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J-Sheddy. J-Sheddy. The only J-Sheddy.
Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become the happier, healthier and more healed.
Today's guest is one of your favorites.
Someone who's been on the show before, you absolutely loved our first episode together and so I had to have him back.
He's also one of my favorite authors, someone that I've been rereading recently, especially when I fell out of love with learning and I'll tell you about that in a second.
Today's guest is Robert Green, the author of the New York Times Best Sellers, the 48 Laws of Power, the Art of Seduction, the 33 Strategies of War, the 50th Law, mastery, the laws of human nature and most recently of the daily laws.
I am so excited to welcome back to the show, Robert Green.
Robert, thank you for being here.
Thank you so much for having me, J-Sheddy.
That's great introduction.
Of course, grateful to have you back in the sea and as I was just saying to you offline over Christmas, I spent last year touring.
I was on stages. We did nearly 40 cities across 90 days.
My book had come out. I was really pouring out externally and whenever that happens to me, I always kind of, after that, get a feeling of, I need to grow again, I need to learn again, I need to nourish myself.
And I really believe that last Christmas, the daily laws of power became my daily read.
And I have recommended it to so many people.
My wife started reading it, my closest friends have started reading it.
And it was just such a great book for anyone who's either stuck with reading, someone who's kind of like not sure what to read, someone who's trying to figure out their direction in life.
The daily laws of power is a great starting place, I'd say.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
I've always been a fan of your books and you sent me this beautiful, limited edition version, which I'm getting to show off on the show by the 40 and laws, what a phenomenal book.
So thank you for being such a big part of my learning journey.
For having me, you're a rock star, but what a tour you've been on a tour like that, that sounds like fun.
It was fun. It was fun. We went to Sydney and Melbourne and Brisbane.
All over India, I went to Dubai, I went to Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin.
It was phenomenal. It was amazing.
As you could see yourself more of an extrovert or an introvert.
So that's a great question.
And I'm going to let you define the two for me because you probably have some wisdom to share with us.
I energize alone, but I enjoy connecting with small groups of specific people.
So I assume I'm overall an introvert, but 99% of people would say, J, you're an extrovert.
But if I was in a big group of people, I would find the one person who I share values with to have a deep conversation, I wouldn't be milling around introducing myself to everyone.
So if that makes anything...
But do you need to be alone?
Do you feel... I crave alone time a lot.
Yes. A lot. So you're a mix.
You're a mix. I'm a river.
Yeah. If that's what it's called, yeah.
I've been working. Yeah.
Yeah. Exactly. But I have so many questions for you over there.
Sure about it too. And I'm really coming to you with questions that I know a lot of my community and audience repeatedly ask, and I think your specifically positioned answer a lot of these.
The first one I have is one of the biggest things I get asked is, J, how do I deal with negative people?
How do I deal with negative people in my family?
How do I deal with negative people in my friend's circle?
How do I do a negative people at work in close intimate circles?
I feel a lot of people feel they're dealing with negativity.
Well, you know, it all depends on the details, the kind of negative person you're dealing with.
There are several kind of ways of looking at it, some kind of micro and some kind of much larger.
The larger picture is we all have negative traits.
We all have dark traits, right?
And so you kind of, if you have this idea that it's just humans, human beings are like this, it's like a flower or a rock or a tree.
It has its nature. You know, I just accept it.
I accept people for who they are and I deal with them on that level.
I don't judge them, etc.
Now, of course, when you're dealing with negative people, it can be very difficult because negative people like to stir up a lot of drama around you, around them.
And that's the kind of power that they get.
They like the attention that they get from making people upset from pulling on your emotions, right?
So you have to have, you have to have this kind of larger look at them where it's not about me, right?
They're dealing with their own issues, their own problems.
There's a history behind it.
It could be their parents, it could be their family, it could be their spouse, their children, whatever.
And they're venting it on me in this particular moment, but it's not personal.
I tell people, don't take everything so personally, right?
But then, you know, so there's all these different levels and it all really depends on the specifics because a lot of people come to me for advice.
But a lot of times you're enmeshed with a negative person.
Like it's your boss, it's your spouse, etc., etc.
And it's very difficult to do what I'm talking about, right?
And so you have to try and get a little bit of distance from them.
You have to be able to say to yourself, they're not me, right?
They have their own problems.
I've separate from them.
The sense of being separate from them is very liberating, right?
So they have issues and they're trying to drag me into it and they're trying to drag me down.
But I, not them, I have my own life and I'm not going to get involved.
Sometimes you need to have empathy, but sometimes you need to shut that off.
And so the best thing in life, though, is that's why I say there's just so many angles to approach this from is if they're like a deep narcissist and that's probably the most common type of negative person you deal with in the world today and we all come across this.
The power that you have is to recognize people like that before you get involved with them and to not get involved with them, right?
And so they have signs, things that you can pick up in advance.
People who are toxic, I don't know if we're going to talk sick and negative are the same here.
They don't show it immediately.
They're good at deceiving you.
They can be very charming.
They can be very dramatic.
They pull you in with their great stories.
They have, sometimes they even charismatic.
A lot of important CEOs in the world, people like Elon Musk are raging narcissists.
They appear very exciting and you want to get to know them.
But you have to recognize that these are people that are probably going to use you, right?
They don't see you as an individual.
And the people you associate with, we're very, as humans, we're very open to the emotions of other people, right?
And so the people you associate with have a huge role on who you are and the energy you have, you know, your daily life, et cetera, et cetera.
So you have to be very, very careful who you let into your life, right?
And God, Jay, I don't know.
There's so many different angles to approach it from.
No, that's a nice couple.
I tell people that don't judge people as far as who you're going to let into your life.
Don't be deceived by the appearances.
Don't judge people based on their intelligence, on their charm, on whether they're good or bad, et cetera.
Or there's them on their character, whether they have a weak or a strong character.
What are some of the signals, the signs we can look out for?
Because I think what you just said is so true that we naturally get attracted to people's appearance, intelligence, charisma, access, because we haven't really been trained to view character.
So I remember when I lived in the monastery, the highest quality or character trait that was considered the epitome of internal, emotional evolution was humility.
And so when you met someone who was humble and you met someone who didn't have false ego, they were considered a high character.
And we were trained in order to understand that, but in the modern world, that isn't how the material world works.
We're almost attracted to people who can come off arrogant and showbooty.
And even if we sense we don't like that, we still believe that person has power.
And so what are things that we have to look out for?
Well, also there are people who appear to be humble, but they're not really humble.
I agree. There's a lot of people now who feign humility because it's seen as a positive trait.
Yes. The humans are born actors and you have to kind of look behind the mask.
So I tell people, I view it as strong or weak character.
A strong character is a person who can take criticism, right?
Who can work with other people, right?
Who can deal with stressful situations?
Who can handle responsibility?
And if there's something goes wrong, they take, I'm to blame for it.
They don't look at other people.
There's somebody you can rely on.
You lean on them. And there's something there to lean on.
You can rely on them in situations.
A weak character is somebody who cannot take criticism.
That is probably the number one characteristic.
The worst trait I think in people and a definite trait of negativity is somebody who can't take any kind of criticism, right?
They're so defensive. So that means they can get away with anything.
They can say anything they want.
And there's just like a wall, a shell around them, right?
So the ability in a work situation, in a relationship, to take criticism and be able to use it constructively is an incredibly useful and powerful trait to me that reveals strong character.
How people handle stress is a really good sign of their character.
So in a work situation, people are good at faking it and pretending that they're very strong.
But when it gets really stressful and there's a lot of pressure on it, the mask falls off and they reveal that they can't handle it.
They're too weak. They're reacting to everything.
They can't get out of the moment.
They're so impatient and fragile.
And so the ability to handle stress shows that somebody has something strong inside of them, right?
How they handle power, right?
So when people are kind of climbing up the ladder in a group or in a job, they generally wear it.
They generally try and pretend like they're worth with the group.
But once they have power, that all falls off and they can become abusive and they feel like they can get away with anything that they couldn't get away with before.
They treat people below them miserably, etc.
So when people have power, how do they handle it?
Are they responsible? Do they suddenly become somebody different or do they maintain the character that they had beforehand, right?
What kind of partners do they choose?
Do they choose a spouse, a husband, a girlfriend, etc.
Somebody that they can push around, somebody that's inferior to them so that they can feel better about themselves?
How do they look when they're playing like a game or they're an outdoor activities or something that has nothing to do with work?
Are they so competitive?
They have to win at everything even when it's outside of that kind of environment?
These are traits that help me judge a person's character.
These are often the things that we either ignore or we actually let them fall by the wayside or don't pay enough attention to them because we think, oh no, but they're so smart and they're so this.
I wonder how much of that is also like, what does that say about us that we often get attracted to the wrong things within people?
What does that say about us?
Does that make us a stronger weak character?
I know that I tend to get involved with narcissistic people.
It's a weakness of mine, right?
And maybe it's because of my upbringing and maybe it's because I feel a kind of emptiness inside of me and that they're charm and they tend to pretend to give you is kind of enchanting or cast a spell on you and it draws you in.
Yes, so if you're dealing with your own weaknesses and your own emptiness inside, you're going to be drawn to people who fill that up.
Are you going to be drawn to causes and charismatic leaders that pretend to give you a purpose in your life because you don't have a purpose but they have it for you kind of things.
So a lot of it has to do with ourselves and we're attracted to, we're even attracted to negative people and there are people who have patterns in their life where they deliberately choose the wrong, the worst kind of person for them, right?
And over and over and over again because at least that makes them feel alive, at least the pain of it, you know, gives them a sense of something's half something dramatic and so they deliberately bring on those kind of pain.
So it's complicated, yeah.
Yeah, when you said that often we feel an emptiness inside and you were saying maybe because if you are bringing your father emptiness inside as well, have you tried to fill that emptiness or is there another solution?
Well, to me, it's why I wrote the book Mastery, the way I fill my emptiness and have done it for since I was a kid is through my work and through my ideas and my thinking and how I'm constantly looking for new thoughts and new ways of looking at the world.
So I find that if I didn't have my work as kind of some people think of work as something that you just have to do, right, it's just a way to get money.
But for me, it's a way to feel like I'm a human being that I am who I am.
I was destined to write these books and it gives me every day I wake up and I know this is what I need to accomplish, et cetera, et cetera.
And so that's why I read so many books.
That's why I'm so intrigued by ideas.
That's why I'm writing a book right now about a subject that very much captivates me because it does feel that inner kind of emptiness.
But on the other hand, as someone who meditates and practices a form of Zen meditation, there is a purpose to emptiness, right?
It's not necessarily good to be always having to fill things up in your brain like you just pouring food into your system.
There is something actually kind of intrinsically beautiful about the idea that there is emptiness, that I don't really have a self, that there is actually not, that there is no such thing as a mind actually.
It's an illusion that we create, right?
It's something through words that we have.
So that sense of emptiness that I don't have an ego or that I'm confronting the world and I'm just hearing and seeing things as they are, it's actually a beautiful thing.
So I have to struggle against this idea of always having to fill myself up.
What's something you were saying you like observing humans and humanity?
What's something that you've observed about humans over time that surprised you?
Well, nothing really surprises me because I read a lot of history and I see that things just keep repeating over and over and over again.
I know though, since I had my stroke and since I've physically weak and there are things I can't do anymore, I've actually noticed that people respond to me differently and it's actually very positive.
So sometimes I can be very negative about people.
That's kind of my inclination.
That's how my mind tends to work, which is not necessarily a good thing.
We all have these attitudes that make us look at the world a certain way.
I tend to have a negative bent towards human nature.
But I must say, people have been very, very kind to me since I've had my stroke and it's sad that you have to have an accident like that to be able to perceive it.
But I've seen another side where everyone wants to help me.
They kind of empathize with the fact that I'm a little bit helpless in these situations.
And it's also made me kind of feel differently about other people who have disabilities or things that they can't help in their lives.
But the sense of I'm a little bit helpless and people are really eager to try and help me actually is something that has kind of surprised me in a way.
Yeah, I liked what you said there, that it's sad that someone has to go through something for us to then show that side to ourselves, which means that it's always there.
It means that it exists inherently within us.
Do you think it's because we...
Why do you think that is?
Why do you think that is?
That if it's inherently there, we don't display it at all times to all people.
I don't know. I mean, we're all born with a capacity for empathy.
Something that interests me a lot because the feeling that I'm connecting very deeply to another person, let's say my wife, et cetera, is a very overpowering emotion.
It gets me out of myself and I'm seeing the world through her eyes as opposed to me always projecting myself onto her.
It's very moving experience.
And sometimes you go to a movie and you find yourself getting inside the characters, you get inside of yourself, and you're feeling this empathy for them, you're identifying with them.
These are all very powerful emotions, right?
And we all have the capacity for that.
But the world we live in is actually a machinery to deaden those emotions, that sense of empathy.
It just puts so much emphasis on ourselves, on our individuality, on who we are, our needs, know the tension that we...
