 stupid i’m sorry you have no idea in two years we will know if it was great or if it was stupid
0:43:36 and 20 years we’ll even have a better idea and in 200 years we’ll even know for certain right so i can’t
0:43:42 even go near judging about political figures entertainers i can see i think we have some some
0:43:50 value there some metrics um and in sports obviously we do but um who are some of those folks well you
0:43:58 know um i’m being a little bit selfish here but i’m friends with um a head coach of the nba mark daggeneau
0:44:05 who’s the coach of the oklahoma city thunder and they just won the nba championship i knew him
0:44:11 eight years ago when he was the coach of the g league team at the oklahoma city thunder
0:44:21 and this guy is absolutely brilliant at the game of power and it’s not like he’s machiavellian not at all
0:44:28 he’s a great leader but he understands there’s nothing there’s no more difficult job in the world
0:44:35 than being an nba coach you have 12 or 15 people with these incredible egos who all think they’re
0:44:42 the greatest right and you have to build them into a team into a spirit that’s one that’s unified that
0:44:50 wants to play the game right he understands perfectly human nature and psychology and he
0:44:56 built himself from the ground up as as a coach of the g league and then he started off as the coach of
0:45:02 the thunder and they were very bad the first couple of years but he was very patient he had a goal in mind
0:45:09 i tell people you know we’re so distracted we’re so confused in the social media world that we can’t
0:45:18 think let alone three months ahead but even try to think a year or five years ahead like a plan right
0:45:25 my god i can’t think that far ahead but it’s powerful when you have a plan that goes two years
0:45:31 three years down the road it gives you a sense of control like this is what i want this is what’s
0:45:37 important this feeds my overall goal this is irrelevant it doesn’t mean you’re inflexible
0:45:42 it just means that you have a direction and people don’t have direction these days this man had
0:45:48 direction he had a plan he knew exactly how he was going to lead his team to a championship now of course
0:45:57 he couldn’t predict everything who you draft etc but to me the way he ate man he manufactured this
0:46:02 recent championship is one of the most brilliant examples of the 48 loss of power i’m not going to
0:46:09 take credit for it by any means but he’s a figure on there who’s going to be a coach to reckon with for
0:46:15 the next 10 20 years he’s the phil jackson of our era he’s somebody i would point out and phil jackson
0:46:22 was somebody that i greatly admired who was definitely a man of power because he understood human nature and
0:46:28 psychology all right listen the two most beautiful words in the english language are email
0:46:32 subscribers you need more email subscribers i guarantee it i don’t care how many you have
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0:48:02 put the link in the description to make it easy for you start scaling your content today
0:48:08 i want to ask you about 50 cent because um when somebody said yeah you wrote a book with 50 cent
0:48:14 i hadn’t actually i hadn’t read the 50 50th law so i don’t know that book uh literally i learned about
0:48:18 that book today it’s awesome it looks like it’s got like gold pages it looks like a bible yeah i bought
0:48:23 like the the faux leather cover one just now and i’m like excited to get it but the funny thing is
0:48:29 you and 50 cent i mean i couldn’t think of two more opposite people culturally it’s like you know
0:48:34 like i look at your room and i look at where you are and i’m just like okay you’re basically like
0:48:40 what i think of when i think of an author and then 50 cent has this incredible story you know coming up
0:48:44 from the streets and getting shot and becoming a hip-hop icon and then like a business guy and
0:48:50 whatever so um i’m just curious like a how did that come about and b you said he was incredibly
0:48:56 charismatic can you tell any specific stories about like either one of two things your impressions
0:49:01 when you met him and like what stood out to you about this guy because you know you said you’re
0:49:06 infected by the energy of the people around you like tell me i would love a specific story or where you
0:49:12 think most people don’t actually really appreciate 50’s story or you know what what actually he’s done
0:49:15 you know people have a very surface level understanding of him as like oh he’s just some rapper guy
0:49:21 well i mean first of all you have to understand his his story a little bit i mean a lot of people
0:49:28 know it but um you know he was his mother died when he was like eight or nine years old she was a
0:49:35 hustler herself and so he was raised by his grandparents he grew up on the streets of southside
0:49:41 queens and he was a drug dealer he was a hustler he drove crack and he talks about it in his his really
0:49:49 great autobiography from pieces to wait i highly recommend that book okay but how many people from
0:49:56 that background ended up being who he was being this successful this multi-millionaire maybe i don’t
0:50:04 need these not a billionaire but incredibly successful right nobody so something about him is different
0:50:12 something about him is very exciting and very interesting okay so that alone tells you something
0:50:20 is unique about about 50 and so when i met him you know i was a little bit intimidated because
0:50:27 i’m um did he reach out to you or you to him yes his his literary agent reached out to me
0:50:35 and set up a meeting in new york in in the back room of a steakhouse on madison avenue right it was like
0:50:42 a scene out of the godfather or something and so you know you can see i’m this kind of thin slightly nerdy
0:50:49 white guy and you know he’s surrounded with his posse and he’s kind of he’s buff and he’s a little bit
0:50:56 intimidated i was kind of intimidated but then i learned later on that he was sort of intimidated by me
0:51:03 because he thought this he was meeting the 48 laws of power guy the sort of henry kissinger type
0:51:09 and he was a little bit intimidated as well but what impressed me most about him was that he was
0:51:16 very calm he has this very calm energy so people think of him as being really out there and angry and
0:51:22 thuggish but that’s not who he is he’s a very calm person he’s always seeking to be in control of
0:51:29 a situation he wants power and you don’t get power by being out there being yelling and being angry
0:51:36 and being thuggish so i was very impressed by how kind of thoughtful he was he’s very he’s actually
0:51:44 a very interesting thinker and so in america everything is so divided everything is just so
0:51:52 conventional and boring it just drives me crazy like a book between a nerdy white guy jewish white
0:51:59 guy from los angeles and this rapper from south side queens that that’s that’s that’s that’s a really
0:52:05 odd mix that’s exactly why you do something like that to bring two people who are strange who are very
0:52:10 weird it’s not a normal combination bring them together something interesting can happen
0:52:16 so yeah i was with him for about six months and i witnessed some very interesting things i remember
0:52:25 he was on a phone call in in in one of his uh offices and doors were closed just him and i but
0:52:34 he was on a call with um a a a female celebrity whose name i will not mention and i was going man this guy is
0:52:42 a seducer he is really good at it right you know his voice and what he was saying to her and how he was
0:52:50 making her laugh he was seducing me it was incredible right this guy’s got skills in the art of seduction i
0:52:58 could see that right away i remember once it was in like august i can’t remember what year like 2006 or so
0:53:06 he was about to drop a record and they they dropped a single that he had done with robin thick we’re
0:53:14 going way back here and it got leaked onto the internet and chris leidy who was his manager at the time
0:53:17 was furious because they had a whole marketing plan
0:53:23 laid out for the rollout of the song and then it got leaked to the internet just completely ruined their whole
0:53:29 marketing everybody was freaking out they were so upset and angry what do we do we’re going to take a lawsuit
0:53:32 we’re going to bring them to court we’re going to get them to take it off the internet
0:53:35 i was in there in the room went 50 got the news
0:53:39 once again he was so calm he was like buddha
0:53:43 and he goes no man this is the best thing that ever happened to us here’s what we’re going to do
0:53:47 we’re going to go with it we’re not going to fight it we’re going to create a story
0:53:53 they created their own story we’re not going to try and and repress it we’re going to create our own
0:53:59 version of what happened and here’s what i’m going to do we’re going to create this story that 50 said
0:54:05 freaked out and was so angry and up so upset he took the big screen tv off the off the wall and he broke
0:54:10 it on the ground he was so angry he took his cell phone and he threw it at somebody he said blood’s
0:54:16 going to roll heads are going to roll this is what we’re going to do right it was total theatrical he
0:54:23 never none of it ever happened he got his team to take the big screen tv off the tv off the wall in
0:54:29 and smash it and they would film it you know as if he had done this and that was the story now instead
0:54:37 of 50 reacting and getting all upset which made him look weak he turned it around and made it about him
0:54:42 and his anger and that’s what only the only thing people could talk about on the internet that was
0:54:50 brilliant right instead of freaking out he was calm he thought of the internet is all about
0:54:54 attention is all about creating stories i’m going to take control of this and i’m going to create my
0:55:02 own story and i was i was absolutely amazed you know that that that to me was the 48 laws of power in
0:55:08 action i mean i had so many stories with him you know it was one of the most fun elements of my life
0:55:14 you know going to parties with him going to the awards ceremony in vegas meeting floyd mayweather
0:55:20 jr going to his house in connecticut it was a true it was like a drug trip it was amazing i have lots of
0:55:25 stories but that gives you your life’s so fascinating because like you know tupac was interested in
0:55:30 machiavelli and then you 48 laws of power came along and that’s like the new version of machiavelli i
0:55:35 i originally saw 48 laws of power because i don’t even know if it was true but there was like a rumor
0:55:41 i saw on the internet that there’s this book that is banned in prisons because it’s so powerful and all
0:55:45 the prison and i was like i don’t i don’t know if that’s true but like you i’m hooked i’m in well if
0:55:51 it’s banned for prison it must be the best and then you’re huge in the hip-hop community and black community
0:55:56 and i was like this is i’m i’m i’m in again i love this i want to read what these guys are all
0:56:02 about and so you must have had a really exciting life because you are not a person who i would think
0:56:08 would be buddies with 50 or whoever else you’re friends with and yet you have the best type of
0:56:14 fame where like these guys who normal people admire they’re those guys admire you even the billionaires
0:56:18 the athletes all the successful people admire you so you must have met so many awesome people
0:56:25 i’ve met a lot of awesome people and um you know i must say i’m i’m very very grateful for my life it’s
0:56:32 been a blessing because i struggled for so many years i know what it’s like to struggle in life i know what
0:56:42 it’s like to have no success it came very late for me so um having it at my age when i was basically 39
0:56:49 40 almost was very meaningful so i don’t take any of it for granted and i remember
0:56:56 i i was when i wrote the 48 laws of power i was living in this crappy one-bedroom apartment in santa
0:57:01 monica i mean it was you’re by the ocean so you can’t complain but it was a really kind of small cramped
0:57:07 little apartment because i as i said i had no success i wrote the 48 laws of power in that apartment
0:57:14 and then suddenly you know i’m on television things are happening okay it’s a little bit weird
0:57:21 but then i was invited to italy in early like four or five months after it came out because it
0:57:29 came out in italian you know the land of machiavelli and i’m invited to go give this kind of conference
0:57:36 and suddenly this guy is whisking me around to meet all these celebrities and we’re on the island of
0:57:43 capri and paparazzi are following me and taking pictures of me and i get to meet the ex prime minister
0:57:51 of italy who’s a very famous person there named andriotti since passed away the most machiavellian
0:57:56 italian italian politician of the modern era i’m sitting in his office i’m interviewing him you know
0:58:03 man my life right now just five months ago it was nothing and now i’m doing this it was almost too hard
0:58:10 to believe so i take none of it for granted it’s it’s been it’s been an incredible ride and i’m i’m very
0:58:19 grateful what triggered the transformation in you most people don’t have this sort of career renaissance
0:58:23 where you figure it out you put it together and you start suddenly you go from a sort of
0:58:29 nondescript um you know situation to to suddenly you’re in this guy’s office in italy in the island
0:58:38 of capri you know what triggered the transformation in you at age 37 38 well a bit of luck um so i you
0:58:46 know i had spent all of these years i wasn’t a loser i worked at esquire magazine in new york i had jobs
0:58:53 in journalism i lived in new york for several years i worked you know i had jobs i lived in europe and i
0:58:59 wandered around i you know but i was always writing and trying to figure life out i never gave up on
0:59:07 myself i learned different skills at writing i also had lots of shit jobs with very bad bosses
0:59:15 so when i was 35 years old i was in italy um on a project that i won’t even discuss it was so stupid
0:59:22 i met a man there who’s there for the same project who was a book packager
0:59:30 and um we were both really unhappy with what we were doing there we were walking in venice italy
0:59:38 and he’s dutch and he asked me if i had an idea for a book and that was the turning point in my life to
0:59:51 put it down into one like second of time that exact moment in venice italy in july of 1995 he asked me
0:59:58 that question and everything clicked i i improvised what would turn into the 48 laws of power
1:00:04 all of my bad jobs all of my horrible bosses with their egos and their political games
1:00:08 all the crap that i had dealt with in hollywood because i had worked in hollywood for years
1:00:13 just came flowing out of me almost like i was vomiting and i said
1:00:22 you know power the book about power how timeless it is in the time of louis the 14th if you made
1:00:27 a mistake you were put in prison and you were executed now if you make a mistake the same
1:00:33 mistake you’re fired it’s the same game you’re just not as bloody right and i told him a story
1:00:39 about louis the 14th and his finance minister the opening story of the 48 laws of power
1:00:48 he got very excited and he goes this will be a great book i will pay you to write a treatment
1:00:56 for it and then we’ll try and sell it and i was so desperate i was so hungry i was so depressed
1:01:03 that i came back to los angeles i actually borrowed money from my parents so i could i could afford to
1:01:09 try and write this dream because he was actually offering money once he had the treatment i was so
1:01:17 desperate and so depressed that i put every goddamn ounce of energy i had into it all of my bad experiences
1:01:22 life everything that i had been through all the skills i developed i just poured into that treatment
1:01:29 it was literally get rich or die trying at that moment and i wrote a great treatment he loved it and
1:01:36 the rest is history so part of it was luck if i hadn’t met this man i wouldn’t be here talking with
1:01:44 you but part of it was i never gave up and i had spent those 16 18 years in the wilderness developing
1:01:51 skills so that’s what helped turn it around that’s so awesome and i think i’ve read that um i don’t know
1:01:55 how many books you’ve sold in general of all of your books of your seven or eight books but i think i read
1:02:02 that the 48 walls of power came out in 2000 or 98 i think it’s accelerated right so isn’t it selling
1:02:12 more this year or last year than it did early on i’d say 2024 was best year we’ve ever had it’s insane
1:02:19 it’s accelerated yeah and i think we’re now close to 10 million copies sold in the united states alone
1:02:24 oh my god it’s pretty crazy to have like a life’s work right i mean that’s like like i don’t know if
1:02:30 if you meant to do this but like you’ve it’s a timeless thing that can be readable and awesome
1:02:36 for 50 or 100 years yeah i mean um you know you never know when you write a book like that it’s a
1:02:44 very weird book and that could be good or it could be bad it looks strange you know the design of it
1:02:49 with the things on the side and everything broken up it has all these stories from history
1:02:56 for better or for worse i can say nobody else has written a book that looks like that or reads like
1:03:03 that right and it could have easily failed it could have easily bombed i you know i remember god am i
1:03:10 gonna have to go back to to working at some crap job after this book is a disaster oh yeah maybe maybe
1:03:17 you’ll have to like go back to doing temp work or something so it could have easily been a disaster
1:03:24 but it didn’t and so um it’s one of those strange things it’s very a lot of its luck but all of it also
1:03:35 it’s how much effort i put into the work to make it kind of this timeless thing so um yeah it’s it’s
1:03:41 insane because you never know in life what’s going to be successful or what’s not i wanted to ask you about
1:03:47 daily application of of the ideas from 48 laws of power because it’s one thing to read a book
1:03:52 to nod along maybe even underline it and then you close the book and you go back to being exactly
1:03:57 the person who you are which would be i think a pretty disappointing outcome and i think about
1:04:02 these day-to-day situations i get in i’m in my car i’m in traffic i’m in a grocery store i’m at a
1:04:09 coffee shop i’m having a just yet another meeting at work whatever it is i’m curious what’s one
1:04:16 law that you think is easily applicable to people’s day-to-day life to their normal routines of their
1:04:21 life that they could kind of mark in their mind like oh he mentioned that situation let me approach
1:04:27 it differently using what he’s using one of robert’s sort of laws of human nature and laws of of of power
1:04:37 okay well the the try this is to um get out of the moment and to be observing the situation that’s in
1:04:43 front of you so so often you’re just reacting to things you’re just in the moment you’re just
1:04:50 listening to what people are saying you’re just in your own head your own thoughts your own ideas
1:04:55 that circle around and round and round your own emotions but you what you’re having to you in the
1:05:03 morning you’re not listening and i want you to turn around and pay deep attention and not to listen to
1:05:09 yourself at all to cut that off completely and to absorb your your interest your mind your spirit
1:05:15 in the people you’re dealing with this pertains to power this pertains to seduction this pertains to
1:05:23 strategy this pertains to war and to human nature to all of my books right you’re too self-absorbed
1:05:29 so even when you go to starbucks and you’re getting your coffee you’re thinking about your own problems you’re
1:05:37 thinking about how much prices for coffee is going up okay no what you do is you look at that barista
1:05:46 and you go what is it like to be him or her what is their world like you know it’s kind of weird that
1:05:53 you know probably let’s say it’s a it’s a guy it’s probably this is not his life’s task he’s got some other
1:05:59 interests what’s going on in his mind in this moment try and read his body language and go into this
1:06:07 almost like fan story in your head of what he’s like what his apartment looks like what his girlfriend
1:06:14 looks like what his dog looks like and think about it get out of yourself okay do that again and again
1:06:20 and again and again and again in every situation it will calm you down it will be a form of therapy for
1:06:27 you it will also make you a superior observer of people it’ll make you a superior observer of human
1:06:34 nature it will make you understand that people say that they love your ideas but their body language
1:06:40 actually reveals that they’re not interested at all you’ll become a superior reader of people and you
1:06:46 won’t be so self-absorbed right that is the number one skill you can develop is to get outside of
1:06:53 yourself and to be a supreme acute observer of people sam you ever done anything like that i think i’m a
1:07:00 very emotional person and i get upset but like for example the other day i got a ticket like a parking
1:07:04 ticket and i caught the guy giving me the ticket and so i had like this interaction and like i was like
1:07:09 i want to yell at you i want to do this i want to do that and i was like wait hold on i got to think
1:07:13 about i got to reflect what what does this guy want to be doing with this time right now and how
1:07:19 do i use my insight into his perspective to get out of the situation as opposed to saying
1:07:26 you suck you’re this is go solve a real crime whatever and so but i think um
1:07:32 but related to that the the thing before you have to do that is to control your emotions which i work hard
1:07:37 and i fail at all the time but that that’s what it’s kind of rooted in i think right that’s like the
1:07:44 foundational like step which is like don’t react reflect the other side of it is that um
1:07:50 the guy who’s giving you your parking ticket you know he’s got his own life he’s got his own world
1:07:56 yeah it’s annoying as hell you feel so helped so stupid why you have you’re right there but he’s
1:08:01 still gonna write the ticket you know why couldn’t you wait like three minutes oh no it’s already written
1:08:08 you can’t you can’t you can’t go back but the people you deal with are interesting they’re weird
1:08:13 they’re different they have their own life they have big he’s he’s this poor schlub who’s got this
1:08:20 miserable job everybody hates him like you do he’s got to receive all of this hate and negative energy from
1:08:28 people then he has to go back to his apartment somewhere in queens and you know and and other people are kind of
1:08:35 you know yelling at him he’s got all this internalized anguish and anxiety get into the
1:08:40 story of other people because they’re interesting they’re weird i know i’m making this up i never met
1:08:46 this guy giving you the ticket off as a woman but it’s fun to think about it it’s fun to get out of it
1:08:51 it’s fun to imagine what they’re like and then you slowly start developing this muscle
1:08:58 where you start thinking about other people and not yourself and getting into their stories and
1:09:04 figuring out what makes them tick so if you need to seduce them if you need to get this guy giving you
1:09:11 a ticket to not give you a ticket you have the way to do it because you understand who he is you understand
1:09:18 how much negative attention this guy gets every single day he’s out on his job and your first reaction will
1:09:24 be man that must be a terrible job i’m so sorry for you say something that kind of disarms him
1:09:29 well maybe now you have the power to get him to stop writing that ticket whereas opposed to your
1:09:34 aggressive energy fuck man i deal with that every single person gives that to me i’m not going to
1:09:40 still i’m going to still write your ticket just to spite you you a-hole no you diffuse the situation
1:09:44 by coming up to him with like man you must have a horrible job i’m really sorry that you
1:09:49 i don’t know whatever it is you know that’s the approach well have you ever read uh chris voss’s
1:09:55 book never split the difference like if there was any takeaway it’s basically uh so chris voss was like
1:10:00 a fbi negotiator and he teaches people how to negotiate and like the main thing that he teaches
1:10:05 is exactly what you said which is don’t react to what you hear put yourself in their shoes and
1:10:12 actually verbalize and label how they feel and that’s an immediate disarming thing to get what you
1:10:18 want basically and sean i don’t know uh you know like me and sean have both talked about the book the game
1:10:24 which i i assume you you know all about neil strass um and for a 14 year old boy that was like the greatest
1:10:30 thing ever because we like desperately wanted to meet girls and it was like a very pop pop um poppy
1:10:36 way of like learning about it was like easy to learn and read about but you have a book i is it i have to
1:10:40 remember the numbers 33 rules of seduction is that it no it’s called the art of seduction
1:10:47 art of seduction 33 laws of war uh i’m getting i’m a bunch of i’m getting confused but you have a
1:10:52 whole book on seduction which like i wish i would have read this when i was younger because like you
1:10:57 outline like all these interesting ways basically seduction not meaning just sleep with people but
1:11:04 like seduce someone into like basically doing what you want them to do and it gives like actually
1:11:10 amazing it gives like your books sean uh robert’s books are pretty great they like tell you the history
1:11:16 but then they also the history of like a person who’s a story of this rule but then you outline
1:11:21 like the tactics and strategy which is like the best format and so uh that was that was another
1:11:25 winner and it taught all these like tactics on like seducing people or getting them to like buy
1:11:31 into your whatever you want them to be up by yeah i mean i i know neil strauss and i you know he talked
1:11:39 he quotes the art of seduction in the game um but the art seduction is different it’s not a book for pickup
1:11:46 artists it’s a book for making people fall in love with you it’s a book for making people interested in
1:11:54 you it makes a book it’s a book for people who you want to like fund your project or who you want to
1:12:00 hire you it also is something that you maybe want to seduce a woman or a man for for sex or whatever
1:12:08 yes but seduction is something that you do every single day of your life right you’re always bad at it or
1:12:15 you’re good at it but you’re always constantly having to make people like you in some way or other so i wanted to
1:12:21 to come up with the ultimate psychology of what it makes people what draws people to you and what
1:12:28 repulses people from you so so that’s what the art of seduction is about did it make you more likable
1:12:38 me personally yeah was pre and post uh robert different i uh i got interested in seduction in
1:12:47 the 80s when i well obviously i was a young man um you know and i was living in paris i was 22 i was
1:12:54 working in a hotel in paris where all the models stayed for the for the fashion weeks or whatever the
1:13:00 most beautiful women in the world were staying at this hotel at 22 years old you know and god
1:13:07 it was insane and there was this guy who would come by it was like shooting fish in a barrel he knew
1:13:12 that these were all these incredibly beautiful women were he was this tall good-looking brazilian guy
1:13:19 he was so good at the seduction game i was fascinated by it how come he could get all of these women
1:13:24 to go out with him on dates and i couldn’t do anything i couldn’t get anywhere i kind of got
1:13:30 interested in it and then i started reading books literature about it and i kind of got fascinated
1:13:38 by the whole phenomenon of seduction and i went through my 20s what i would call my years as a rake
1:13:46 where i was you know i was fairly successful at meeting and seducing women not on his level
1:13:54 not on 50 cents level but on my own level i was pretty good at the game um and so i was fascinated by
1:14:00 years before i wrote the book and then when i had the chance to write it you know all of my all of
1:14:06 that knowledge and experience came into into writing the book some of my own failures and some of my own
1:14:14 successes so it’s been something that had been on my mind for many many years in general how self-actualized
1:14:21 do you feel like you are in these different book categories power seduction etc like are you if a
1:14:26 10 is kind of like what you think is somebody who’s sort of maximally doing these things maybe the best
1:14:31 examples of people you’ve you’ve met or or have read about where do you put yourself and and is book
1:14:37 writing an effective way to move up that ladder you know what i mean does did the study in the process
1:14:44 of writing it actually help well a writer is a writer i’m not out there uh running for political office
1:14:52 i’m not you know uh on a stage entertaining people i’m a writer okay so you judge me by that barometer
1:15:01 and not by other things and um i talk about i think about like machiavelli himself he was this
1:15:11 mid-level diplomat in in florence in the early part of the 16th century he was not successful he was not
1:15:18 powerful he came from the middle classes and then um he aligned himself with the republic of florence
1:15:24 and then when the medicis came back into power he was in disgrace and he was in he was in prison
1:15:30 briefly and he went off into the countryside and to get himself back in power he wrote a book called the
1:15:36 prince right this was going to ingratiate himself with the medicis and maybe get him so he could come
1:15:46 back and be a diplomat again okay that one book that he wrote some hundred pages long can you you cannot
1:15:56 quantify the influence that that one book has had right it’s insane i mean maybe next to the bible
1:16:02 you can’t think of another book that has had greater impact all of the historical figures since
1:16:09 machiavelli who read the prince who internalized the lessons who loved him or hated him who reacted
1:16:16 against him or for him if you had to measure that power it’s insane it’s off the charts and yet he never
1:16:24 made any money from it he never realized that power but that is true power true influence in the world
1:16:32 so we can look at all the people around us who would we imagine is having power with all their money and
1:16:42 their billions but ideas are the most powerful thing in this world okay you can put all you want price tags on on
1:16:50 on material things but something completely immaterial an idea is what is most powerful in this world
1:16:59 so when somebody has an idea for a great business or steve jobs has an idea for a new ipod it’s in his
1:17:06 head it’s in his brain he’s thinking and then it becomes reality that is power the power of thinking of ideas
1:17:15 is greater than all the other nonsense in this world so i can’t dunk a basketball unlike sam i i can’t dance
1:17:22 very well at all i can’t sing i have a stroke so my body is kind of messed up right now but on the level
1:17:29 of ideas i have tremendous amount of power and influence and i and i know it because the people
1:17:35 of people writing to me i’m not bragging at all it’s just very real so on that barometer
1:17:44 i have actualized it it’s not whether i can go out there and command an army or become president because
1:17:51 that’s not my game my game is ideas and on that level i have actualized myself i have realized my life’s
1:18:01 task and my power and after i die i’m not going to be like machiavelli with his 600 years of influence
1:18:08 but i will have some influence over people after i die that is power that is ideas ideas shape this
1:18:14 world and people have lost that kind of lesson they’re so into material things that they don’t understand
1:18:21 the spiritual intellectual power of thinking which can change this world that’s a good ass answer
1:18:26 that was a great that was a great answer do you have your one liner of your life’s task i’m just curious
1:18:33 yeah to change to change people to change how they think and to change how people act that’s always been my
1:18:37 my goal here you know um there’s too much
1:18:45 kind of stupidity there’s too much kind of people who don’t understand themselves who don’t understand
1:18:53 power i’m not saying i’m superior in that game because believe me i’ve made many many mistakes
1:19:00 never outshine the master i violated that law at least two times maybe even three times i’m a flawed
1:19:08 human being so i’m not the epitome of the 48 laws of power but i’ve witnessed people being so stupid
1:19:16 being so single-minded being so inflexible so unable to adapt that it infuriates me that they don’t
1:19:23 understand how to actually operate in this world so i’m trying my books my life’s task
1:19:32 is to enlighten people on that front are you a happy person like um because when i whenever i read your
1:19:36 books it’s a very serious topic and you spend your life reading and writing about very serious things
1:19:43 things just are you able to find joy in that and be happy well you know happiness is is just a word
1:19:51 and um you know we live in our bodies and ourselves in our emotions and you know at some
1:19:57 hour in the morning i’ll be very happy and excited and then two hours later something will
1:20:04 be frustrating so we all go up and down up and down but i’d like to talk about fulfillment as opposed to
1:20:11 happiness a sense that i fulfilled you know i have a sense of fulfillment that i accomplished something
1:20:18 and i have a very high sense of fulfillment so right now i’m writing a book it’s very frustrating
1:20:24 i can’t type because i had a stroke i can’t take hikes my life is very limited right now
1:20:32 but i get to write this book and it involves so much tedium and so much difficulty but then i pull
1:20:38 back and i go wow man what a privilege is this is and this is a book i hope that’s going to change
1:20:46 people on a very deep level so on the micro level of happiness i have a lot of frustration i have a lot of
1:20:52 tedium i have a lot of things that i wish were otherwise but on the level of happy of fulfillment
1:20:58 when you pull back over a course of months or years it’s off the charts i have an incredible sense of
1:21:05 accomplishment particularly this book here the book on the supply been working on it for six years
1:21:13 you have no idea the things i’ve had to overcome to write this book right physically the challenges have
1:21:21 been insane as i said i can’t type i have to hand write everything i have to edit in handwriting it’s a
1:21:28 mess and then i have to dictate it on the computer then i have to edit it with one hand i can’t take a
1:21:36 hike to clear my mind i’m just trapped in my body in my office and yet i’ve written the book and so
1:21:44 i’m going to feel so proud of that what i had to overcome that to me that’s more important than
1:21:50 happiness you know that sense because it’s very it’s something where happiness comes and goes but
1:21:57 a sense of fulfillment it just sort of stays with you for a long time you’ve had um such a huge impact
1:22:02 on me um you know when i was in my 20s and to this day still um you’ve had a really big impact on me so
1:22:07 i’m personally very like honored and thankful to be able to talk to you but the predominantly the
1:22:11 people who listen to this are are young men in their 20s and i hope that we’ve kind of been the gateway
1:22:17 drug for that because we have a lot of awesome people on here but not everyone is um necessarily
1:22:22 wise or intentional which i think you have that in space i think that’s kind of your thing which is
1:22:28 you you seem very intentional very wise and very calm and i find that to be uh uh and it kind of
1:22:33 infects me a little bit and and rubs off on me so we appreciate you doing this you’re um you’re awesome
1:22:37 hopefully you know i think you you said your goal was to change people you’ve changed me and hopefully
1:22:41 this is a gateway drug to introduce you to even more uh people who you could potentially change
1:22:46 appreciate that you know i i don’t take it for granted being invited to these podcasts i know
1:22:52 sometimes i can be a little bit difficult because my schedule is a little bit uh full but i i’m very
1:22:58 grateful to have audiences like this you know so thank you so much for for allowing me to do this
1:23:04 for allowing me to to just blow hot air for an hour and a half i mean look at this this is you’re in
1:23:10 the business of ideas and influence i mean this is okay i’m on the podcast i’m supposed to be talking
1:23:16 i’m supposed to be paying attention and i’m sitting here furiously writing notes to myself of small
1:23:19 nuggets of wisdom little little golden nuggets that you were dropping so thank you for coming on
1:23:26 thank you so much for having me thank you that’s it that’s the pod i feel like i can rule the world
1:23:33 i know i could be what i want to i put my all in it like my days off on the road let’s travel never
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1:24:19 moves. Alright, back to the episode.