00:03:58.080In five or 10 years, I would like to be, you know, accomplishing the same kind of things.
00:04:03.640their spirit their sense of humor their openness their the way they think is something I feel a
00:04:11.720connection to that in a kind of an intuitive way and so you find a mentor that way where there's
00:04:18.920so I had in my book Mastery there was a woman Yoki Matsuoka who's I consider a brilliant
00:04:26.060master of robotic intelligence who I interviewed she was looking for a mentor at MIT
00:04:31.980she's always been kind of a rebellious person she played tennis as a young woman and her her
00:04:39.300her idol was was John McEnroe and so she was looking for a mentor who had the same kind of
00:04:45.380rebellious spirit as her so there's a there's a kind of similarity in spirit that's how you
00:04:51.260find them then the next question is how do you get them how do you how do you initiate
00:04:56.440communication and contact with them yeah okay i think i've heard of that woman i think i was
00:05:04.420considering interviewing her for the podcast she sounds really interesting yeah yeah just a month
00:05:09.380ago that's coincidental that's funny hey guys i've partnered with merrick health a very cool
00:05:15.080telehealth company for health optimization i only advertise things i actually use otherwise people
00:05:21.180wouldn't trust me anymore not that I trust people and normally I kind of hate doctors not all of
00:05:27.480them the ones I have on the podcast I like a lot but Merrick Health has been so great you know I'm
00:05:34.920on the lion diet for serious autoimmune issues but I keep an eye on the blood work anyway because
00:05:39.960it's a new diet it's restrictive and because I'm allergic to everything was exposed to mold etc etc
00:05:45.880there's something wrong with me no harm in blood work as long as you don't go down a dangerous
00:05:51.040rabbit hole of treating blood work rather than symptoms. Anyway, Merrick Health is a telehealth
00:05:57.500company that Derek Monroe actually introduced me to that does in-depth hormone panels as well as a
00:06:03.460ton of other blood work. If you need blood work tested properly, check them out. They're better
00:06:08.500than just going to a random clinic. A lot of the blood work you get tested at a regular doctor's
00:06:13.000office doesn't go in-depth, especially with hormones but also with other blood markers.
00:06:17.040The doctors that work with Merrick are very in the know about lifestyle optimization and can prescribe hormones, peptides, high quality vitamins and supplements.
00:06:27.140I use them, my dad uses them, my husband uses them, my brother uses them.
00:06:32.140I basically had my blood done and then spread them throughout my family.
00:06:36.240They do your blood work, then they thoroughly explain the markers and suggest treatments.
00:06:40.280if you want to try the same hormone panel i got done when my hormones and vitamins tanked when i
00:06:46.480lived in a place with mold like bad strains of mold in the hvac you guys have heard about it
00:06:51.380you're probably sick of mold go to merrickhealth.com slash michaela and if you can't spell that the
00:06:57.600link is in the bio and the description anyway i honestly really like them and so many people
00:07:03.040have hormone problems nowadays if you look at the statistics that could be fixed with some
00:07:08.160supplements or hormone therapy and they could feel so much better quite easily so check them
00:07:13.780out at merrickhealth.com slash michaela code mp for 10 off at checkout they're pinned in the
00:07:20.540description they're in the bio i trust these guys enjoy the rest of the episode are you planning on
00:07:27.700writing in your new book anything about anxiety or have you written anything about anxiety before
00:07:31.760anxiety um well it's kind of something that i i discuss peripherally in all of my books and i
00:07:41.640discuss it a little bit in sublime i mean it's related to our relationship to death i believe
00:07:48.080um so we have layers of emotions in each of us we we only we're only generally aware of the surface
00:07:57.300so I feel angry or excitement I'm just aware of what initially triggered it but deep down inside
00:08:06.220in your unconscious there was something there was something else underneath it that triggered that
00:08:10.840emotion right so anxiety is the same thing and underneath it in deep deep layers is your fear
00:08:17.920of death so if you're if you're not confronting your mortality the fact that your your life is
00:08:24.960sure that you're going to die someday then these all these kind of little roots of anxiety start
00:08:31.440sprouting up inside of you and you become afraid of other things and anxiety becomes kind of
00:08:37.160generalized because you're not dealing with the most basic reality which is your mortality
00:08:43.160right and so then there are other factors that you're not dealing with as well so I think anxiety
00:08:50.760is like we all feel it. I feel it a lot. I happen to have come from parents, a mother who's very
00:08:59.400anxious all the time. And she kind of ingrained that in me. So I have a lot of anxiety. And there
00:09:05.720could be a productive side to anxiety if you know how to deal with it. But the problem most people
00:09:11.580have is they don't analyze their emotions. They don't know, why am I feeling anxious? What is it
00:09:19.600in this particular moment that's triggering it? Or what is lying underneath it? So when I'm
00:09:26.200writing a book, I'm extremely anxious because I don't think it's right. I'm not getting the right
00:09:33.080answer here. What I've written is superficial. And so I use that anxiety to make me go deeper
00:09:40.080and deeper and deeper and deeper into what I'm working on. So you can make it something productive
00:09:44.900if you understand where it comes from.
00:16:50.460writing about why you're afraid and sometimes what happens is you start writing and you go
00:16:58.020off on these tangents and then you realize there's something else involved that's going on here
00:17:02.740it's a very free-flowing process and it's a very beautiful process so
00:17:06.920i think what you're doing there is is very wise
00:17:09.920yeah i haven't thought about the fact that you're actually physically putting something on paper and
00:17:16.940it could be thought of removing it from yourself. I like that as opposed to talking. I like that.
00:17:22.860Yeah. I mean, a lot of people just do, excuse me, do it on the computer, which is fine. I'm very
00:17:29.920old fashioned. I like actually taking a book with an actual pen and writing it down. So it's
00:17:36.500physically, it's your hand that's moving it and it's not just all virtual and you have it on paper.
00:17:42.560there is something very powerful about that um but yeah i i mean we've i don't know about you but
00:17:49.460we've all a lot of us have been through the kind of therapy where you see a therapist and you talk
00:17:53.600it through yeah it'd be good but so much of that it doesn't seem to lead anywhere you can spend
00:17:59.680years and years and years and you go round and round and round in the same circles right but
00:18:05.160having the ability to put it out on paper or to express it artistically to create
00:18:10.800a novel or a book or or a piece of film or maybe what you do with your podcast it gets it outside
00:18:18.800of you and out there in the world and it doesn't haunt you it doesn't torment you as it as it would
00:18:24.240if it's always just inside i think therapy is probably tricky for some people and works for
00:18:30.060other people like i know for me i i started therapy when i was when i was 12 because i was
00:18:36.860extremely depressed and I was on medication and they were, the doctors were like, you should see
00:18:40.320a therapist. And I just, I had a hilarious number of therapists in a row that just didn't work in
00:18:47.420hilarious ways, like terrible, terrible ways. But the first one, her husband got brain cancer,
00:18:54.900which is just terrible. And she couldn't handle it. So she'd talked to me about it. I was 12
00:19:00.120and it was just like her room was full of I was too old for it too she only saw chronically ill
00:19:07.940depressed kids so you'd go into the doctor's office and it'd be full of kids that were
00:19:12.420really hurt in wheelchairs and like really disabled and I looked normal even though I
00:19:19.940had arthritis everywhere I looked like a normal kid so it was like scary going in there and then
00:19:24.280her office was covered in frogs little stuffed animal frogs it was just like yeah anyway that
00:19:30.400was the first one and then after that I kept making them cry I'd tell them what was going
00:19:35.400on and they'd cry and I was just like this isn't I'd be like no it's okay everything's fine I'm
00:19:40.800fine look up here I'm fine anyway they need a therapist yeah well maybe those are the people
00:19:49.420that go into therapy I think you should write a book about this experience is it would be very
00:19:53.580funny and very interesting going back on all of the therapists that you've had and about your
00:19:58.580early experiences oh man i have i have most of a book done i just haven't finished it because like
00:20:04.860the last couple years four or five years were hard so i'm not like ready to pour that out yet
00:20:12.260it's still swirling around soon though i think i'm almost ready if you guys ever consume alcohol
00:20:18.740ever. It should probably be vodka, but that's not what I'm talking about right now. Please
00:20:25.340try my supplement. I drink probably once a month other than pregnancy and breastfeeding and things,
00:20:32.380which puts a kibosh, total kibosh in drinking. I don't drink that much, but this supplement
00:20:37.660eliminates the hangover. If you want the scientific research, although I was told that people aren't
00:20:43.720interested in scientific research but i figured you guys would be you can go to fullerhealth.com
00:20:49.140and read the studies that's what convinced me that the compound we used in this actually worked
00:20:55.380because a hangover supplement sounds like it wouldn't work but this actually works
00:20:59.340people in japan have been using it for thousands of years and like the white man just doesn't know
00:21:04.780i hope youtube doesn't suppress me for that anyway we managed to purify it and put a high
00:21:12.060dose in a pill. So you get like half a year's worth of this with one order. If you don't drink
00:21:19.180very often, it helps save your brain from the toxic effects of alcohol. And if you like it,
00:21:24.760please leave a review. I love reading the reviews, but honestly, I just want people to be healthier
00:21:29.820and drinking isn't healthy, but I don't know. Sometimes letting loose can be good for you.
00:21:36.220and why not alleviate the negative impacts with this magical supplement you guys know i don't
00:21:43.380push supplements because most of them are a complete waste of money just pee them out this
00:21:48.760one isn't it has no fillers or extra ingredients and we have a 30-day money back guarantee
00:21:53.840so you're safe you could even try it and then complain and get your money back even if it works
00:22:00.260don't do that though please but uh give it a shot fullerhealth.com code mp15 for 15% off
00:22:09.860enjoy the rest of this episode okay you talked about you talked about human beings being slippery
00:22:15.920so yeah I had the naive idea uh growing up that people everybody else was exactly like me
00:22:25.560that's just what I thought everybody else was like I didn't realize people differ so
00:22:30.260greatly. I just, I didn't know that till I was probably 24. I didn't understand it. It's hard
00:22:35.420to understand somebody else. So, um, I didn't realize how, what percentage of the population
00:22:41.260is slippery. So how do you, how do you teach people to identify slippery people? Are there
00:22:48.560behaviors that you can look out for? So you realize what's going on before you intertwine
00:22:53.840yourselves with them? Well, the first thing you have to realize, this is a lot about,
00:22:57.660I wrote about in my book about human nature is we all have this quality. So we all have slippery
00:23:03.780tendencies. I know that if people are confronting me in certain ways and I don't like it, I'll have
00:23:11.320like a slippery strategy for avoiding them because I don't like, well, it's a bad quality in me,
00:23:17.280but I'm admitting it. I don't like overt conflict. I don't like overt confrontation. So it's
00:23:23.500important to recognize that we all have these tendencies and not get so righteous about it,
00:23:29.240right? But then there are people who are super slippery, who are much more slippery than I am.
00:23:35.500And the main thing to understand is that people have patterns. So if somebody does something once
00:23:43.920where you find them talking behind your back, or you find them not showing up for an appointment
00:23:50.840are not doing what they promised that they were going to do for you, which is typical slippery,
00:23:55.660passive aggressive behavior, your first tendency would be, what's going on here? That something
00:24:01.500isn't right. And then maybe you might ask them about it and they'll have some excuse going, well,
00:24:06.720I'm sorry, you know, I was caught up in traffic or I've been very busy or whatever. And you go,
00:24:11.600okay, that's fine. You have to stop and go. If somebody is like that once, it is probably part
00:24:18.300of a pattern right so if somebody is late once they probably are doing it chronically and it's
00:24:25.020not a sign that they're just disorganized that they live in a place where there's a lot of
00:24:29.840traffic it's a sign where they're they don't completely respect you they're they're much more
00:24:34.660they think they are so much more important their time is so much more important than yours
00:24:39.180if people don't answer your emails maybe they do have a good excuse so you give them a little bit
00:24:46.300of leeway you go okay i'll let it happen once but if it happens again and again and again then you
00:24:52.200know that something else is going on so you recognize the pattern and you understand that
00:24:57.340people never or very rarely do something once so if they're doing this kind of evasive behavior
00:25:05.180where they're or they're um a lot of envy where people act like they're your friend and they they
00:25:12.860love you and they're they're just so into your life and they want to hear everything about you
00:25:16.840but then they do something that's that strikes you as odd that seems like they're kind of hurting you
00:25:22.960or they're sharing your secrets or they're betraying you in some way a lot of that will
00:25:28.280stem from envy so they they became your friend they became so close because secretly they don't
00:25:35.960really like you they feel like you got something that they should have that you don't really
00:25:40.340deserve it. So you have to be able to not be so naive is the main lesson here. When people do
00:25:48.300something that strikes you as sort of odd, or potentially hurtful, right? Don't just accept
00:25:58.080their excuses, or don't just let pass it by, but analyze it and look at them and try and see if
00:26:04.160it's something in their character, that they might that there might be something else going on.
00:26:08.800because people who are who are toxic or who are evasive or passive aggressive
00:26:16.000the problem that that we have is that they generally try to present a very pleasant
00:26:20.920genial friendly front and we don't recognize it and that charming front kind of deceives us
00:26:27.780and then if they do something that we don't like our first instinct will be to blame ourselves or
00:26:34.080maybe it was something that I did. And I want you to like have some distance from the social realm
00:26:40.280and look at it as if it's like a boxing ring where people are punching each other,
00:26:44.540right? And kind of step back and analyze what people are doing, analyzing their moves and
00:26:50.580seeing the patterns there and not getting so emotional and having some detachment and analyzing
00:26:56.260the patterns that you can see in their behavior. Did it take you a while to like, to figure that
00:27:02.340out. Is that how you viewed people when you were, say, below the age of 20? Or did you have things
00:27:09.660happen to you in life and then you realized that this is what people were like? Well, I think a lot
00:27:14.760of it is your early parenting and if you're a child and you feel at all vulnerable, like you're
00:27:23.620not getting quite what you want, you become very sensitive to people and their motives and their
00:27:29.120behavior because you're afraid of being hurt. So a lot of very empathetic people later in life,
00:27:36.040I've found in my experience, had parenting that was there was something a little bit off about it.
00:27:42.400And they had to be very attentive to the adults around them to make sure that they weren't hurt.
00:27:48.080Right. So you develop a kind of sensitiveness. But I will admit that when I was 22, 23,
00:27:54.660and I entered the work world I was very naive I thought like you that everyone's was going to be
00:28:00.600like me that they were going to work very hard and try and get the right results and that
00:28:06.060thinking and ideas is what mattered and getting getting what the results that you wanted and then
00:28:12.060lo and behold it's all about politicking about who who's friendlier with the boss about who's0.98
00:28:18.480got this kind of office about all this kind of bullshit that I just thought was ridiculous in0.96
00:28:23.820fact it kind of ended up inspiring my first book the 48 laws of power so I was naive too0.95
00:28:31.000but because I had that childhood where I was very sensitive to people I don't like getting hurt
00:28:37.000I was very keen on observing what this is what is going on and I was very much seeing this kind
00:28:43.920of power games that people were playing you know and um I didn't think that people were as innocent
00:28:51.040as they protested. I've always had an idea of analyzing things and I like to understand what's
00:28:58.060going on underneath. So from very early on, I was aware that people wear masks. They pretend to be
00:29:05.760something that they're not because that's what it means as a human being when you're social,
00:29:10.560when you're out in the world. You're never exactly who you are. You're wearing a kind of a mask.
00:29:16.420So how you are with your father and how you are with the public or with other people, it changes with each different person that you interact with, right?
00:29:25.900So I've always been aware of these masks that people wear and what is going on beneath the friendly smile or that continual frown or that kind of fake laughter.
00:29:40.640A lot of smiling and laughter is actually quite painful.
00:29:43.820and you have to be sensitive and you have to think about it and you have to use some of your
00:29:49.560intuitive powers and your empathy to kind of it's not all just intellectual a lot of it is
00:29:54.680and is feeling what other people are feeling it and kind of seeing you know what i say like that
00:30:01.400fake smile and what's behind it yeah i think i i realized i mean intuition is a better word
00:30:09.100I've been calling it vibe, but vibe's fine. Uh, I used to pick up on that before I realized what
00:30:17.120it was just being uncomfortable around certain people and being like, well, it's making me
00:30:21.560uncomfortable. Nothing should be making me uncomfortable. Maybe it's something that's
00:30:25.020wrong with me. And eventually something on would unfold. And I'd be like, oh, that's what I was
00:30:29.240picking up on. Um, but I, I thought intuition and the whole vibe thing and picking up on things that
00:30:35.320you couldn't I guess articulate properly I thought that I thought that was all bullshit I guess for a0.97
00:30:42.000while I don't anymore but like for quite a while I did why do you think it was bullshit I think it0.98
00:30:48.680was because I couldn't articulate it like if you you walk into a room and you can tell two people
00:30:53.420are arguing but no one said anything that feeling that's in the air yeah exactly like of course it
00:30:59.500also it's also possible I was on antidepressants for a long time and I think that kind of screws
00:31:03.880with your perception so maybe that played a role a lot i've noticed with a lot of women for instance
00:31:10.420who get into very bad relationships and they talk they come to me for advice etc and a lot of times
00:31:16.200they had a feeling when they first met man that something wasn't right with him right but then
00:31:23.700they forgot about it they didn't listen to that little voice that little intuitive vibe if you
00:31:28.640will, that there was something about this man that was maybe narcissistic, that was maybe a
00:31:35.180touch violent, that was maybe, you know, whatever you want to call it. And then he charmed them in
00:31:41.680some way and he put on a smile and he said all the right things. But that first moment where you
00:31:48.160catch something about a person before you get emotionally involved with them is very, very
00:31:54.820you telling and you have to listen to it because it's real that feeling in the air about people
00:32:00.420I mean think of it this way we are animals that have roots that go back millions of years okay
00:32:07.540and as human beings we spent in our evolution hundreds of thousands of years without words
00:32:15.120without language and we were very much a social animal we were attuned to people's feelings
00:32:21.540We had no words to communicate them, but we understood just by looking at them that there was something wrong or there was a danger in the environment.
00:32:30.360We have that ability. It's very powerful. It's built inside of us.
00:32:34.320That feeling in the air that you sense when you went to a room and people you know have been arguing is real.
00:32:40.580There's something going on, but it's not something you can verbalize.
00:32:43.600you have to trust that feeling and go lean into it and go what is that and not just push it away
00:32:50.620and go it's just woo woo it's it's not science because it is it is actually very accurate
00:32:55.920yeah I completely agree I completely agree I mean I think people are talking about it now
00:33:04.440more and taking it more seriously but your example of telling women that if they feel
00:33:09.560that something's off to follow that instinct that's extremely valuable yeah because i've
00:33:17.140heard it time and again they'll say you know when i first met him i had this weird feeling and then
00:33:23.080and then i thought well maybe i'm wrong you know maybe it was like i had a bad relationship before
00:33:28.620maybe i was just projecting it onto him yes that's possible but more likely you were sensing
00:33:34.000something that is actually very real about this person and then you forgot about it or you repressed
00:33:39.420interested because you you wanted to have that relationship and so you when you get emotionally
00:33:45.660involved with the person it's very very difficult to analyze them to step back and go what is their
00:33:52.240character what is really going on here and I'm not saying you need to be this cold person that is
00:33:57.420always analyzing everything people do that'll make you miserable but having the ability to
00:34:04.640occasionally step back and let go of your emotions and just look at the person. I can't tell you how
00:34:10.620powerful that can be, how liberating it can be, how it can save you from entering a relationship
00:34:16.200that will end up costing you emotionally for years and years and years. It's a very, very
00:34:20.760important skill to develop. Is there a difference between power and just manipulation? Well,
00:34:28.600Well, that's a good question. I mean, in the 48 laws of power, most of the techniques,
00:34:37.360not most, but a fair amount of them have to do with manipulation. But not all of it has to do
00:34:43.480with manipulation. So, you know, it's like a lot of the power in life comes from within you.
00:34:50.660It's not about pushing people around and crushing them and seducing them. It's about yourself and
00:34:57.600how you carry yourself. So a lot of the laws of power in that particular book have to do with
00:35:03.400your attitude towards yourself, right? So I have a chapter in there, excuse me, called, excuse me,
00:35:11.180act like a king to be treated like one. So if you think of yourself as a king or a queen,
00:35:18.440as somebody very powerful that deserves great things in life, other people pick up on that.
00:35:24.100and it makes them go, well, I'm going to treat them that way.
00:35:28.160That's not really, to me, a manipulation.
00:35:30.600That's just how you feel about yourself, right?
00:35:34.220So always say less than necessary, which is a very powerful technique,
00:38:27.660But yes, what you say is very true. So in the work world, and this is a problem that people have in the world today because of social media, they're so used to revealing everything about themselves, what they had for breakfast, where they vacationed, who they're dating, all this other stuff, that when they enter the work world, they don't know how to turn that off and they just become the same person.
00:38:53.720And it's not good. It's not being a social human being. In the work world, you're playing a role,
00:38:59.620you're playing a particular game, you're trying to fit in, you're trying to get things done in a
00:39:04.300certain way. You're wearing a mask, you're playing a game, you're playing a role. It doesn't have to
00:39:10.180be who you are personally. So it's very important to differentiate your friendships from the work
00:39:17.440world and and the power well it's a very important thing to learn do you think if you put on these
00:39:24.380masks they end up incorporating into who you are at some point anyway well it's a good point and
00:39:30.880that happens to people if you notice somebody as they get into their 40s and they played this
00:39:37.160particular role in life they were like whatever job they were and they were always kind of wearing
00:39:42.560that mask, that by the time they're 45, they can't take it off. Their face is kind of frozen
00:39:47.980into that look that they've had at the work world or whatever, right? So the key is you have distance
00:39:56.780from yourself, right? So if you go in the work world and you have to smile a lot and you have
00:40:04.240to tell people that you love their ideas, even though you think their ideas suck, and you have
00:40:08.420to do all the kind of gamesmanship, you have some distance and you go, I know I'm playing a role,
00:40:14.920okay? I'm not taking this so seriously that I actually feel what I'm telling people. I know
00:40:20.880what I'm up to. And if you do that, then you retain your spirit, you retain your soul.
00:40:27.160You know, when you're a child, you know that you're playing a role. You know that you're not
00:40:31.280really a fireman. You know, you're not really an NBA player. You know, you're not really
00:40:35.260the president or whatever you're playing a game you have to have a little bit of distance from
00:40:40.440yourself and not take everything personal because if you don't then as you say as you get older and
00:40:46.560you get in your 30s and 40s and 50s that mask actually becomes who you are and it can be very
00:40:51.740frightening wouldn't it in an ideal world wouldn't it be better to figure out a job where you didn't
00:40:58.280have to do that where you could be more of yourself you show me what you show me that ideal world and
00:41:03.180I'll move to it. I mean, it's not the world we live in. Yes. You know, I've reached a point now
00:41:13.180where I don't have to wear so many masks anymore. Of course, I have to wear a little bit of a mask.
00:41:18.040I'm not completely being who I am here in my house with you right now, but I'm being
00:41:22.520fair. I'd say I'm being 90% authentic. Okay. Just to put a number on it. All right. But
00:41:29.000sorry, I forgot where I was going with this. But yeah, I've reached a point. I've reached a point
00:41:36.380with my work where I don't have to pretend so much, which is a great thing. Right. And being
00:41:42.340an entrepreneur allows you that freedom. So not having to work for other people is the most
00:41:50.400powerful thing you can do. You as an entrepreneur, running your own podcast, running your own
00:41:56.000business you don't have to play so many of those games anymore you probably have to play a little
00:42:00.880bit of them you have employees etc but you have to play less and less of them so the larger the
00:42:07.740group of people you work with the more you have to wear those masks and the more dangerous it becomes
00:42:13.260the more you become your own boss and you don't have to play all those political games with people
00:42:18.340the more power that you have to not and to to be more of who you are i mean look we love like
00:42:26.020certain icons in our culture like rock stars or people like that who we feel are being authentic
00:42:32.820right like you you take any kind of of of popular music icon out there and we go they're able to
00:42:41.640just be who they are they just have this person this authenticity it's because they can do that
00:42:47.120because that's where their power is they can make money okay you know that would be the ideal world
00:42:52.900but we don't live in that ideal world okay that makes sense to me that makes sense so a lot of
00:43:00.100the yeah societal positions people are put in they have to put on a mask in order to fit that
00:43:06.320position yeah yeah okay okay that makes sense like whatever a tsa agent is whatever that mask
00:43:15.060that was a horrible mask. Yeah. Or the doctors that you don't like. Oh yeah. You know how they
00:43:21.800just sit at the computer and they just type it and they don't even look at you in the eye. And
00:43:25.760then they just tell you things as if they're God. Imagine, imagine that that's who they are for 20,
00:43:31.72030 years. That's who they are when they go home at night to their children or to their wife or
00:43:36.840husband. They, you know, they can't take it off. So, or the TSA agent. They definitely aren't
00:43:43.080going to have a wife or husband if they keep that mask on. Maybe they could marry each other.
00:43:50.040Yeah. Okay. Okay. Here, this is a fun one. Are there quick signs you can pick up on
00:44:01.100to allow you to recognize that you're being manipulated?
00:44:04.400well um it depends on on on the kind of manipulation that's going on so is it is it a
00:44:14.180sexual seduction is it that kind of manipulation is it someone trying to steal your money from you
00:44:19.880is it somebody trying to charm you so a lot of the scenarios that i've personally had to deal
00:44:25.600with as a consultant will be the following because these are all different kinds of scenarios and
00:44:31.180they're all a little bit different so you have a business and um you realize that it's too much
00:44:38.560for you the business is growing you need a partner right so you start looking for a partner and you
00:44:43.980find person a male or female and you interview him or her let's just say him so i don't have to go
00:44:49.880through all that gender jumping and he's like he's so he's very pleasant and nice got a great resume
00:44:57.320He's smiling and everything. Wonderful. And then you hire him. And then lo and behold, he turns out to be very lazy. He turns out to be out for himself. He turns out that he can't take any kind of criticism, which I must tell you, the worst character flaw you can ever deal with with people are those who cannot take criticism. It'll just drive you crazy, right? It'll send you to an early grade.0.98
00:46:15.440Do they get all stressed and they try and cover it up with bluster?
00:46:18.120or do they go sit back and go you know I never thought of that before that's an interesting
00:46:23.820question I'm not really quite sure how to answer it if they do that you've hit somebody that's good
00:46:29.320right they've shown that they have the ability to not always feel like they're right
00:46:33.680so you test people you push them before you get involved with them but in other scenarios
00:46:39.880you have to trust that's that initial feeling that you get from people you know
00:46:46.220in my laws of human nature, I have a chapter on nonverbal communication and something that you
00:46:53.160probably thought was a little bit woo-woo when you were 24, but it's actually, I think, very
00:46:57.800powerful, right? So people who are really narcissistic, we all have a touch of narcissism.
00:47:05.620I certainly have a good dose of narcissism in myself. We all have it. We're all self-absorbed.
00:47:11.020There are those deep narcissists out there and boy, can they be painful and boy, can they be manipulative, right? Their body language reveals it. And I talk about how study their face and what a lot of manipulators and narcissists do is they pretend to be interested in you, right?
00:47:32.420but there's something kind of dead in their eyes they're not they're pretending they're wearing
00:47:38.880the role their their mouth seems to say things that are are are empathetic but their eyes are
00:47:44.480dead i don't know if you've ever had that experience but i've worked for somebody who
00:47:48.780was like that and i noticed it right away he wasn't really ever looking at me even though
00:47:54.100he was saying things that seemed to give that impression i'm sorry go ahead that's creepy is
00:48:01.000it like so i've come across a number of people that had they give me kind of like shark eye
00:48:06.240vibes they're like lizard eyes just something was just a little bit it was just a little bit
00:48:13.640creepy that's the vibe it gave me was shark or lizard like eyes i've come across a couple people
00:48:18.100like that well eyes are very telling or very like as they say it's the windows to the soul
00:48:24.340um and so you know when you when somebody is genuinely interested and excited about you
00:48:31.960their eyes dilate they open there are things about ourselves we cannot control i don't care
00:48:38.460if you're hitler or whomever there are things about your face you cannot control and you cannot
00:48:44.400control the dilation of your eyes so those lizard eyes you're talking about they're very narrow
00:48:51.060they're very pointed like that maybe that was it when you're excited your eyes dilate when you're
00:48:58.360really excited about somebody and you smile your whole face lights up your cheeks go up
00:49:03.100but a fake smile yeah it's very tense there's nothing happening here or here yeah okay okay
00:49:11.600attuning to that will show you that people are saying something and they're not being genuine
00:49:17.660wine. And that's one sign of manipulation. And then, I know this will sound very self-aggrandizing,
00:49:25.820but if you read the 48 Laws of Power and you read the Art of Seduction, and you know the tools that
00:49:32.480a seducer will use on you, you can be very aware in the moment if they're using that on you,
00:49:38.560right? So in the second half of the Art of Seduction, I have 24 strategies in seduction,
00:49:46.120starting from when you first meet somebody to the very end when you have consummated a relationship.
00:49:52.500And so, for instance, one of the chapters in there is about isolating the other person.
00:49:59.320So you take them away from your family and you alienate them from your family or their friends saying,
00:57:51.660and they're curtailing your imagination.
00:57:55.260So I think that stuff is kind of dangerous.
00:57:59.380But I'm an old guy, so what am I going to do?
00:58:02.520I think I'm more positively predisposed to it.
00:58:06.080just but i can see the dangers for some people for sure i feel like they'd have to be used very
00:58:11.360wisely in very specific situations in order to be beneficial we got a pair to try them out and
00:58:17.360it's so they're too heavy right now there's a battery attached to them so they're not i don't
00:58:23.600think they're usable at the moment they're like you'd end up with a headache and neck pain and
00:58:29.140things but i had it on for about 10 minutes and my husband and i both had headaches afterwards i
00:58:35.200think because the screen is so close but looking through them is insane you get like 15 foot
00:58:40.200theaters and it's really but it also makes reality look a little bit off like that feeling you get
00:58:48.120when you look at somebody who has kind of lizard eyes like their eyes don't match up with their
00:58:51.960smile that's kind of what looking through the glasses looked like like tables and things are
00:58:57.880just a tiny bit not real it's it was kind of creepy interesting but creepy in some ways i1.00
00:59:04.620would compare porn to that yeah yeah in the world of porn all the women have gigantic breasts they're1.00
00:59:12.780all like shaped a certain way they're all long-legged they're all incredible like this0.93
00:59:17.260and so guys when they see actual women in the world they're kind of disappointed when they
00:59:22.060take their clothes off you don't look like a porn star you're living in this kind of virtual world
00:59:27.140where everything is enhanced right and then the real world looks kind of disappointing to you0.67
00:59:32.820i don't know if i'm if i'm making sense at all here oh no you you are and i i feel like for
00:59:40.300people who are maybe born into this and experience the virtual world at a younger age it's going to
00:59:47.220be much more difficult for them obviously if you started that at a young age i don't know it was
00:59:52.500very interesting to look at you know i can see how somebody could get addicted to having a 15
00:59:57.680foot screen right in front of you i heard watching movies is is pretty intense on this thing where
01:00:03.100it's like like yeah beautiful screen you've ever seen in your life it's so real but so that that
01:00:09.520sounded kind of interesting to me but i don't know i don't know if i'd be into it maybe when
01:00:15.780it gets less heavy and it doesn't leave you with a headache yeah that would help yeah okay i'm gonna
01:00:23.400ask you one last question and i'm gonna let you go sort of mesmerized by your lamb by the way
01:00:28.540thank you is there any relationship to that lamb kind of i so i don't know if you know this i am
01:00:36.660i'm on an all meat diet i only eat meat yeah so i'm still only eating meat and for a period of
01:00:43.500time i only ate lamb and so you'd think i wouldn't have a painting of the lamb but i'm very grateful
01:00:48.720that i was able to eat something that didn't make me ill and so my husband bought me this painting
01:00:55.040of the lamb um and it's so cute yeah but it's more of a grateful thing than a like haha i eat lamb
01:01:04.320it's more like thank god lambs were around or i'd be very ill for a period of time that's very good
01:01:10.200that's yeah i understand that yeah okay last question yep um how did the collaboration
01:01:20.560with 50 cent in the 50th law initiate well um very simply it started in like late 2005
01:01:30.760he had um he had been a huge fan of the 48 laws of power he discovered it
01:01:37.440like a couple of years after he had recorded his first album and he found the book extremely
01:01:44.400helpful in dealing with the music business, which is a very, very, very shark infested environment.
01:01:51.980And, um, and he also had read the art of seduction, which had been out and he found that
01:01:57.560very useful because 50 is, is an incredible seducer. And I can say that because I've been
01:02:04.120in rooms with him on the telephone talking to various celebrities and seducing them he could
01:02:09.600charm any woman on this planet he's actually brilliant at it and he even charmed my mother
01:02:14.740you know my 97 year old mother when he met her at a book signing so he's very seductive he read
01:02:21.160the art of seduction he wanted to meet me and he had a at that point he was launching a series of
01:02:28.280books so he might have been thinking about a book at the time I had no idea so um I was you know
01:02:35.040they were inviting me to New York to meet him and I've yeah sure why not I mean uh that could be fun
01:02:40.960I'm all into like new and weird experiences in my life but I must admit I was a little bit
01:02:46.580intimidated because I'm not a huge hip-hop fan I like hip-hop but 50 was like my favorite I thought
01:02:53.820i really liked his music because i like the edge on it i like the kind of rawness i found it very
01:02:59.580appealing so i was intimidated by him was he going to be disappointed in me is he going to be like
01:03:05.920so thuggish and i'm going to be you know shaking in my shoes in front of him so i was a little bit
01:03:12.300worried i flew to new york and i met him in the back room of a steakhouse on madison avenue
01:03:17.440me by myself me little white boy by himself he's surrounded with his entourage so I was already
01:03:25.840feeling a little worried I sat down next to him and first of all I was noticing the bling
01:03:31.480was insane he had a diamond bracelet on that was just unbelievable I had no idea how much
01:03:37.860it was worth but it's incredible it's like it's all I could look at was that diamond bracelet
01:03:41.600he was so nice he was so friendly he was so open and then it ended up later as we became friends
01:03:49.980and we worked on the book that he said he was a little nervous meeting me because he was expecting
01:03:56.360this kind of older Henry Kissinger type guy who was so powerful that he would I would just stare
01:04:03.620at him and he would melt so he was a little bit nervous so we were both thinking the other person
01:04:08.780was not who they were because he's actually a very sweet nice down-to-earth person and I'm I guess I
01:04:15.380would have to say I'm maybe more of the same I'll let other people say that anyway so we got along
01:04:21.000really well it was a nice rapport and I got to thinking he didn't say Robert let's do something
01:04:27.260together but I got to thinking you know two people from the opposite ends of our country
01:04:35.100me you know middle-aged los angeles boy you know very middle middle class i'm sorry middle class
01:04:43.680i didn't mean middle age very middle class background in los angeles my father was a
01:04:48.860salesman his whole life but you know a comfortable life 50 south side queens his mother was killed
01:04:55.740when he was when he was like nine years old she was a hustler he became he dealt crack when he
01:05:02.660was nine years old the two opposite ends of the spectrum what if we put our minds together
01:05:08.920and wrote a book how interesting that would be how it would show America that all these0.97
01:05:15.360all this identity stuff all these walls that people put up between people just bullshit
01:05:20.700we're humans we all have the same aspirations we all have the same we think in the same way
01:05:25.960let's put our two brains together and so he was open to it and the idea was I was going to spend
01:05:33.540a few months with him and decide what is 50's source of power in life you know where is this
01:05:41.200and as I was with him it didn't take me three three months it took me like one month I realized
01:05:47.140it's his lack of fear and I don't mean in a thuggish way I mean he's not afraid of failure
01:05:53.160He's not afraid of being criticized. He's not afraid of doing something different and odd. He's not afraid of confronting people, etc. And that fearlessness is incredibly powerful.
01:06:08.020because if you think about it how did somebody from this these horrible circumstances
01:06:13.320differentiate himself from all the other people in his neighborhood in his hood
01:06:18.280and how did he become who he was and i sort of traced it back to this quality that he was not
01:06:24.760afraid of failing he was not afraid of learning he was not afraid of of of on and on and on and so
01:06:32.660um we we spent these six months together i followed him around i had the most amazing
01:06:38.580experiences some of which i can't even repeat um and uh i saw a whole world that i you know
01:06:46.020i've never had any access to before and then i wrote we wrote this book together based a lot
01:06:51.940of it on his stories and about things in history about the power that you can have in life when
01:06:56.660you're not afraid wow that's amazing yeah do you do you think so just before you go do you think
01:07:04.640his ability to not be afraid was brought on by the fact that he experienced what must have caused so
01:07:11.320much fear when he was so young that everything else in comparison just was inconsequential well
01:07:17.920yeah but you know a lot of people who would have the same experience but they don't end up him but
01:07:22.140what happened really happening to him was when he was i don't know how old maybe 21 or so um
01:07:28.760from an old drug dealing days because he kind of left the drug dealing behind an old beef
01:07:34.860somebody came up to him while he was sitting in a car and shot him nine times from like this range
01:07:40.180and the bullets went through the side of his mouth right and he nearly died he came this close
01:07:46.840to dying and he had a classic near-death experience which we talk about in the book and
01:07:54.380when you've gone through a near-death experience and I have gone one through one recently
01:07:59.800a lot of things that matter to you beforehand don't matter anymore right why should I be afraid
01:08:06.900of this little piddly person who's bothering me when I nearly died it doesn't matter it gives you
01:08:13.260a sense of scale and proportion these are the things that matter not you know not this little
01:08:20.100emergency that happened so i saw him for instance there was a crisis in in g unit that's this
01:08:27.200company where he was launching a video and it got released on the internet pirated on the internet
01:08:36.780before the release and all of his managers were freaking out they were so angry they were going
01:08:41.700of like what it's our whole rollout of this of this song and the album has gotten ruined and
01:08:46.900what are we going to do we're going to sue blah blah blah I saw him in this meeting he let them
01:08:52.480get all hysterical he was completely calm he was just a pillar of calmness and he said look I'm
01:08:58.620going to tell you what we're going to do I'm not going to try and imitate his voice because I can't
01:09:01.680do it I'm going to tell you what we're going to do we're going to turn this into something great
01:09:06.800right we're gonna turn this into an opportunity and he says we're gonna stage something and we're
01:09:13.000gonna have it put on social media that when 50 heard about this he got so angry he took the
01:09:19.820flat screen tv off the off the wall and he smashed it and he took somebody's phone and he threw it
01:09:25.140around there and he had this incredible tantrum and he was so angry and they filmed it and they
01:09:31.000put it on social media and it went viral and it was like the best publicity he turned this
01:09:36.620terrible thing into a publicity opportunity that's how his mind works and we have a chapter0.97
01:09:41.740in the book called turn shit into sugar which is a hustling experience you turn any kind of0.99
01:09:47.120shit into sugar which is what he did then in order to do that you have to be not afraid not0.99
01:09:52.640afraid of oh maybe maybe what i'm doing isn't right maybe the producers aren't going to be1.00
01:09:57.480happy maybe the company the record company no fuck it all i don't care pardon my language0.93
01:10:03.280we're gonna we're gonna do it anyway so that's very cool yeah that must have been a wild experience0.96
01:10:11.440yeah i can't imagine believe me i i can tell you things you know maybe when i meet you in private
01:10:17.520i'll tell you but yeah all good he's he's a great person i respect him we're still friends we still
01:10:23.540talk that's very cool well thank you robert very much for talking to me again it was really yeah
01:10:31.160really nice to catch up. Good luck with your book. You'll have me on again. Maybe I'm lucky.
01:10:37.820100%. Okay. Yeah. And if you're ever in, um, Scottsdale, if you ever come to Scottsdale,
01:10:43.600I'm in Scottsdale so we can record in person. Yeah. If you end up doing any type of tour or
01:10:48.260anything. Okay. Um, Scottsdale's in your Phoenix, right? Yeah. Yeah. Like right next door. Yeah.
01:10:55.780Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's beautiful. Yeah. I love, I've been there a few times. Yeah. I will
01:11:00.940let you know. And if you're ever recording in LA, you let me know. Okay. Perfect. Thank you again.
01:11:06.420Have some lamb. Definitely. Oh, I'm not eating lamb anymore. If I eat lamb again,
01:11:10.880I don't ever want to eat lamb again. I eat so much lamb. I'm back on beef.
01:11:13.980Oh, okay. All right. We'll go out for some beef. Okay. That sounds good. Thanks. I'll talk to you
01:11:19.080soon. All right. Say hello to your father for me. I will. I will. Bye. Bye.