704: Robert Greene | The Emotions Behind Success, Mastery, and Power

704: Robert Greene | The Emotions Behind Success, Mastery, and Power

[00:00:00] Jordan Harbinger: Coming up next on The Jordan Harbinger Show.

[00:00:03] Robert Greene: Success and mastery and power is not an intellectual pursuit. It's not a question of learning a lot of things from books. It's actually an emotional quality. The fact that you're disciplined, patient, persistent, that you love what you're doing, that you can put up with criticism, that you're tough — these are all emotional qualities that Steve Jobs or Thomas Edison or whomever you want to look at, that's what they have.

[00:00:35] Jordan Harbinger: Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On The Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people we have in-depth conversations with scientists and entrepreneurs, spies and psychologists, even the occasional Fortune 500 CEO, former cult member, money laundering experts, or former Jihadi. And each episode turns our guest's wisdom into practical advice that you can use to build a deeper understanding of how the world works and become a better thinker.

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[00:01:32] Wow, this one is from the vault, Robert Greene on the show. This interview — I'm hesitant to tell you how old this interview is. In fact, maybe I should, it's almost 10 years old. It's one of the first interviews that I did where I actually read the book first, which is amazing to even hear me say that because, of course, that's standard practice now. I remember I read the book, which was a huge book because I didn't want to blow it because Robert Greene was such a big influence. We talk a lot about language learning, how to find your life's task even if you think you're too young, too old, or already established in your field, and of course, why it's important to apprentice and why you need a mentor and how to find one and why social intelligence is crucial on the path to Mastery and how you can begin to develop it.

[00:02:15] Stay tuned here for Robert Greene and enjoy. And just one more note, you know, it's funny for those of you who've been listening for a while. You know that Jen is my wife and we have two kids. This episode was recorded, I want to say either the month I met Jen or possibly the month after. So this is a deep cut y'all and it's probably one of the earliest interviews that I have that's actually worth airing. I would say a lot of the stuff before this was, well, I don't want to disparage anybody too much, especially my guests, but I will say I was not in the finest of form up until this episode. This is quite a turning point in my interview career. So if this is your first episode of the show. I'd like to think I'm a little better at this now, but if this isn't your first episode of the show and you've been listening for a while, I would love to hear what you think of the difference in my interview, technique, and skills all around from what's got to be eight or nine years ago now till today. So thank you so much for listening.

[00:03:09] Here we go with Robert Greene.

[00:03:15] Is it true that you worked around 80 jobs before you became an author?

[00:03:19] Robert Greene: Well, my girlfriend and I were counting and I got up to 60. Then I said, "You know, I have such bad memory that I'm sure there are all these jobs I've forgotten." So we just rounded up to 80, but in truth, maybe about 15 or so occurred, you know, before I graduated university because I had to sort of work my way through college.

[00:03:39] Jordan Harbinger: Right.

[00:03:39] Robert Greene: I like to say after college where it really starts to matter, I had at least 55 to 60 jobs. Yeah.

[00:03:46] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. That's plenty. And you're not 185 years old. So did you just have these jobs for like a month or a couple of weeks? And it was like, next.

[00:03:54] Robert Greene: Well, some of them were, you know, for a few days or a couple of weeks. I've never had a job longer than 11 months. That was the longest I seemed to be able to sustain the boredom and the routine and looking at the same faces every day. I have a job where I would be like in television where you only work for four months on something, and then they bring you back a year later kind of thing but I just couldn't stomach any. I guess 11 months was the longest and then a lot of other jobs for like a week, two weeks, couple of months here and there.

[00:04:25] Jordan Harbinger: Right on. Yeah, that makes sense. because I was going to say anybody with that amount of experience in different fields is either doing a lot of things concurrently or a lot of things, not for a long time. And you also speak five languages according to Wikipedia, but I always got to ask, like, do you speak five languages or is it like, "Yeah, I've got some Spanish under my belt," and then that made it into a Wikipedia article by somebody.

[00:04:46] Robert Greene: I lived in Europe. My French is very strong. My Spanish is very strong. My German used to be strong and I can read it, but I wouldn't say I'm a great German speaker. And then Italian is probably the weakest. So if I really, really had to say, I'd say three, for sure, probably four, the five is pushing it, but I'm very good at languages. So give me a couple of months in Rome and my Italian would be very strong.

[00:05:12] Jordan Harbinger: You know, that's funny. The only other person I know personally that speaks five languages besides myself and—

[00:05:19] Robert Greene: Oh.

[00:05:20] Jordan Harbinger: Also, I always ask because whenever I meet people, they're like, "I speak seven languages." I'm like, "That's amazing which ones." And they're like, "Spanish and Portuguese and then German." And I'll say something in German and they're like, "I don't know what you just said." And I'm like, "That was pretty basic. So obviously, you're full of crap," or they're like, they know how to say, "Hi, my name is Jordan," in that language. And they're like, "I speak German now."

[00:05:40] Robert Greene: Yeah, no, I don't consider it that way. because that was my major in college and you know, it was comparative literature and I studied ancient Greek and Latin. So there are even more languages if you want to add that although I don't speak them.

[00:05:52] Jordan Harbinger: Nor does anyone speak ancient Greek or Latin really, right?

[00:05:56] Robert Greene: Well, maybe a few Catholic priests somewhere can maybe converse in Latin. I take it very seriously, but like you knowing a few words is not speaking a language.

[00:06:06] Jordan Harbinger: My opinion is if you can't talk to a taxi driver, you don't speak that language. And that's a pretty low bar too.

[00:06:12] Robert Greene: Okay. Well, that bar, I would say four, but as I said, give me like six to eight weeks in Italy and I'd be making it five.

[00:06:19] Jordan Harbinger: You are a great writer. And the fact that you speak a lot of languages also makes a lot of sense. I'm always sort of baffled by people who can write really, really, really well in only one language and can't speak or understand anything in another language, because it's almost like there's some sort of wasted talent there. I think it's not that they're not really good at it, it's just, they haven't applied there. Because if you can really master subtlety and nuance and humor in your native language, it seems like you should be able to pick up the basics of something else.

[00:06:46] Robert Greene: Well, I don't know about that. There might be some truth to it, but I think that you can kind of divide people who are good at languages, where they're sort of auditory-oriented people, words, and sounds they can just sort of absorb their minds in it. It's sort of a type of person. I happen to when I'm writing, I like hearing the words before I even write them, but you can be a great writer. That's just totally into the literary written aspect. You're not gifted at all for languages. I've know quite a few people like that.

[00:07:18] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, I do too. That's what always surprised me. I think that you're right there because I'm very, very auditory.

[00:07:23] Robert Greene: Yeah.

[00:07:23] Jordan Harbinger: And I'm always talking to myself either out loud or in my head. Languages always came very naturally to me, except for in middle school and high school where I hated it, but that was just because it was French. And I didn't care about memorizing a verb table.

[00:07:36] Robert Greene: I was the same way. It wasn't until I lived there that I realized that I'm really good at languages.

[00:07:41] Jordan Harbinger: That's why, whenever people go, "I'd love to live abroad, but I suck at languages." I go, "How do you know you suck at languages?" "Well, I never did well in school," and I'm like, "Memorizing the être verb table and all its exceptions has nothing to do with you hanging out with some people and learning how to talk like them and mimicking accents, et cetera."

[00:07:58] Robert Greene: And a big part of it is — if you go to France, are you alone? Do you have to learn it in order to be able to pick up this girl in a bar or to get a job? Or are you hanging out with other Americans? If you dump somebody in the middle of France and their survival depends on it, they'll suddenly start getting better than they normally would because you really have to listen. A lot of people go live there and they're just hanging out at McDonald's and hanging out with other Americans.

[00:08:23] Jordan Harbinger: Oh yeah, absolutely. The reason that I found out that I was good at languages was because even though I was terrible at them in high school, I was an exchange student, I ended up getting placed in the former East Germany, and I was really pissed in the beginning—

[00:08:36] Robert Greene: Wow.

[00:08:36] Jordan Harbinger: And I thought it was awful. You know, in the beginning, I was like, "This is terrible, stupid communist, blah, blah, blah, cold war crap." And all these other students in West Germany were out partying and they were tons of foreigners there and it was so cool. And then about halfway through the year, everybody over there was homesick and I was damn near fluent, conversational German because nobody spoke English and they were all, you know, people over there had taken five years of German prior—

[00:08:59] Robert Greene: Yeah.

[00:08:59] Jordan Harbinger: —they were doing okay. But my German was about on par with theirs.

[00:09:03] Robert Greene: Wow. That's a great story. Wow.

[00:09:04] Jordan Harbinger: I remember waking up in the middle of the night, one night and going, "I have a choice to make. I can go home totally defeated. I can just suck it up, learn German, make some friends and get the hell out of this house, which is depressing." And that's exactly what I did. And once I started doing that, the connection with my host family and the kids in school got really, really good. And then it was like, "Oh, Jordan's a real person. He can talk now." The last people to find out were my teachers because I knew they'd make me do work if they found out I could actually speak German.

[00:09:33] So I just would skip school and go hang out with immigrants and play hacky sack and sort of ditch and go hang out with like the burnout kids. And that was great because none of them were good at English. They were smoking weed and playing hacky sacks in the town square. So I did a lot of hacky sack and drinking and doing stupid 17-year-old kid crap. And I came back with an awesome German.

[00:09:52] Robert Greene: That's a great story. Yeah, your German must be pretty good.

[00:09:55] Jordan Harbinger: It hasn't gone away either, which is great because that's the other thing that people say is that it fades.

[00:10:00] Robert Greene: Well, it fades, but it comes back pretty quickly. If you spent like a couple of weeks in Germany, it would come back really fast. Things like Spanish, I get to practice here quite often. So that keeps it alive, but like French, I don't know any French people here or Germans. So what I do is I listen to books in French or German in my car, and I kind of keep it in my head a little bit or watch movies in French, that kind of thing.

[00:10:24] Jordan Harbinger: That's phenomenal. I don't have the patience for that. That's for damn sure. I saw this as a critique on a few websites that reviewed The 48 Laws of Power. People say that, "Yeah, this might be true or this might be effective, but somehow it's immoral or you shouldn't be telling people about this," or—

[00:10:41] Robert Greene: Uh-huh.

[00:10:42] Jordan Harbinger: "You shouldn't practice these things because you're just going to make people ruthless." What do you say to people who seem to feel almost victimized by the idea that you can learn to be more charismatic? I see that with The 48 Laws of Power, you get all these high achievers, like Will Smith, who's a freaking awesome dude, learning from this book and they say, it's amazing. And then you get all these people going, "Oh, you're just teaching people to be ruthless. This is like a modern date art of war. You're just a scumbag preaching scumbags how to be scummier. What do you say to those people?

[00:11:11] Robert Greene: Well, there's a lot of things I'd say. Anybody who's worked in the real world who doesn't live in a commune in Oregon has dealt with The 48 Laws of Power. They've dealt with psychotic, tyrannical bosses, men and women, who think they know everything who play all kinds of weird games, have egos. There's envy, there's passive aggression, there's even more nasty manipulations going on. And if you've lived through that, then the book The 48 Laws of Power, it seems almost even a bit mild.

[00:11:43] "Oh yeah. I've seen that. And I know about it. And that's good. It helps me be aware of it." A lot of people who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, African Americans, or women, for instance, in the work. They've seen all that power stuff really a lot more directly than other people because they're looking at it from the other end. It's pretty clear and pretty obvious the power game can be pretty ruthless and those who have power kind of write the rules.

[00:12:09] But then you've got people who have a pretty good life, who've never had anything bad happen to them, this is one type of person and they whine and whine. "Well, why do you have to talk about this? This isn't the reality." Well, it's not the reality for you. So maybe don't read the book and I'm happy you don't read the book. It's not your reality because you live in a small town in Oregon, or you've managed to have a lot of money or you never have encountered it. And that's great. Ever since the Bible and we've recorded history, we've been seeing examples of this. And so for you to close your eyes to it is ridiculous.

[00:12:42] And the other thing I say is people who are sharks, who are manipulators, and we all know who they are, they don't really need The 48 Laws of Power. I mean, they know it, they were born that way a little bit, or the sociopath type, it's in their DNA. They have a sense of how to make people feel guilty and get things done for them. Whatever their particular manipulative game is, they don't need to read a book to hone those kinds of skills. There are a few people I've heard from readers where maybe someone was kind of borderline and the book did help them become pretty damn ruthless and done some bad things. And I don't feel so good about that. I understand, but the majority of emails I get are from the kind of naive schmoes like myself, who went out in the work world expecting that the world would be kind of like a literary adventure and discover it's not.

[00:13:34] A lot of people need instruction. They're too naive. A book is not for the sharks, it's for the minnows. The people who don't know how these other people are operating. That's really who the book is addressed to. And I've found it's weird because the last thing I'll say. The book's been out for 16 years now, and it's like a weird kind of mirror. You bring to the book your own past your own obsessions, your own neurosis. We all have neurosis. And the book kind of makes you see what you want to see in there. And I've noticed a lot of people who feel uncomfortable about their own manipulative dark side, the book makes them feel doubly uncomfortable. And those tend to be the types that get very upset about it, though that would be my long-winded answer there.

[00:14:24] Jordan Harbinger: You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest Robert Greene. We'll be right.

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[00:15:09] Jen Harbinger: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And you can buy a new couch to sleep on.

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[00:17:15] Jordan Harbinger: If you're wondering how I managed to book all these amazing folks for the show — we got authors, we got thinkers, we got creators and performers every single week here — it's because of my network, frankly. I got a call on that all the time. And I'm teaching you how to build your network for free over at jordanharbinger.com/course. I don't sell anything here. This isn't an upsell. I don't want your credit card info, none of that. It's just about improving your networking and connection skills, making you a better connector and more importantly, making you a better thinker. That's all at jordanharbinger.com/course, and most of the guests that you see or hear on this show, subscribe and contribute to that same course. Come join us, you'll be in smart company where I know you belong.

[00:17:52] Now back to Robert Greene.

[00:17:56] Now, of course, I'd like to talk a little bit more about Mastery versus The 48 Laws of Power, which is an awesome book, but maybe a little bit more for another time.

[00:18:04] Robert Greene: Yeah.

[00:18:05] Jordan Harbinger: I definitely think that Mastery is such a brilliant piece of work. I keep getting my copies stolen, which shows you how good and how in demand this book is. And you actually have a little bit of a rubric for discovering your calling, finding what you call your life's task. And I'd love to have you shed some light on that because I think a lot of guys could use that. I know, I wish I had read that 15-plus years ago.

[00:18:28] Robert Greene: It's a concept that I'm trying to introduce to you and it begins with the following thought. You were born — you, the person listening to this — unique and individual. Your DNA, totally different from anybody else's. That's a fact and the way your brain is wired, et cetera. There will never be anybody else on the planet with exactly your DNA and your brain configuration. It's a pretty amazing fact to think about that. And when you were a child, when you were really young, this difference of yours was a lot clearer. You were drawn without any way to verbalize it. You were drawn to certain things.

[00:19:07] I know if I look back in my deepest childhood, I was drawn to words and the sound of words just sort of enchanted me. But for other people, it can be sports, images if they have a visual mind. Other people, it's patterns and mathematics, whatever. And essentially, I believe, I can't prove it scientifically, everybody had these inclinations at some point in their life. But what happens as you get older is you start off listening to your family, your teachers, your peers.

[00:19:38] They start telling you what they think you should be doing. You start listening to your friends are saying, it's cool and not cool. Teachers are telling you, you're good at this, you're bad at that. And you lose complete sense of what was natural to you, what you really love, what you were drawn to, and you have to learn all of these other things in school that you don't like. If you're a word-oriented person, you have to learn math and suddenly you hate that. And then you go, "Oh sh*t. I just hate all learning."

[00:20:06] Jordan Harbinger: This is the French teacher example that we were just talking. And I was good at languages and I hated French and thought I'm terrible at this because the way that she decided languages needed to be taught was, "Look, at this book and look at this verb table and memorize all this. And if you come in and you don't know it, you fail."

[00:20:21] Robert Greene: Yeah. Completely dead approach to language. Language is all about socializing. That's why we have language in the first place. It's supposed to be a real encounter where two people are dialoguing or whatever, to turn it into something like a math formula is to kill it. But that happens in so many subjects. And so we get turned off from learning. We get into the university system. We don't know what we really like. We choose a job because our parents are saying, we have to make money, we have to make money. Friends are saying, this is where everyone's going. I get onto Wall Street or I become a lawyer.

[00:20:54] You're kind of lost and then you can kind of fake it if you're young, because you've got all this energy and you look good and people like you and you're out doing things, but eventually getting into a field that doesn't connect to who you are to what that difference was that I mentioned at birth, it catches up to you. Usually around the age that you happen to be at or mid-30s. It can be a little later, a little earlier. You're not paying attention to things going on in your career to what's going on. People are younger and more eager or keep coming up. You get downsized, quit. You don't know where to go. And you're a mess.

[00:21:29] It depends on where you are on that scale, whether you're 22, just starting out, or whether you're more like that mess at 35, the process of reconnecting and discovering who you are and finding out what you are meant to do is not like something that happens overnight. It's a process. It's a very important process that requires some introspection, reconnecting to who you are.

[00:21:52] I get people who come to me and they say, "I like your book. It's intellectual. I understand it. But I have no idea what my life's task is. And it's like, you might as well be speaking in Swahili. Yeah., I can't figure it out." And I say, "All right, give me some time, give me a couple of weeks. Let's talk, let's figure it out." And we go through that. These are people who I consult with and we discover at what point they kind of lost it when they started to listen to other people. What are the things that make them excited? I always say there's a subject out there. It can be an intellectual subject, or it can be an activity that when you do it, or when you read about it, it makes you excited in a way that you just can't verbalize.

[00:22:33] For me, it's reading about our earliest human ancestors in a newspaper or magazine or online. Wow, I just have to read about it. It excites me so much. I can't begin to explain it. These kinds of things are indications of something about what you are naturally drawn to and all of the people who are really successful in life. And I really want to emphasize that, who are really successful in life have that emotional, personal connection to their work. It's the most important step in your life. It doesn't mean it has to be a hundred percent orgasmic and pleasurable and that you just are waking up every moment on a cloud and oh, I love music and I'm doing it. No, we have to make money. And there's other things involved. In a general sense, if you're not in some way passionate or excited about where you're headed, there's no mental challenge. You're never going to get very far. So it's the first chapter and it's the most important point in the book.

[00:23:30] Jordan Harbinger: That definitely jives. When I read that, I was like, "Oh my god, this is me," because when I was young, when I was about eight or nine, I was trying to build an FM transmitter, and I tried again when I was in my early teens, because I wanted to be a talk show host, which is funny, because I'm doing that now. And I didn't even put that together until I think it was my mom or cousin who pointed it out. I also was really good at figuring out systems and I liked doing that and I got caught, I got in trouble because I was wiretapping when I was 13, 14 years old. I always liked those types of systems and those things like that. And so now looking back, I'm like, ah, the reason that I love doing this is because it's essentially what I would be doing as a hobby anyway, except now I get to make it my job. Of course, before that guys who listen to the show know that I went to law school, I went and worked on wall street. It was awful because everybody went, "You should be a lawyer." That was the worst thing ever.

[00:24:18] Robert Greene: You found your way, probably you got frustrated and you hated your life and sort of listened to yourself. Even the law school, it taught you something.

[00:24:27] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. Yeah, of course.

[00:24:28] Robert Greene: So that's how you have to approach it. Like nothing is wasted. Even my worst jobs at the time where I figured, "What the hell am I, why am I doing this?" I learned a hell a lot about people and their psychology and all that. So I want to tell people that it's even when, if you're stuck in a bad job and you're trying to figure your way out, you still have to have the approach that everything around you is like a learning process. There's always something to get out of, even the worst job that you're in.

[00:24:57] Jordan Harbinger: I would definitely agree with that. Any sort of adversity can be turned into an opportunity if you frame it correctly. How should guys go about this? I mean, what if guys are thinking, "Well, crap, I'm a lawyer right now," or, "I'm in the medical profession," or whatever, the myriad of emails that I get and they go, "I don't even know what I want. I don't even know what my life's task is." Do we have some sort of practical application that we can throw out there?

[00:25:19] Robert Greene: One thing, I'd say men are worse than women on this front. We're not usually good at introspection, let's put it that way. Sort of taking time off to think about ourselves. We're not really connected, terribly deeply to our own feelings about what really excites us and what doesn't, but women are generally a little more in tune with these things. And so you have to kind of develop that as almost a skill or a power in your life. And it's a very, very important skill.

[00:25:49] And what I mean is you have the ability every now and then to step back from all the madness of your life and all the things that you're doing and sort of assess where you are. Are you enjoying this? Is it challenging? Is it the right thing for you? Who are you really? Why do you hate this kind of work? You know you hate politicking and all the bullsh*t, well, maybe that's an indication that you should be an entrepreneur. You should be working for yourself. You don't like working in large groups of people, which is something I definitely shared for myself.

[00:26:22] You love writing literature and yet you're a lawyer. Okay, it's not a matter of suddenly quitting your job as a lawyer and writing a novel. It's a matter of finding out how you can segue into it, how you can now start becoming a writer dealing with legal matters. Lawyers have to do a lot of writing, and maybe there's a way to combine that and slowly turn it into something practical, a form of journalism or whatever. And then eventually you can write a novel or a screenplay. Making it a kind of a logical progression, but you can't do any of that unless you're listening to yourself.

[00:26:57] With you, Jordan, you were listening to yourself when you got the jobs on Wall Street and the jobs in law. You know, this isn't fitting for me. I don't like it. I got to get the hell out, even though I'm getting paid. I hope, I'm being reasonably accurate here.

[00:27:10] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah, no, absolutely. And I didn't think of it as listening to myself at the time. I just thought of it as I really hate what I've listened to from everyone else. So I'm just not going to do that anymore and screw it, even if I'm poor for a while, I'll figure it out. So I guess that was sort of like, well, I'm not going to listen to anyone else. So, by default, I am now leading.

[00:27:29] Robert Greene: People are afraid of not making money. And if that dominates your life, then it's going to be very difficult to do what I'm talking about. I mean, I understand if you're older or you've got kids to support and bills, et cetera, but if you're addicted to the paycheck and you can't get off of it and you're just so scared. Then don't even bother. I mean, that's going to be where you are. That's a lifelong problem that you have. But if you go the opposite direction, you learn to, like, you did quit and live minimally for a while and kind of be on the edge and do the things that I'm saying, like listening to yourself, what you like, what frustrates you? What excites you? Every time later in life, when you hit a dead end and it happens to everyone, it still happens to me, you'll be able to do what I talk about and say, "All right, now's the time to step back, look at myself. And then if I have to take a pay cut, I can take it because I took it before in life and it wasn't as bad as I thought." These are life skills that you're developing. Making money is not the only important skill in this world. There are life skills where you know how to handle certain situations like changes in your life, like having to deal with less money and things like that.

[00:28:39] Jordan Harbinger: Absolutely. I definitely agree to that. So maybe guys can think of, or write down things they liked to do as a kid. And you sort of mentioned this before and discover what that life's task might be.

[00:28:50] Robert Greene: Well, okay, so the part of the process that I help people — it's a little bit, almost like therapy in a way. It's a lot of fun actually. It's to go dig into the deep childhood stuff and try and remember some of those early earliest memories. Sometimes, there's just nothing there and I understand. But usually, there's something that comes up at least up until the age of 15 of some activity or subject that does have that effect on you. And then we analyze it. Is it something that's really you or were you really into music because everybody else was into it? But it's not just looking at your earliest childhood, you have to be attentive to the present, even in the job that you have now, where there are aspects of it there, even if it's working at Wendy's or whatever, "Well, I actually like, you know, talking to people when I'm doing this, that, and the other, I hate the burgers." And this is a terrible analogy I'm building here, but there's an aspect that you like, whatever that is. Okay. Think about it and be aware of it. And then there are things that you don't like, you got to look at your emotional makeup in the present.

[00:29:54] And the thing that you have to understand is success and mastery and power is not an intellectual pursuit. It's not a question of learning a lot of things from books. It's actually an emotional quality. The fact that you're disciplined, patient, persistent, that you love what you're doing, that you can put up with criticism, that you're tough — these are all emotional qualities that Steve Jobs or Thomas Edison or whomever you want to look at, that's what they have. So I'm trying to reconnect you to those qualities that you have, those emotions that you're feeling in the present of where you hate something, or you love something. And looking at your child is a component, but it's not the only thing that we can do here.

[00:30:38] Jordan Harbinger: I love that because a lot of people will write in and they just have no idea where to even begin. And a lot of people listening might be going, "I read this book and you're only focusing on the first 10 percent," but I think this is very very important, especially from my audience here. People really do get stuck and none of the other steps really matter if you're not even sure what you want to do in terms of how you're going to apply yourself.

[00:31:00] Robert Greene: And it can be vague. I mean, it's not like, you know that you have to do exactly this job. That's not how it works. It's usually like, you know, I want to be a writer. This was my scenario. I didn't know what I wanted to write. And it's a pretty wide field that includes television and journalism and novels, et cetera. But with that wide parameter of this is what I love, I then could explore within it and try different things. If you're at a younger age, you have that option. If you're older, maybe you don't, but it's not like you're going to narrow it down to, "Oh, I was meant to do entertainment law for this, this, and this." You want to give yourself some room to explore? It's like an adventure that you're setting out on, particularly if you're younger and you can find out what you hate and what you love. And then eventually, you'll find your way to that perfect thing like you have.

[00:31:56] Jordan Harbinger: This is The Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest Robert Greene. We'll be right back.

[00:32:00] This episode is sponsored in part by Plunge. My athlete friends are all into Cold Plunges. I personally thought it was just kind of a hype fad nonsense thing. And I went to my buddy, Jason Khalipa. I went to check out his new home gym. He's the winner of the CrossFit games. He's a real-life human Hulk, super nice guy. And he shows me his backyard and we walked by this very modern-looking outdoor tub. And I thought it was a bathtub. He told me about the Cold Plunge and he said, it's the one big thing that helped his daughter's mood, who's 11. So I mean, anything that can help an 11-year-old's mood is worth its weight in gold. He does it with his kids. They all love it. At first again, I was skeptical, so I tried it. I fell in love with it, not necessarily right away, but after a few days of doing it and the owner of Plunge, Johnny made me do it every morning for five days. Do it daily up to five, six minutes. It's a great reset. Boost my mood and energy every time, not to mention it feels really good. It's been hot AF outside. After a long walk, after a workout, just jump right in there, easy to set up. It cleans the water using ozone. So there's a lot less maintenance. I alternate between my ghetto fabulous inflatable hot tub that I got off Amazon and the Cold Plunge. I'll tell you it's better than booze in terms of relaxing. It's great for recovery, muscle soreness. You might have even seen these guys on Shark Tank businesses popping right now. thecoldplunge.com use promo code JORDAN for 150 bucks off. Get to chilling, thecoldplunge.com promo code JORDAN. I really do enjoy this and I think you will as well.

[00:33:20] This episode is also sponsored by Progressive insurance. Let's face it. Sometimes multitasking can be overwhelming. Like when your favorite podcast is playing, the person next to you is talking, your car fan is blasting, all while you're trying to find the perfect parking spot. But then again, sometimes multitasking is easy, like quoting with Progressive insurance. They do the hard work of comparing rates. So you can find a great rate that works for you, even if it's not with them. Give their comparison tool, a try and you might find getting the rate and coverage you deserve is easy. All you need to do is visit Progressive's website to get a quote with all the coverage you want, like comprehensive and collision coverage or personal injury protection, then you'll see Progressive's direct rate and their tool provide options from all the other companies lined up and ready to compare, so it's simple to choose the rate and coverage you like. Press play on comparing auto rates, quote at progressive.com to join over 27 million drivers who trust Progressive.

[00:34:08] Jen Harbinger: Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Comparison rates, not available in all states or situations. Prices, vary based on how you buy.

[00:34:15] Jordan Harbinger: Thank you all so much for listening to the show, especially this episode, which is old AF. I hope y'all are enjoying this. It's so funny/cringy for me to listen to this stuff. It's not the guest. Of course, it's my own performance. It just makes me want to dunk my head in a bucket of water. But honestly, I love the fact that I can bring you these conversations. The fact that something I recorded almost a decade ago still has value is really special to me. And I do have to feed the old kids, so if you want to support the show — and I love it when you do — jordanharbinger.com/deals has all of the URLs and the discount codes and everything all in one place. And you can always search for sponsors using the search box on the website as well. Please do consider supporting those who support this show.

[00:34:56] Now for the rest of my conversation with Robert Greene.

[00:35:01] What about guys who say, "Well, you know, I'm too old"? And you sort of touched upon this when you were saying, if you're already established in a field, maybe you can sort of segue things over, like the lawyer who does a lot of writing who becomes a writer. Is there a time when people say, 'I'm too young, I'm too old, I can't do this"? Because I think people listening are either going, "Hell, yeah, I can't wait to do this," or they go, "Yeah, that's fine for some people, but I, blah, blah, blah, can't do it because X, Y, Z," especially guys who say, "I'm too old."

[00:35:30] Robert Greene: Well, it depends on what the old is. If you're 70, okay, okay, I think maybe you're too old, maybe 65. That'd be about my limit. If you say anything earlier, I'd start getting a little bit cranky with you, but it's different at each phase of life. If you're in your 30s and you're really unhappy and you're frustrated, you still have plenty of time to make a fairly radical change, which could include going to school or apprenticing somewhere. You still have more time than you think. If you're in your 40s, it's a different assessment. Basically, you've been working at a job.

[00:36:04] Let's say you were a lawyer for 20 years and you just totally burn out. You can't just suddenly make a radical break. It has to be something a little more gentle. In which case you have to look at the skills that you have as a lawyer and what it brought you and figure out a way where you can now segue into something that is more connected to you personally. Also, if you've had four different jobs, for instance, none of them quite connecting. You could take a step back and say, all right, I've learned from these jobs that I really didn't like. Four different kinds of interesting, weird skills that I can now combine in a new business. I can come up with a business idea, that's totally unique. That's based on all of my interesting experience and that's going to be the next step that I take, and that can happen in your 40s or 50s.

[00:36:53] It depends on where you are and who you are. Not everybody is the same. None of us really like change anyway, but as we get older, we like it even less. So it has to be gentle and realistic. If I went out there and said, "No matter what age you are, just quit your job and follow your passion." That's just a lot of bullsh*t. And you're going to end up getting angry at me and you won't become a master and you won't be successful because it's ridiculous advice. It has to be realistic and work with what your strengths and weaknesses. As I said, if you're 70, maybe it's too late because you're so set in your ways.

[00:37:30] But the other thing to keep in mind, your most creative years, and this is a book really about creativity are your 30s and maybe the first half of your 40s. If you're younger, you really want to be keeping that in mind, you want to be focused and use your 20s as a period for learning and accumulating skills so that when you hit those thirties and your mind is still active and you have really a lot of energy, you can now take all those things that you learn and do something really exciting. So, although it's never too, it's really better to start early.

[00:38:03] Jordan Harbinger: Got it. When we do finally find out what we're really passionate about, you discuss a lot in the book actually, about the ideal apprenticeship and the mentor dynamic. A lot of people reach out and they want mentorship, or they want to know how to approach people for mentorship. You're kind of an expert on the subject and I've actually spoken with some people who we have in common, who are very good at this as well, Charlie Hoehn, Ryan Holiday, those kinds of kids are just like prodigies when it comes to it. What advice do you have for people who are looking to learn about a certain field or get mentorship in a certain field?

[00:38:37] Robert Greene: Yeah. I get a lot of that to people who want me to be their mentor, et cetera. And actually, Ryan Holiday was my mentee four or five, six years ago. He was my assistant. There's two things. There's the apprenticeship phase that I'm talking about. And I really want you to think in these terms, the problem that a lot of us have is we get out of school. Our school life is very directed. We've got teachers and principals and a family sort of telling us what to do and a routine. And then we're suddenly thrust into the real world and we've got no guidance, nothing. We're completely on our own.

[00:39:11] And I want you to think of this is actually not a time for just wandering, it's a time — I'm going to call your apprenticeship. It could be maybe eight to 10 years or seven to 10 years. It roughly corresponds with your 20s, but it bleeds into the 30s, which it certainly did for me. And it's a time where you're developing all of your skills. It's not a time in making money. If you're so obsessed with making money, you're going to make a lot of mistakes. You're going to grab a job that pays well, but doesn't give you an opportunity to learn because you're so worried about making a mistake. It's such a big company and you're never really hands-on on all these different task. It's better to take a job at a place where you're going to learn. Learning is the gold that you're going to transform into something amazing when you get on your own in the 30s.

[00:39:58] You want skills. You want to learn about how to work with people, how to deal with difficult people. You want to turn yourself into a great observer of things going on in the world, around you. You want to be someone who's patient and disciplined and organized all the things that you're going to learn at three or four or five or in my case, unfortunately, 50, 60 different jobs. That's what you're after. I tell you in the book, I'm showing, here's how to think of that period in your life. Here's how to structure it. Here's what you need to go for, what are the most important things. You can still be an apprenticeship throughout your 30s, et cetera, but it's really mostly when you get out of the university.

[00:40:38] Now, part of getting an apprenticeship is, if you can, finding a mentor, it's not always possible. It depends on where you live and who you are and your circumstances but, you know, people are always looking for a shortcut to power. And I always say there is no shortcut and wanting a shortcut is almost a sign that you're not going to ever get there.

[00:40:58] Jordan Harbinger: Yes. I agree so much with that.

[00:41:01] Robert Greene: The one shortcut that actually is kind of true is a mentor because they're able to really focus you and show you what you're good at, what you're not good at. The things they've learned, they can now give to you in a really direct one-on-one personal way. They can criticize you and give you instant feedback on what you're doing. You could get to master music 10 years on your own practicing, but if you have this great jazz artist mentoring you, it could be five years with that kind of instruction. But the most important thing to realize is you can't begin to ask for a mentor until you've got something to offer.

[00:41:40] If you're fresh out of school or whatever, and you don't have discipline, you don't have a resume, you can't tell him or her, "I've organized this person's life. I know how to do this research in that." No one's going to hire. People are going to hire you if they can see, "Ah, I'm going to get something in return. I get this young person with a lot of energy who can do the things I don't want to do, who's going to save me time, who will do some of the research for me, etcetera." You've got to have something that separates you from the crowd.

[00:42:09] So maybe spend two or three years working in different jobs, so that you reach a point where you do have something to offer a really incredible person and they will take you on. Because the other true fact is people who are successful, do like taking on proteges and disciples. It's a very satisfying relationship. They're open to it, but you have to have something that's going to appeal to their self-interest.

[00:42:35] Jordan Harbinger: I know this is true for a lot of people in similar shoes at higher levels that I talk to all the time, we've sort of mutually agreed that what needs to happen is you need to make it. So it's impossible for us to ignore the value that you're bringing to the table. And it can't be some like, "Wouldn't it be great if I could triple your revenue?" I mean, how are you going to do that? You're 20. Maybe you have a great idea. I don't really care about that, but if you come and you say, "I designed something for you that I can create, that's going to help you. And what do you think of it?" I need to be able to go, "Wow, I didn't even have it in the budget to hire you, but I need you working on this yesterday."

[00:43:11] Robert Greene: That's really true. And what happened with Ryan if people know who Ryan Holiday is? I met him through Tucker Max. I don't know if you know who Tucker is.

[00:43:18] Jordan Harbinger: Of course.

[00:43:18] Robert Greene: Ryan was a fan of my books. You know, he wanted to be my researcher, but I didn't know who the hell he was. And I knew though that he was kind of a whiz kid with the Internet which I'm not, because I'm an older guy. At some point, I said, "Well, Ryan, I'm having real problems with my Wikipedia page." And he said, "Yeah, I can fix that for you." This is my way of testing him. He did, you know, to me it seemed like I had no idea how to fix it. Within a week, he had it completely fixed. And then, I'm on the board of directors for American Apparel. And the CEO suddenly was telling me, "You know, I'm having problems with my Wikipedia page." "All right. I got the person for you. That's Ryan Holiday." And he heard it from me and he trusted me. And then Ryan got a job at American Apparel and then the rest is history. He wrote his book and he's writing other books based on all of that. But he had like a real skill, like you mentioned, I could see him helping me. And once he had his foot in, then he could do all sorts of other things and figure it out.

[00:44:13] One thing I tell people in the apprenticeship phase, that's an important skill to have is to make yourself an observer. What happens is people are so eager to impress and prove themselves and be charming et cetera that they're not paying attention. If you pay attention to Jordan and his problems and what he needs with his work, if you work for him for free for a month, helping him organize his schedule, et cetera, and you just pay attention, you'll can figure out some things that this guy needs really badly and you'll have a plan for helping him do it, but you're not going to be able to get to that point. If all you're thinking about is, "How can I impress this guy right away? What can I do? I'm going to triple his revenue, et cetera." Just ridiculous schemes, as opposed to just stepping back and being realistic and observing what other people need. And that's what you're going to supply.

[00:45:05] Jordan Harbinger: Absolutely. Speaking of observation, you talk a lot about seeing people as they are. Why is it so important to see people as they are? And how do we start that process?

[00:45:14] Robert Greene: I included it, it's a chapter in Mastery for a very important reason, and that is, I don't want to give you the impression that just being brilliant at your job and having skills and all that is enough in this world. We're social animals and you can be a great computer programmer, but if you just have repulsive personal habits and you're really bad with people and you're insulting them, it doesn't matter whether you're Steve Wozniak. You won't get very far in life because you have no social skills. And then, the other thing is people who have social skills, it's a form of intelligence that connects very well with Mastery. People who are attentive to individuals, to other people around them, are also attentive to the details of their work. So the two go hand in hand.

[00:46:00] I'm trying to say that the people around you, everybody's different as I said in the beginning, this sort of primal uniqueness, and you're not seeing that. You're projecting onto them fantasies from your childhood. They're like this woman or this man, or father or mother, or you're paranoid. And you think that they're evil and they're after you or you were idealizing them because you think they're just the most marvelous person. You're doing this constantly day in and day out. And because of that, you're making all sorts of mistakes where you're not picking up cues, that people are leaving about what they want and what they really are after. You're just constantly misreading them and it's troubling. And it's actually going to be the main cause for a lot of grief and problems in your career.

[00:46:43] And so the key is to be aware that that's what's going on and then to go through a process. Where you try and see people, as you said, see people as they are, which is the name of the chapter. And how you do that, I mean, there are many ways, and I give tips on that, but one example would be, let's say three months ago, you were involved in some terrible battle in your job and you got fired or something bad happened. Now, your normal reaction is to just, "God damn it. That was their fault. They're such an awful person. Why couldn't they see how brilliant I am, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera." Take that now as a learning experience, step back, and say, "Maybe I did something wrong there. Let me look at myself through their eyes as an exercise. Maybe they saw me in a way that has nothing to do with how I see myself. And perhaps, there was something that I did that was involved in the conflict.

[00:47:40] There are other ways to approach it, but basically you're trying to put yourself in the perspective of other people and imagining how they see the world, what their pet peeves are, what their loves are, suddenly you have 20 weapons in your arsenal. That includes the ability to not blame other people for mistakes and see that maybe you are part of the problem. It gives you the ability to charm people. You know, what they need, what their weaknesses are, what they really are looking for in life. You can supply it. You know what they hate, so you can avoid making those mistakes. It just changes the whole game.

[00:48:17] And it's actually the subject of my next book. So I'm transforming chapter four of Mastery into an entire book. Then I'm going to take it to a whole other level of far as how to read people, but once you're there, it just changes your whole approach to the social. And it makes something like mastering your career so much easier.

[00:48:39] Jordan Harbinger: That sort of leads into my next question, which is what is the next book? Is it about social intelligence and reading people?

[00:48:44] Robert Greene: Well, I'm calling it The Laws of Human Nature. In Mastery, a key theme is something from neuroscience called mirror neurons, which is essentially our ability to empathize with other people. It's a unique human ability to put ourselves in the mind of the other person and imagine their experience, their thoughts. No other animal has it. I maintain it's a source of so many of our powers. There are studies out there showing that empathic power of ours is declining rather dramatically among young people, probably because of social media, but there are other factors.

[00:49:21] I'm trying to say that the art of reading people comes from our ability to place ourselves in their shoes, imagining what their experiences are like, and to have a deep understanding of human nature. What are the main drives that really impel people such as the drive to be acknowledged, to be recognized, to have validation, and attention from other people, that kind of thing? I'm going to show you these sort of laws of human nature, and through that, I'm going to help you develop ways for reading these things in people and giving you all kinds of tips on how people reveal themselves in everyday life, in conversation through their actions. So that by the end of the book, you'll just be a more socially proficient person.

[00:50:07] Jordan Harbinger: Excellent. Thanks so much, Robert. That was really good. Solid.

[00:50:10] Robert Greene: Thank you so much, Jordan. I really, I really enjoyed it.

[00:50:14] Jordan Harbinger: The episode you just heard was the first interview I did with Robert Greene back in the old show. I mentioned that in the show intro here. Coming up next is a trailer of Robert Greene on his book Laws of Human Nature. It looks like it's an older episode because the number is earlier, but it's actually a newer interview because this one you just heard was from like eight or nine years ago now. Here we go.

[00:50:34] If we just sit in our inner tube with our hands behind our head and crack open a six-pack of beer, the river of dark nature takes us towards that waterfall of the shadow.

[00:50:43] Robert Greene: Yeah. So when we're children, if we weren't educated, if we didn't have teachers or parents telling us to study, we'd be these monsters. We're all flawed. I believe we humans naturally feel envy. It's the chimpanzee in us. It's been shown that primates are very attuned to other animals in their clan, and they're constantly comparing themselves. Your dislike of that fellow artist or that other podcaster, 99 percent sure that it comes from a place of envy.

[00:51:15] Jordan Harbinger: For sure.

[00:51:16] Robert Greene: You are not a rational being. Rationality is something you earn. It's a struggle. It takes effort. It takes awareness. You have to go through steps. You have to see your biases. When you think you're being rational, you're not being rational at all. You go around, everything is personal, "Oh, why did he say that? Why is my mom telling me this?" And I'm telling you, it's not personal. That's the liberating fact. People are wrapped up in their own emotions, their own traumas. So you need to be aware that people have their own inner reality.

[00:51:47] People are not nearly as happy and successful as you think they are. Acknowledging that you have a dark side, that you have a shadow, that you're not such a great person as you think can actually be a very liberating feeling. And there are ways to take that shadow on that darkness and kind of turn it into something else.

[00:52:08] Jordan Harbinger: For more with Robert Greene, check out episode 117 of The Jordan Harbinger Show.

[00:52:15] Thank you so much for listening by the way. I love these conversations that Robert Greene is an amazing guest. We have other episodes with him, episode 117. That's on Robert's sixth book, The Laws of Human Nature and episodes 581 and 582 which are about Robert's book, The Daily Laws, all high-value stuff, especially if you're into Robert Greene, go back and check those out, 117, 581, 582. Links to all things, Robert Greene will be in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com. Books are always at jordanharbinger.com/books. Please use those website links if you buy books from the guest, it does help support the show. Audible counts as well. Yes, it works for audiobooks. Yes, it works in other countries. We got that little genius link thing set up. So please use those even if you're in Canada, the UK, or Australia.

[00:52:54] Transcripts are in the show. Videos up on YouTube. Advertisers, deals, and discount codes. All at jordanharbinger.com/deals. Again, please consider supporting those who support this show. I'm at @JordanHarbinger on both Twitter and Instagram, or just hit me right there on LinkedIn. I love connecting with you there. Less crazies on LinkedIn so far, anyway.

[00:53:14] I'm teaching you how to connect with great people and manage relationships. Using the same software systems and tiny habits that I use every day. The reason I'm able to book the guests, the reason I'm able to cut deals with sponsors, the reason I'm successful in life really comes down to my network. I want you to learn these same skills. I don't need your credit card. jordanharbinger.com/course is where you can find the course. Dig that well before you get thirsty. Most of the guests you hear on the show, they subscribe and contribute to the course. Come join us, you'll be in smart company where you belong. We want to see you there.

[00:53:45] This show is created in association with PodcastOne. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jase Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Millie Campo, Ian Baird, Josh Ballard, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. If you know a Robert Greene fan, you know somebody who could use the advice that he gave here today, please share this episode with them. The greatest compliment you can give us is always to share the show with those you care about. And even though you don't care about, I don't care, just share the show, period. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on this show, so you can live what you listen, and we'll see you next time.