Robert Greene: How To Seduce Anyone, Build Confidence & Become Powerful

Robert Greene is one of the best-selling authors in history, an internationally renowned expert on power strategies, and referenced in songs by Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Drake.

Written 6 international bestsellers that have become legendary.

Why did you write a book about seduction?

Seduction is a high form of power.

People will do what you want without ever even realizing it.

Seduction is a mating ritual.

You can't just swipe and get it.

But because of all the dating apps, if you are able to understand the language of seduction, you're gonna have so much more power and success than anybody else.

And one thing about words is people can lie, but body language, it doesn't lie.

You master that language, you can start deciphering all this shit people are giving you.

It's about psychology and it's about how you carry yourself.

If you feel confident, it will naturally radiate through your gestures.

But what is real confidence and how does one build it?

The confidence comes from— We've talked about the topic of power, but in 2018 you had a stroke.

In that moment, it sounds like your power had been taken from you.

The left side of my body is paralyzed, and that was not easy.

I've got to find a strategy to deal with all this shit.

Please understand that the ability that you have now to run, to walk, to type, it can be taken away from you.

It's miserable.

Please don't take it for granted.

Before we get into this episode, just wanted to say thank you first and foremost for being part of this community.

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been able to grow.

And it's the greatest honor of my life to sit here with these incredible people and just selfishly ask them questions that I'm pondering over or worrying about in my life.

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The beginning for the Diary of a CEO.

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Means the world.

Let's

get on with it.

What do I need to know about you and your, your earliest years to, to understand the life that you went on, that journey you went on, and the person you came to be?

Well, I grew up here in Los Angeles, not far from where we are, in a neighborhood called Baldwin Hills, and then we moved to another neighborhood.

I had a very nice childhood, very middle-class family.

My father was a salesman his whole life, worked for the same company for 40 years.

Just sold chemical supplies.

And, you know, my parents kind of left me alone a lot.

I was basically— my sister almost kind of raised me in a way.

And, you know, I had a very nice childhood, kind of left alone, sort of an introvert.

Books kind of shaped me.

I became an avid reader at an early age.

I knew I wanted to be a writer.

Got heavily into drugs, I'm afraid, in high school.

Because that's— that was the time and where I went to school.

And in college, had some great experiences.

I look very fondly back even on my drug experiences, even though they got kind of depressing after a while.

But it kind of shaped me in, in some ways.

And, you know, that was— that was me growing up, you know.

And if I had an attitude or a lens in which I looked at people from a distance, like I was always sort of obsessed With people wore masks, and the way I looked at it, even when I looked

at my parents and their friends, and I said, what is really going on behind there, the masks that they wear and all the social niceties going on?

What is behind, what is really the human animal like?

And so these are kind of the themes

that were a big part of me growing up.

From what I read, you had a lot of different jobs in a lot of different industries up until the point when you wrote the first of your many books called The 48 Laws of Power back in

1998.

And I was looking at all of these different jobs you'd had, and they all seem to be completely different from one another.

So then trying to understand how you arrived at a moment where you then wrote a book on the topic and subject matter of power, having not been, you know, psychology graduate or seemingly

worked in any industry related to like human psychology seemed to be really peculiar to me.

Yeah, and also I never really had a lot of power up until that point, so it wasn't like I knew everything about being a leader or anything.

Um, you know, a lot of things that happen in life are kind of by coincidence or serendipitous.

You don't necessarily plan on it.

Which is sort of when you look back on it, you can see a kind of an odd plan going on, like a destiny or fate.

But in the moment, I didn't feel that.

I had all of these different jobs, as you mentioned, some of them completely unrelated.

You know, I worked in construction, I had a construction job, I worked in a detective agency, I was a tour guide, I helped write an encyclopedia, I taught English in Spain, you know,

on and on and on and on and on.

But I was searching.

I wanted to be a writer, and a writer needs experiences.

I just was hungry for weird experiences.

You know, I never really stuck at any one job.

And by the time you're 37, 38, you know, my parents are starting to worry about me.

I'm starting to worry about me.

I'm getting a little bit depressed, even have moments where suicidal thoughts are floating in my brain.

Like, I'm very ambitious.

I know I could do something well.

But it's never come together.

And so here's the serendipity part.

I'm in Italy for a job, one of my 80 different jobs, and I meet a man who's a book packager there on this particular job we're on.

And he's, he's a Dutchman.

I'm not going to imitate him, but he asked me if I had any ideas for a book.

And suddenly all of the painful experiences in my life working in Hollywood all the assholes I've worked for, all these weird politicking, all the manipulative games, all the crap that

I had seen, it just came like almost vomiting out of me.

And I said, you know, here we are, 20— well, this was 1990, it was in the 20th century back then.

Here we are in the late 20th century and people don't dress like they did in the days of Machiavelli, right?

They don't wear wigs and stuff, but it's the same damn thing.

It's the same bloody battles going on, the same manipulations, the same kind of, you know, people don't reveal who they are.

And it's a timeless game of power, just the same as Louis XIV or Cesare Borgia or the people, the CEOs in the late 20th century.

It's just how this timeless thing— and I, as I'm telling him this, his eyes are lighting.

Wow, this could be, this could really be a book.

And, you know, He said, look, Robert, I'll pay you to live while you write half the book, and then we'll sell it.

And as I told you before, I was desperate.

It was my get rich or die trying moment.

I went back to Los Angeles, I borrowed money from my parents because I was that poor,

and I wrote a treatment, and he loved it.

And then the rest is history.

That's sort of my long-winded answer to your question.

That's so interesting.

It's crazy how in life things can just take such a

turn out of nothing, and you never know what that thing is going to be.

And I mean, you say the rest is history there.

Give me an idea of the success of that book, The 48 Laws of Power, because I mean, I've seen it everywhere for as long as I've been looking at books.

So what's the— give me some— quantify the global success of that book.

Quantify?

Yeah, well, here in the U.S., it's, it's sold quite a bit over 2 million copies, which is great.

The weird thing is it's selling now more than it ever has sold before.

In other words, the, the percentage of books that we're selling here in 2023 is greater than any period before.

So it's accelerating, which is insane, you know.

And even my English publisher is having the same, uh, is telling me the same stuff.

So it's kind of accumulated.

It, it started off a little bit slowly.

I mean, we got press, but it became this kind of cult thing.

I've had very little publicity in mainstream media, which was big back then.

It's not big anymore, thank God.

But, um, it was word of mouth.

It's like, have you heard about this book?

It's kind of dark, blah blah blah blah blah.

It got on a few television shows.

There was this show, a reality show with boxers, I think it was called The Contender.

In which the finalist held up a copy of the book and said, this book helped me get to where I am now.

And it sold like crazy.

It got into the hip-hop stream, you know.

Jay-Z was the first person I ever saw quoting the book in, in print, in a Playboy interview.

And then, you know, 50 Cent and all that, and Drake and all these people.

That really kind of set it into the stratosphere.

So it's, it's slowly become a bigger and bigger thing.

And I

had no idea, you know, I thought it was a weird book and it could be successful, but I had no idea the journey I was about to begin.

It's, it's, it's weird.

That journey of writing this book, has your— have your feelings towards the book evolved or changed over time?

Because society moves on, you move on as an individual, as a human, you learn new things, you mature, and then the book is kind of held in time.

Not really.

My philosophy in life is never look back, regret nothing.

You know, it's there, I did it.

It came in a particular moment in my life and in the zeitgeist, and things have changed a little bit.

But it was a very serious effort to try and get at something timeless.

Now, yes, there's a dark side to it, and maybe I've moved on from that.

Honestly, when I wrote my fourth book, Mastery, I was a little bit concerned that young people were getting too— were thinking that the whole game of life is about politics, manipulation.

So I wrote a book to kind of counter that.

But I think the book is true and it's held up.

I think

if I look at business, what's going on in the business world, I kind of got— I think I hit it on the nail about what goes on in the dynamics and the power game.

You know, I wrote a book on human nature, and the idea is we were formed hundreds of thousands of years ago in particular circumstances.

Our brains are wired a certain way.

Yes, we're very sophisticated.

Yes, we have the internet.

Yes, I'm here being interviewed by you on a podcast.

It's pretty insane.

But we haven't fundamentally changed.

The same raw emotions of envy, of aggression, of, you know, worrying about our status, about having to disguise ourselves and appear like we're saintly and loving, that we don't have

a shadow, which we all have— none of that has changed.

So yeah, I wouldn't write that book now because I'm at a different place in life, and I understand that.

But I have— I don't— I'm not ashamed of it in any way.

I stand by it, and I think I hit at something real.

What is, in your, your definition, what is power?

You know, I was really compelled when you're talking about the evolution, evolutionary roots of power, but like, at its essence, what is power?

It's not what you think it is.

It's not, you know, Vladimir Putin or presidents or Biden or all these political figures and these big games.

Power is a feeling.

It's an essence.

It's an emotion.

It's a human need and desire.

And really what power is, is a sense of understanding yourself and being able to control yourself.

So the way I look at it, I like to look at it not through the lens of great power politics, but as an average everyday human being here in the United States or in England, the feeling

that you have with your children, with your spouse, with your colleagues, the people who work for you, the sense that you have no control, that you can't influence them with your ideas,

that you can't get them to maybe, you know, soften some of their ugly behavior if they have that, that you can't get them interested in helping you with a project or whatever, is the

most miserable feeling a human being can have.

Malcolm X had a quote that I love, which is

Absolute power corrupts, but absolute powerlessness corrupts even more.

I'm butchering it, but that was the gist of it.

The feeling of powerlessness is actually more corrupting than the feeling of having a lot of power.

It turns people into being passive-aggressive, into playing all kinds of weird games, negative games to get power.

You want to feel that you have a degree of control over events in your life, over people, over your future.

And that to me is what power is, right?

And so some of that involves these games that I mention in there, and some of it goes beyond the 48 Laws of Power, which I've tried to indicate in my other books.

But it's the sense that I'm not helpless in this world.

I remember when I first entered the work world as a very naive college graduate with all these ideals and things I'd read, because I studied literature and languages, going, man, this

is weird.

People are playing all these kind of games.

I'm in over my head.

I made mistakes.

I got fired for being, you know, too brash, for outshining the master.

It was painful, right?

And so learning, you don't have to abuse the loss of power.

I don't advocate crushing your enemy totally.

I hope I don't have any enemies ever that I need to crush ever.

You just need to know these things so that when you enter the work world, you're not naive, you're not stupid, you don't make the same kind of mistakes that I made.

You spare yourself the pain.

You understand the most fundamental thing about human nature.

People have egos.

Even your boss has an ego.

You think he or she doesn't because they're powerful?

They have.

They're even more insecure than other people.

You need to be aware of these things so that you don't inadvertently make them feel insecure and suffer the consequences.

So, um, that's— I don't know, that's sort of my idea of power that I was trying to describe there.

The way you describe it is more of a sort of intrinsic um, force perception of yourself.

When people think of power, they think of having control over others or their influence over others, but you've kind of made it more of an internal force.

Yeah, well, if you can't control yourself, then you're in a lot of trouble in this world, right?

Because when you just naturally are yourself doing things, you're going to offend people.

You learn early on we're social animals.

I have to tailor my behavior.

You know, if you go on babbling about all about how you feel and think, etc., and you just say what's the first thing on your mind, you're going to end up having a very, very short

career.

You're going to be saying things that are going to offend people.

You're going to be making a fool of yourself.

You're going to be saying things that you end up regretting, right?

So you have no self-control.

And if you see somebody who has no self-control, it makes them It makes you look like you're not powerful.

If you can't control yourself, how can you control anything in your environment?

How can you be a leader, right?

So you have to learn certain things about, about your nature, about who you are, and not just, just be anybody.

You have to kind of tailor your appearances as well, because for good or for bad, I'm a believer in looking at the human animal without shame and embarrassment.

Just as we are, right?

And appearances matter.

It's the animal part of our nature.

We look at— we look, we judge people by how they appear, how they dress, their tone of voice, their body language, etc., etc.

It would be— in an ideal world, we wouldn't judge people by appearances.

We would just judge them by what's inside of them.

Yes, I agree with that.

But that we're not ideal.

We're not descended from angels, we're descended from primates.

So you have to understand that appearances matter, and this is part of the game.

And so you have to control your appearances a little bit.

You have to tailor it.

You have to be a bit of actor in this world, on and on and on.

You know, these are things that people don't like to admit about ourselves.

We like to think that we were much more— have much more idealistic, that we're that these things really don't matter in the end.

And I wish it were that way, but it's not.

And so, um, I'm a bit more of a realist when it comes to things like that.

But yeah, as you were talking about this

need to keep up appearances to some degree in order to survive and to fit into the, the tribes that we form in our lives, it made me think about how many guests I've had on this podcast

who work in maybe the entertainment industry or other industries.

Yeah, you know, they're famous, whatever, and they report that keeping up appearances had a really detrimental impact on their happiness and their fulfillment in life.

Because in some cases, they, you know, it meant that they were doing a job as a presenter and had to always be happy when inside they didn't feel that.

And maybe the contrast of reality and, um, and perception caused them a lot of harm.

Or they've built a life around things that they're not interested in.

I think you touch on some of that in Mastery.

Yeah.

Um, That's the question I have, which is keeping up appearances and the impact that that has on your happiness.

Are you wearing a mask?

And happiness, what's the relationship?

I talk about it in The 48 Laws of Power where you have to play this game in life.

It's a kind— to me, it's a form of wisdom, which is—

it's a wisdom that used to exist like in the 18th century.

I read a book that had a big impact on me many years ago called The Fall of Public Man.

By Richard Sennett, in which he described, like, cafe life in London in the 18th century, or France.

And he was saying, back then, when you entered the public arena or your cafe, you knew you were an actor.

You left the house, you put on the mask, and you had fun.

You know, you knew it was like fun, it was play.

You know, when you're a child, you like playing games, you like putting on costumes, you like playing your parents or some character you saw on TV.

It's part of human nature.

We like play these games.

We're role players, we're actors.

And he was saying in the 18th century, that was just a given in life, that when you entered the public realm, you knew you were an actor.

And then when you went home to your wife, your family, or your husband, or wherever, you drop the mask, you breathe a deep sigh of relief, go, now I can be who I am, right?

And it wasn't a problem.

It didn't create neuroses.

It didn't create this like What's wrong with me?

I don't know who I am anymore.

So people now, the problem now is we don't have distance from that social realm.

And so we think that if we're acting, that's who we are, but it's not.

It's just that's part of being a social animal is playing a role.

You know, I did a book with 50 Cent and he kind of exemplifies a lot of that.

He plays a role in life.

You know, when I met him, I thought, uh-oh.

I was kind of intimidated.

I was a little bit afraid.

You know, the thug.

This is a guy, when I met him, he was just a few years away from being shot and all this stuff.

And I met him and he was the nicest person in the world.

He was almost kind of sweet.

He'd hate it if I said that word, but he was sweet, right?

He was very down to earth.

He was very calm, etc.

He's playing a role when he goes out and he plays that person.

He knows it.

He knows it's like— he doesn't take it seriously, you know.

He had this big beef with Kanye West back when I was doing the book with him, and then I met the two of them in Vegas when they were there for the awards, and they were like the best

of friends.

They were joking.

It was just a game they were playing, right?

So what I tell people is we all are actors.

Humans are born actors.

We learn at a very early age to play that kind of game.

It's kind of fun sometimes to do that, you know, have it, enjoy that part of life, but don't think that it— don't get it confused with who you are in your essence.

That's sort of the dance you're playing between those two things.

I understand what you're saying, and a lot of it has to do, as you said, related to mastery, where people end up in a career that doesn't suit them.

And I look— I, I, I think I understand what you're getting at when I look at like presenters or people in the news and they have to smile and be so cheerful.

Like, man, what a drag.

I'd hate to be like that, you know?

That is so false.

Don't you feel kind of— don't you want to take a shower after you being so cheerful and chatty and all that shit, you know?

Yeah, I understand that.

But if, if that's the profession you chose and you love it, then maybe you don't feel that way.

I couldn't do it personally, but, you know, I think, I think it's okay to think of yourself as an actor.

I don't think there's anything wrong about that.

Um, the second very curious law in your book that I uncovered was, was law number 2.

I'm talking about The 48 Laws of Power here, where it says never trust friends too much.

Learn how to use enemies.

Yeah.

Do you trust your friends?

Okay, well, everything in the book is context, so when you take things out of context, it's a little harder to understand.

And what I'm trying to say in that— I'm talking about in the work world, when you're out in the social realm.

And one of the worst things that people do is you have a job, and I've been guilty of it myself even after I wrote the damn book, You're out in the work world and you need to hire somebody.

You need to find a colleague.

You need to find some— a partner or an employee.

Your mind naturally gravitates towards a friend, right?

Because they know you, you trust them, you have a relationship, you know, and you feel comfortable with them.

And it's a terrible mistake.

So many of the worst things have happened in history are because of that very problem.

Because friends, there's all these emotions involved between people, right?

And those emotions confuse the issue.

So what I'm talking about in that law is when you need to get results, you need to think— when you have a job or something, you have to think in practical terms, not in terms of emotions,

not in terms of friendship, etc., etc.

So you want to keep your work world separate.

It's not everything about life is having to be friends and having nice things and everybody like you.

Sometimes what matters is getting results done.

And sometimes the best person to work with isn't your friend because they don't have all this other stuff that we're talking about.

In fact,

a very powerful move is if there's an enemy out there, somebody who you never got along with,

If you say, if you approach them and say, let's bury the hatchet, you know, I have a job and I'd really like you to work with me.

I know you're really smart.

That per— the turnaround of emotions is a very powerful thing where they're going,

wow, yeah, sure, that's, that's great.

I never expected that.

And they're off, they're highly motivated to now prove that they're worthy of, of your if you change of mind.

So it's not about not trusting your friends in the realm of friendship, in personal relationships.

It's about being aware that the work world is different from the realm of personal relationships.

The other point I found really curious was, was point 3 about concealing your intentions.

And yeah, I find this curious because I've never really known where to land on this when people ask me for advice on the subject matter about how much of your hand should you show,

whether it's in business or life or whatever.

There's a, there's a group of people that think you should always just keep everything you're doing and your intentions totally secret because then people might copy you or they'll

attack you or whatever.

And then there's another school of thought that says when you're building something, when you're doing something, when you have a mission, you need to share it with as many people as

possible because that will galvanize people to, to come along with the journey with you and they'll want to support you and help you.

So when I read point number 3 about concealing your intentions, I wanted to ask you about what, what you think about that.

Which side do you land on?

Well, everything depends on circumstances.

So the laws are never meant to apply to every situation, right?

So when it's with your own team and you're trying to inspire them and you're trying to give them a vision, you try to get them on your side.

Yeah, you share your vision with them.

You share, this is where the group is going, this is where I want things to be.

In 3 years, let's all get together, we're trying to do something very positive for the world, okay, here's my plan, right?

But then there are circumstances where revealing everything about what you're planning to do is actually very counterproductive, right?

So the business world in the 21st century is extremely competitive.

It's getting worse and worse by the day as more and more people now are entering the power arena, and I think it's a great thing.

Where it used to be just a realm where only older white men had power, and now it's— the doors have opened to everyone.

The level of competition is that much more intense, particularly now even with the internet.

You have rivals out there, you have competitors out there.

Even as we talk right now, maybe you're not thinking about them, but they are.

They're, they're going to steal your ideas, they're looking to take your business away from you, etc., etc.

Just be aware of that phenomenon.

And just always saying what you're planning on doing isn't always the wisest thing to do.

Sometimes, if you're in a tricky situation,

putting people off the scent and giving them a red herring and saying, "I'm planning to do this," when in fact you're planning to do that, is a very powerful technique.

It's deception, but all's fair in love and war and business, I'm afraid.

So, you know, there are moments where you don't want to lay all your cards out on the table, right?

You want to either create a little bit of mystery so that people don't know what you're going to do next, and they're wondering what you're going to do next.

And as they're wondering what you're going to do next, they're kind of on their heels a little bit.

What's the next thing that, that Stephen is planning?

I don't really know.

Wow.

You know, it makes— it's a very powerful approach.

There are other times and other experiences and moments in life where you do want to reveal what you're planning to do because there's a purpose behind it.

I'm just saying, be aware.

Don't just act in this world.

Be aware.

Have a strategic mindset.

Sometimes concealing is what you need to do.

Sometimes not concealing is what you need to do.

It's funny, when we have this conversation about power and the darkness and the shadows, that people have in them.

I think a lot of people listening, and probably it seems that way because I'm the one asking the questions, as if I'm questioning society that I'm not part of, um, they'll think they

don't— they might think they don't play these games, right?

They might, you know.

So that's the question I have, is like, have you ever encountered anybody?

Do you believe there's anybody out there that doesn't play power games, manipulation, have shadows, have darkness in them?

No, I don't.

But so in my war book,

I read the biography of Mahatma Gandhi, one of the saintliest figures in history, right?

And I realized that Mahatma Gandhi was actually a brilliant strategist.

Now, I'm not saying his use of nonviolence and civil disobedience didn't come from the heart.

He didn't mean it.

He wasn't actually— he didn't actually believe in the peaceful method.

He did.

He was very sincere, but he was very strategic about it.

And he planned a campaign, several campaigns, like the Salt March in the '20s, where he knew, for instance, that the English public was very liberal-minded.

They had this ideal of themselves as being this very— they weren't colonialists, they weren't imperialists, they were doing the best for the world.

And he deliberately had these marches where he knew that they would be reading in their newspaper and seeing photographs of Indian people being beaten up by Englishmen and their Indian

officers on the streets of wherever.

It would have a terrible impact on the public.

He thought in terms of strategy.

Okay, so there's Gandhi.

Then there's Martin Luther King, who's somebody I wrote about a lot in The Laws of Human Nature.

Another great icon whom I admire, who actually was inspired by Gandhi and had campaigns of civil disobedience.

And there was a campaign, I believe it was in Montgomery or Selma, I can't remember which one, where he was getting fed up.

They weren't getting very far in the civil rights movement.

They were reaching a stalemate and he was getting very frustrated.

And

somebody, an advisor came to him, said, look, We're going to have this massive march, and I can get a lot of elementary school and junior high school students to be on this march because

they believe in you and they're very fervent.

And I think it would be great.

And his advisors go, God, you can't do that.

You can't put 13-year-olds at risk.

And Martin Luther King thought about it very deeply.

He said, no, we're going to go ahead and do it because, damn it, I want the American public sitting in there all fat and watching their televisions to see these brutal, you know, Bull

Connor, the police chief then.

I want to see these children being water hosed and beaten, and it's going to have an incredible impact.

He was being strategic, and his advisors were shocked by it, but it ended up proving to be one of the most pivotal, important moments in the civil rights movement.

So here you have Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

I'm never— and Martin Luther King was a flawed individual, as we know.

Right?

He had a private life that wasn't exactly the same as his public life.

I don't judge him for that because he was a brilliant man and I admire him.

I love him deeply.

Reading his biography made me even admire him even more, seeing that he had a human flawed side to him.

But these are icons that we set up and they reveal what I'm talking about in human nature.

You can't escape it.

Yeah, maybe there was some saint born in some century that I've never heard of that maybe got pretty far away from everything I've talked about.

But, you know, we all have this idea, like in the Laws of Human Nature, I write about irrationality, envy, aggression, ego, or narcissism.

Narcissism is a good one.

Oh, they're a narcissist.

I'm not a narcissist.

I'm not self-absorbed.

But they are.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't have any of those traits.

Well, damn it, every single human being has self-absorption traits.

We can't help it.

We naturally think of ourselves first.

Yes, there are people who are much deeper narcissists in life, no doubt, and there are toxic narcissists, but we all have a touch of it.

I want you to be a little more humble in this world and not be so arrogant and not think that you are somehow exempt from having a dark side.

That somehow you were born with a halo over your head, that you were born different, you don't have human nature, that you're a saintly person, you're much better.

Get rid of your moral superiority, 'cause I find that deeply offensive.

We are all cut from the same cloth.

We all have the same flaws.

And when you look at yourself, and when I wrote "The Laws of Human Nature," I'm going, "Damn it, Robert, you have a dark side.

You're a narcissist." You know, I had to come to terms with my irrationality, my grandiosity, my aggressive instincts.

But it's the only way to change yourself is to be aware that you have these issues.

I have the narcissistic tendencies.

Now I see it.

All right.

Now when they pop up, pop up, I can control it better.

I can say, damn, Robert, you're being too self-absorbed.

You think more about the other person.

But if you go around in life thinking, I don't have any of these problems, I'm not a narcissist, you're never going to have the awareness to stop the fact that you are actually one.

Being a narcissist, is that objectively a good or a bad thing?

Because when you, when you was— obviously I know people at home, it's a bad thing, it's a narcissist, cause a lot of harm, and that's very true.

But in the context of the human animal and why the human animal develops certain attributes and qualities to, to, you know, maybe further its survival or its ability to stay within

the social pact.

Is it just a consequence of being a human to have these, like, shadow traits and to be coercive and manipulative?

Is it good or is it bad, or is it neither?

It's neither.

Neither.

Um, because it just is, right?

Um, so with narcissism, for instance, um, there's a reason why we're narcissists.

So I explain in the book— it's not my own theory, it comes from some great psychologists like Kohut— the origins of narcissism, right?

So when you

have to leave— when your parents have to kind of not abandon you but have to not give you as much attention as you used to have, and you're 3 years old or 4 years old, you don't remember

it, but it was very painful.

Like, oh, they don't love me as much.

What's wrong with me?

Right?

You know, I have to get that love and attention, not just naturally.

I have to do things to earn it, etc., etc.

And what happens with a lot of people in that situation when you're a child is, I have to develop my own.

I have to be my own mother or father.

I have to find a way of loving myself.

When something bad happens, I have to retreat inward and go, I'm really not so bad at all.

I'm actually a decent person.

I like my own tastes.

I like the clothes that I wear, etc., etc.

You're developing the shreds of self-esteem, right?

And people who never developed that because they were abused or they were abandoned, or even if they were suffocated, never developed that self-esteem.

And so what happens in life is whenever— if you don't develop that and you get older and people attack you and yell at you or criticize you, you can't retreat inward to that self-esteem,

that love you have.

The only thing you know is to get angry, to get— they call it narcissistic rage— and to yell at people and say, God, get away from me, you're evil, etc., etc., etc., right?

And then the other problems evolve where the only way I don't have that inner self-esteem, the only way I can get people to love me is by being incredibly dramatic and overly dramatic,

etc., etc., etc., and always making myself the center of attention.

That's what creates a deep narcissist.

That's their only way of getting the love that they need.

So children, we all need that degree of self-esteem, that anchor in our life.

So narcissism, self-love, is not a bad thing.

But what happens is, as you get older, if you go too deep into it, it becomes a problem.

And so what I say is you need to take that self-love, and that's— that has a good function, and turn it outward as much as you can and turn into empathy and love and consideration for

other people more.

That's your task as you get older in life.

That's how I approach all of these flaws.

You can't run away from them.

You can't run away from your shadow, your dark side.

You can make it work for you, can make it positive and productive and healthy.

You can become a healthy narcissist, which is a name that I use in the book.

You can use your dark side for positive purposes.

Let's say you have a lot of anger inside, and I had a lot of anger when I was younger.

I was a very angry young man, right?

Channel that into some kind of cause,

like, and you know, I have a lot of causes that I believe in very deeply.

And when I was younger, I was like that.

Channel that energy into something productive and helpful and put it into something that goes to something that helps society.

That's using your dark side for positive purposes, because the dark side of human nature has a lot of creativity, has a lot of energy.

An artist has to have a dark side.

You use your dark side because all those dark emotions, all the people that shat on you in your life they inspire you, they create your best work.

Don't run away from your shadow, don't run away from your narcissism.

Use it in a healthy way

and acknowledge it.

I think that's the hardest thing for people to do, right?

Yeah.

So few people, I think, including myself, like, have really fully understood what their shadow and their dark side is.

I mean, doing this podcast has really helped me because I learn things from other people vicariously, and then I look at, reflect on myself.

Or keeping a diary has helped me to understand that.

But That first step in someone having the self-awareness to understand their dark side.

I mean, there's even a lot of people who confronting their dark side would be so— it feels like it would be so impactful on their self-esteem in a negative sense that they spend their

life putting up a wall to never go there.

I mean, there's some people who you even mention something to them and they would— triggers, triggers them.

Yeah, you know, we can all think of those people.

Um,

We can all think of those people.

The, the really interesting thing there is the role that your early years play on your relationship with power.

Because when I think about some of the nicest— I don't know if this is just a general stereotype or a narrow observation I've had, but some of the nicest people I've met, in terms of,

you know, being the opposite of whatever a toxic narcissist is, seem to have really comfortable loving, secure, safe early experiences.

And then, is that, is that broadly true in your view?

It's a generalization, but there is, is some truth to it.

I mean, there's things that called attachment theories where psychologists have looked at the kind of attachment you had to your parents, and they categorize it in 4 different ways.

And there's the ideal, the best one, where you have this incredibly loving mother and father, and then they're, they're giving you unconditional love, but they know also how to give

you your independence, etc.

It's not terribly common.

I don't know what the percentage would be.

Then there's levels and levels, and as you get to the fourth level, it's like the abandonment one, where— or abusive and abandonment, where you basically leave the child alone.

You don't give it any attention, any love, And it's very crippling, right?

But the thing is, children are much stronger than we think they are.

They're very resilient.

They're very resourceful.

They're going to find their love.

They're going to find a way to compensate for it in some way.

And what's something very interesting, when I was doing seduction in some of my other books, and I look at people who were like very charismatic, like a Malcolm X, like a Marilyn Monroe.

I could go on and on and on.

These are people that came from very, very bad families, right?

They had no love.

Marilyn Monroe was an orphan, essentially raised in an orphanage.

You know, her whole life was, I gotta get people to love me, I need love so desperately.

And her way of doing it was to literally make love with the camera.

Nobody ever done that before.

You could sense that she needed it, and it was so powerful that you sensed it, that she drew it to herself.

Great charismatic individuals.

John F.

Kennedy is someone who had a lot of charisma.

He came from a very bad childhood, right?

His father was very mean to him, etc.

Some children, in the worst circumstances, it ends up bringing the best out of them.

They have to find their way in life.

And some people who have everything don't go very far because they don't know how to find things for themselves.

So life is weird.

Some people who have great childhoods do well.

Some people have great childhoods, are spoiled, and never learn how to get things on their own.

And so people have the shittiest childhoods, learn how to be resourceful, and, and, and, and, and get what they need on their own.

You mentioned seduction there, The Art of Seduction.

Why did you write a book about the topic of seduction?

Seduction is a high form of power because you make people feel pleasure, you make them feel excited or interested in you, and then their resistance to your ideas slowly lowers, and

you have the ability to influence them and to move them in the direction that you want.

If you yell at them, like how we were talking about your child, and you tell them, do this, do that, They resent it, and for good reason.

But if you're subtler, if you're more seductive in your approach, if you're more indirect, people will do what you want or go in your direction without ever even realizing it.

So it was a sub-theme in The 48 Laws of Power.

And so I was sort of interested in the psychology of that and why some people are good at it and some people are awkward about it.

So when I finished The 48 Laws of Power, I thought this would be a natural segue, the next book.

What are the qualities of a great seducer?

Well, I like to distinguish between cold seducers and warm seducers.

A cold seducer is something you don't want to be.

That's the typical image that we might have of a male seducer, but even of a female seducer, like the great courtesans, etc., whether they're just after money or the men are just after

sex.

That's not my ideal.

My ideal

is kind of a back and forth quality where it's not domination.

It's sort of like a game that you're playing.

It's like a mating game.

It's like a courtship ritual where both part people are kind of seducing each other.

And so what makes for a great seducer is very simple.

I can summarize it very simply.

You are outer directed.

So when you meet somebody for the first time, or you're on a date or whatever it is, you're not having that internal monologue going, does she like me, or does he like me?

Am I dressed well?

Am I saying stupid things?

What can I do to impress them?

No, you turn it off and you're outer-directed, and you're listening to them, and you're entering their spirit, and you're hearing them say things that that give you idea of what they're

missing in life, of what they want, of what their needs are, of what makes them an individual.

You're absorbing it, you're entering into their spirit, and then you can reflect it back to them.

You can give them gifts, you can take them to places that show that you're attentive to them.

Because if you look at how we are in our day-to-day life,

normally people never pay us attention.

They're always so self-absorbed.

They're never thinking about us.

The times where you get the sense that people are actually interested in who you are as an individual is pretty rare.

If you give that feeling to someone, it's incredibly powerful because we all want to be validated.

We all want to be recognized.

So the seducer is not someone who's all worried about him or herself and thinking.

They're involved in the other person.

They're absorbed like a sponge inside their psychology, inside their world.

A lot of this is, you know, very applicable to romance and dating, etc., etc.

It feels, for whatever reason, I, you know, not necessarily something I've read much about in your work, but it feels like dating and romance and relationships have become much more

complicated in the modern world, that it's become much more difficult to seduce somebody.

Um, what is the— what are the attributes of someone then that is not good at seducing?

Anti-seducer has many qualities.

I have a whole chapter on the anti-seducer.

I try and define it.

Uh, there, there are several of them.

I can't— I don't have them all memorized, but one quality that's very anti-seductive is preaching and moralizing, is like telling people, oh, that's wrong what you just said, or 'Your

politics are ugly,' or 'You're not really good at this,' or something or other.

Having a moral superiority, a sense of sanctimonious sanctimony in a realm which should be about pleasure, where there should be that kind of equality, that kind of back-and-forth dynamic,

where you're asserting your moral superiority is deeply, deeply anti-seductive.

The element of preaching to people, not being generous, And I mean, not just with money.

Money is important, but not being generous with your spirit, right?

You want to be open.

You want to give as much as you can to the other person of yourself, of your time, of your money, of your energy, etc.

So being all kind of crimped and I don't want to give, I don't want to spend money, I want to take you to the cheap place to eat, I don't want to give you much time.

Is very, very anti-seductive.

When you were talking a second ago about the person who goes on the date and they're thinking about themselves and what they, you know, what their hair looks like or whatever else,

that spoke to an insecure person.

Is insecurity a seductive quality or is it an anti-seductive quality?

It is anti-seductive.

Now, there is a part of weakness that is seductive.

So I would say vulnerability is seductive, but insecurity is anti-seductive, and there's a big difference.

Why does vulnerability draw people to you?

Because the sense— so if I can define seduction in, in, in simple terms, um, most of the time we are closed to the influence of other people, particularly now We have these walls up

because life is harsh.

People are coming at us with their advertisements, with their pleas, with their wanting money, with this and the other.

And we've all learned to be very defensive, right?

And seduction is an openness, is the opposite of that.

And you felt it when you were a child towards your parents.

You felt very vulnerable and open, and, and there was an element of your parents and how they treated you that was very much like a seduction, right?

So seduction is about being open to the other person to the extent where you can even fall in love.

You can fall under their spell.

And the sense of letting go of your ego, letting go of your defensiveness, and letting other— another person enter your world is being seduced.

It requires vulnerability.

If you meet— the typical scenario is of a man who's not vulnerable at all.

He's so powerful and in control and everything, has no vulnerabilities.

It's frightening, you know, for a woman.

It could be very frightening.

Like this, he's, he's so strong, he's so invulnerable that there's something wrong about it, you know.

Maybe he's a serial killer, maybe he's got skeletons in his closet.

Something isn't right about that.

What, what seduces you about a puppy about a child, about an animal, is their vulnerability.

It makes you want to hug them.

It makes you want to help them, right?

The sense which, if you came upon a tiger that's there and they don't need that, well, that's not seductive.

I mean, on your screen it is, but if they're there in your living room, that's not seductive.

But that puppy is, right?

Vulnerability, the sense that somebody needs protection or help, brings out qualities in us that we don't normally have that I think allow for seduction.

So that is being vulnerable.

That is,

I can be influenced by that other person.

I am open to the— to their spirit, right?

That's being vulnerable.

The word vulnerable— I hate to sound like a professor here, so excuse me— in seduction comes from the— the root of it means a wound.

Vulnerability.

So you have a wound inside of you and you need healing, and the other person naturally wants to help you, right?

But being insecure is the op— means I'm so self-absorbed, I'm so worried about myself that I can't get out of it.

And we've all had that experience when you meet somebody and they— and you can sense, you can smell their insecurity in them.

I'm not judging them because we all have insecurities.

It makes you feel insecure, it makes you feel a little bit awkward.

Whereas if you meet someone who's not like that, who's confident, etc., it brings out that quality in you.

So if you're on a date and there's someone who's— you smell that kind of insecurity, it makes you awkward and insecure, it creates a kind of a problem.

So that would be the difference between the two.

There's going to be a lot of people listening to this that are single

and ready to mingle, um, what advice would you give them in terms of being great at dating?

You've talked about the importance of vulnerability there and how that kind of forms connection between humans in a very innate way.

What else is great dating advice for this, for the single people out there?

Well,

the thing is, okay, there's several things.

So first of all, we live in a culture where People think you don't— you shouldn't have to put effort into something like love and romance.

You should just be who you are, man.

I don't have to put on a role.

I don't have to play a game.

That's manipulative, blah, blah, blah.

No, I'm sorry.

Love and romance is something that is almost biological.

If you look at animals and mating rituals, they're incredibly elaborate.

Seduction is a mating ritual.

And so the worst thing you can feel is that this person isn't putting any effort into something.

Let's just say it's from the woman's point of view.

This man, he just shows up wearing jeans and his usual sloppy outfit.

He doesn't comb his hair, etc., etc., etc.

He takes me to the pub for dinner on our first date.

You know, he's not thinking about me.

He's not willing to put any effort into it.

If he's not willing to put any effort into it, what's it going to be like 3 months down the line when he completely takes me for granted, which is what happens in a relationship?

Am I not important enough?

Right?

Whereas the ability to have a little bit of effort, to think of it as kind of theater and drama, and that there's nothing evil about it.

So I'm going to dress nicely.

I'm going to— I just have to be fancy.

Just that I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna put some effort into how I look.

I'm gonna take her to a place that isn't— is, you know, I'm not talking about candlelights and roses and that kind of crap.

It doesn't have— you can be creative.

It can be somewhere that, that's scuzzy, that's on the wrong side of town, but it's different and it's appealing to— and you put some thought into it.

There's a reason you're taking her there, right?

I have a friend who went on a date And she came back from the date and was complaining because the person that she date— went on that first date with was using a— took her to a spot

where he had an available valid discount code, like 2-to-1.

And talk about anti-seduction.

There you go.

Why is that anti-seductive?

In that case, one might say that male is being, you know, economically savvy, financially savvy.

They, you know, if you're not able to let go of your, of your kind of tightness when it comes to a woman, something's wrong with you, man.

Just let go.

Spend some extra money.

Spend the extra 10 quid that you might need to spend on taking her to someplace different.

But it signals a kind of cheapness, and it's not about money, it's about a cheapness in your spirit, right?

She's not worth You know, letting go.

Okay, maybe you don't have that much, but my God, you have enough.

It's not gonna like make— if you're that poor, then, then, you know, okay, maybe, but probably not.

You could afford it.

Show that you— that it means something to you.

Let— seduction is a language.

It's not a language of words.

It's a language of gestures that we're paying attention to.

We're paying attention to people's body language.

We're paying attention to their actions, to the things that they never say.

So when you signal that discounts are so important to you that even on the first date you have to have a discount, you're signaling that it's not— there's something tight about you

in your nature, and it's not very pleasant.

I, from doing this podcast and speaking about topics like love and sex and dating and, you know, dating apps even, One of the

comments I saw quite frequently was from young men who are struggling to seduce a

woman.

Yeah.

Or vice versa.

Specifically young men that, you know, and then I read some stats.

I think Scott Galloway came on the podcast and talked about how— I'm gonna butcher these numbers, but a staggering amount of men haven't had sex in the— young men haven't had sex in

the last 12 months.

Um, and then when I looked at the comments section specifically on YouTube, I saw— I kind of saw that energy reflected where it looked like young men in particular were struggling to

seduce a mate, a partner in the modern world.

Is, is that real in your view?

Is there, is there something that has changed in society?

Has that always been the case?

Um, is there anything we can do if we're a young man that's struggling in the modern world because of the internet and computers and this dating apps?

And

well, a lot of it is, I'm afraid to say, is internet porn, where you get the idea that, you know, sex is something that should be very easy and quick, and that women should have— look,

have that kind of body and physique, etc., etc.

And that becomes your norm, etc.

That can be, that can be very damaging.

But the idea that things must come easy and quick is, is very prevalent.

And to win over someone, like, oh, let's say you're a man and it's a woman who might be reluctant to have sex for good reason, or reluctant to have a relationship,

requires some effort.

It requires some thinking.

You can't just hack your way, you can't just swipe and get it.

You can, you can have your internet sex, but you're not going to get that in real life.

It doesn't work that way.

It takes time, it takes patience.

You know, and you're going to have to work at it, and you're going to be rejected.

Being with people is a skill.

Being a social animal, although there's a part that comes naturally, if you spend all of your time here, you're losing that skill of how to respond to people's body language.

You know, half of the thing is you're sitting in a bar opposite, let's say it's a woman,

and how she crosses her legs How she sips her drink, how she looks at you, how she touches her hair.

She's signaling things.

It's a language, a beautiful language, right?

You have to learn it, and you're not going to learn it here because you can't.

You have to be in person, has to be skin to skin.

You have to get a feel for what other people are thinking and feeling.

And we're actually really, really good at that.

Humans have— that's what makes us human.

It's called mirror neurons.

I can sense what's going on in your mind.

I can read your body language.

You have to get out in the world and you have to put yourself physically out there and try and try and try and have rejection.

And I know it sounds awful, but it is a skill in a way where you're learning how to, like, understand and deal with people

and understand who they are and get inside their spirit.

It takes time and effort and patience.

So for young men, you have to realize that, right?

If you think everything has to be easy and quick, it's never gonna work for you.

And I talk about the actor, the Hollywood actor Errol Flynn, who is perhaps

numerically the greatest male seducer ever, because estimated that he had seduced close to 3,000 women.

And he died when he was 50.

And if I did the math one day, what, how can that possibly be?

Um, and I tried to research what was his secret, and it was hard to find out.

Finally, I found a book written by a woman whom he had seduced, another actress, and she said he was so relaxed and so comfortable, it was like being, it was like an animal type thing.

And then when I would sit with him It was almost as if I had drunk 2 martinis just sitting next to him.

His comfort and his security and his confidence, his relaxed attitude, it just made me drunk.

So feeling relaxed, feeling confident and not defensive and comfortable with yourself is a very powerful seductive quality.

I mean, there are many of them, but that's one that I would point out.

Have you ever figured out what builds confidence?

You earlier on, you were talking about how children need to experience things firsthand.

You can't just tell them.

You can't just tell someone, for example, to be confident.