Trump Is the Greatest At One Law Of Power — And It Could Destroy Him - Robert Greene
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 9 minutes
Words per minute
165.3127
Harmful content
Misogyny
7
sentences flagged
Toxicity
19
sentences flagged
Hate speech
14
sentences flagged
Summary
In this episode, Robert Kiyosaki joins us to talk about the nature of power and how it manifests itself in human behavior. He discusses the key factors that drive human behavior, and how they influence the way we think and act.
Transcript
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The other motivating factor is every human being
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The sense that you don't have any power in your life
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is deeply, deeply miserable for the human animal.
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Where one person doesn't feel like they have the power,
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but they don't feel strong enough to directly attack
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aggressive. If you don't have power, you're going to find it somehow, some way, in some
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manner. You're going to do whatever you can to change that dynamic. When you look at Trump,
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do you think that he's a man who uses these laws of power effectively? I know that he has a very
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powerful character flaw, and the character flaw is going to constantly get in his way.
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Robert, welcome to Trigonometry. Thank you for having me.
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We've been keen to get you on the show for a long time, as you know. You've written
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a large number of books exploring human nature, what motivates people in their actions,
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the nature of power. And that's a fascinating subject.
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What are the key things that motivate people to do what they do?
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Well, it's complicated, obviously. But people obviously want power.
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that's why I wrote my first book. I mentioned, I speculate or believe that the sense that you
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don't have any power in your life, any control over any influence, over your spouse, over your
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children, over your friends, over your colleagues, over your boss, is deeply, deeply miserable for
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the human animal. So we want to be able to have a sense, a feeling that we have some power over
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our environment over the people around us now you can get power in various ways you can use
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manipulation you can play a softer more seductive game but it is my opinion that a great majority
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of people's behavior and actions are motivated by this desire to feel like there's a degree of
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control over their environment okay and if you deny that need if you can't seem to get it if
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you can turn to some very negative forms of behavior.
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So I try to say that to be able to understand the game of power,
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to be able to feel like you can control people,
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you can influence them, you can move them in your direction,
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and all kinds of bad patterns that you can fall into.
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The other motivating factor is every human being
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needs a degree of validation. We're a social animal. Our idea of existence as an individual
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is kind of a myth, it's sort of an illusion. We are social animals. Everything we think
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is reflected through the eyes of other people, right? And so if people are alone, if they're
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isolated, their kind of sense of being a human being can dissolve, can fall apart.
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So we can't get validation or attention or love from ourselves.
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So the sense of getting recognition, people validating you for your experience,
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for being who you are, is a deeply, deeply powerful motivating factor in human nature.
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There are other things we can go into, but those, I would say, would be the two main things.
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And I'm not an expert on this, obviously, but I imagine, would it be fair to say there's a
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significant gender divide on how this manifests itself? Men operate in a slightly different way
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to women on this, or no? You're shaking your head. Well, I believe the desire, obviously,
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for validation and recognition and attention crosses all gender barriers. I do believe power
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is the same. How men and women get power, how they feel towards it, is different. Of course,
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that changes some men are more like women some women are more like men but women tend to have
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a more sort of social approach to power right which often can make them better leaders in some
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ways they're more sensitive to what other people are feeling what other people are thinking
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which in some ways makes them a more powerful person in the power game the way it is
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in 2026 but oftentimes and as once again we're generalizing women aren't so comfortable with
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the hard game of power with the manipulating part with the deception part which is an elemental
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part of it there's a hard part of power there's the hard game there's the soft game women are
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excellent at the soft game and sometimes they're a little bit intimidated by the hard game now as
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As I said, that can change from individual to individual.
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But like my wife, for instance, she's a film director.
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It is perhaps one of the most Machiavellian environments you can be in.
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Comparable to the music industry, which is probably worse, right?
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And it's very difficult for her handling some of the games that people are playing with her, right?
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So of my books, her favorite, because we've been together throughout all of my books, is The War Book, oddly enough.
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Because that has helped her a lot in dealing with the film business and dealing with all of the kind of weird things that people...
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Because directing a film is like being a general in an army.
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You know, you've got 40, 50 people, you've got a lead, right?
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So I believe that the need for power, the desire for control,
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the desire to be able to not be vulnerable to everything that people are doing to you,
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to not feel weak, crosses all ethnic, all barriers.
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How you get that, that could be different depending on individuals.
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And Robert, social media must have changed that enormously because power now comes with having a large social media account. If you've got a large social media account, that means that you can influence, you can change the way people think, you can put your message out there, you can create things that were previously unimaginable, certain political movements, etc.
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Do the laws of power change when it meets the social media age?
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Well, you can also deceive and manipulate on a grand scale.
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Look, we evolved from our ancestors, you can go back millions of years,
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but let's say Homo sapiens 100,000, 500,000, 50,000 years ago.
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I wrote a very thick book, I'm afraid to say 600 pages, on the laws of human nature.
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All that social media does is it accentuates all of those qualities in human nature.
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So if I know what everybody in the world is doing right now,
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If all my friends are, I see all their photographs of their wonderful holidays they're taking,
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their men, the beautiful women they're dating, all the fabulous things going on in their lives
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They don't let you know of all terrible, boring, banal things in their life.
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Social media is this machine for creating vast amounts of envy, right?
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So the laws of power of human nature don't change.
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It's just that the tools that they're giving us make it easier for us to manipulate, to deceive,
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to create impressions and images. One of the laws of power is court attention at all costs,
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right? Now, you know, you can court attention. I can think of some examples.
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Yeah. You just have much more power to be able to do that. But I can't think of anything of a new
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law that I would write based on social media. If you could tell me one, I'd be happy to
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consider it. But, um, I think one of the things that social media has done, and look, this has
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always been true, but we now see more and more people obsessed with appearing to be a good
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person, to be moral, to be virtuous in the way that I didn't see as much in the nineties before
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social media. I saw it because I was raised Catholic. So I saw the priests and the people
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who worked in the church and saw some people on a Sunday wishing to appear holier than now.
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But now it seems that's the game everyone's playing.
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Yeah. Well, power is mostly about appearances, right? It's managing your appearances so you
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seem powerful. Now, you can feel powerful, but it's more important to appear powerful.
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So always say less than necessary, law number four, right?
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A powerful person, if they talk a lot, they appear kind of weak.
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They don't feel, you don't look like you're in control of yourself, right?
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You're talking too much, you're going to say something stupid.
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So power is a game of managing the appearances because we're a social animal.
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I don't judge you on, I can't see your character.
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If I appear to be a certain thing, if I appear to be virtuous and good, you're going to judge
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You don't know that deep down inside, I'm actually a really nasty, evil, Machiavellian
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This isn't, I'm not talking about myself personally here, right?
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So social media gives you this tremendous power to curate your own appearance, how people
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see you, how people judge you. And you're going to put out the things that are going to get
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positive attention, right? Like you're virtuous, like you're in favor of all of the great causes.
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Or nowadays that you're actually kind of so authentically angry and you're full of rage.
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And, you know, you can be a bit nasty and people can even admire you for nastiness.
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But it's an invisible realm. I can't see all of the people who are emailing me.
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they present this certain facade about who they are or on my Instagram feed or whatever.
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I can't really see who they are. And that gives them tremendous power to create these kinds of
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impressions. It's a very, very dangerous world because it's not real. In flesh, when I see you
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two, I can get a feel for who you are. I can see that you're nice people. I can see the humanity.
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You know, I get a sense because we're animals, after all.
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We can sense if they are a tricky, deceptive person, we can see through it.
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And so on the internet, you can't see any of that, right?
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It's very deceptive, and it can be very troublesome.
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And it's creating a lot of mental illness right now, I believe.
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This thing that you and Francis have just been talking about is a thread that runs through a lot of your work,
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which is the idea that what people present and what they are is different and necessarily so in some ways.
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And I don't know if you've watched Game of Thrones,
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But there's a scene in which this kind of conversation about power is shown very well in an interesting way,
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where there's a character whose primary access to power is through knowledge and spying, Peter Baelish.
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And he's arguing with Queen Cersei, and he says, knowledge is power.
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And she gets her four armed guards to almost kill him, and she says, power is power.
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So where is the balance between those two points of view?
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but where's the truth rather is what i'm actually trying to ask where's the truth between those two
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things because you mentioned appearing powerful is more important even than being powerful whereas
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what she's saying is actually no being powerful ultimately at the end of the day is the thing
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I mean, if you try to pretend that you're a godlike creature, that you have all this power,
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but you have nothing behind you, you're going to be exposed, right?
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So it depends on where you are in life and how people will view you.
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But, you know, if I appear to be confident, so let's take confidence as a very important
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component in the power game, right? So if I convince myself that I am powerful, that I am
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confident, that I am worthy of attention and getting things that I want, it creates this kind
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of self-fulfilling dynamic. People read off of you that you're confident, and they assume that
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it comes from something real. And so you can get power just by creating this facade, right? And it
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be very real i think of someone like elon musk okay who's you know we can just say whatever we
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want about him but he's very brilliant at the marketing side of things right so here he is
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he's got tesla motor company which has just started out and to start your own automobile company is
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incredibly difficult it requires an awful lot of capital okay and you're starting a new kind you
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you know, electric cars, etc. And so he creates this myth that he is this incredibly innovative,
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forward-thinking person. I'm not saying it's completely unreal, but he creates this myth,
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this aura around him. That aura now creates this dynamic where people want to fund his company.
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He goes public and he gets massive amounts of capital from the aura, the appearance he creates
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of somebody who is very future oriented that appearance translates into millions billions
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of dollars coming into his company from his stock right which now allows him to build the company
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to make it more powerful so the appearance of power can draw power to you now you know if somebody
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has a gun and you're pretending to be something that you're not of them they can go ahead and
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shoot you. Yeah, of course, they're the ones in control. It's very important. I talk to this a
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lot about people. What is your leverage in a situation, right? If you have no leverage over
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somebody, then you have no power. So in all negotiations and things like that, you have to
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make this kind of calculation of, this is where I do have actual real power. It's not bullshit.
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and these are things that I can leverage. So one thing that's very important in that kind of
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situation is to be willing to walk away, to say that there's a limit, I'm only going to go this
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far, and I'm going to blow the whole thing up. And if I walk away, fine, I don't care.
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That gives you power, that gives you leverage. So leverage can be something that's very
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psychological. But I don't know if I'm answering your question.
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No, you absolutely are answering my question, and it's a fascinating answer.
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I think smart people will be able to follow exactly what you said there,
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I don't know if I could follow what I just said.
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I think the point you're making is there are certain situations
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in which confidence and the presentation of power
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attracts things that actually make you powerful,
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where if you don't have the hard leverage that you need,
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you can always take a little bit of the power that you have and you can use it in some way.
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And we're talking in abstractions, but when people come to me with problems in a situation
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like this, where they don't feel like they have power, I always try and step back and analyze.
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You do have power. There is something you can do. You have leverage. It's small,
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but you can use it. Can you give us an example of that?
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Well, so they have, you know, the company or the people that are above you, they control it, they own what you're doing, right? Okay. But if you have the attitude, simply the attitude that I'm going to walk away from this whole project, right? It doesn't mean that much to me.
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all right you're playing all of these games you're using all of this power on me
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I feel kind of weak in comparison to you but I'm not going to show that I'm going to say look
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I don't care anymore I'm walking away I'm finished I don't want to deal with this project anymore
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they have invested a lot of time and energy in it as well right and they don't feel like you're
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somebody who will do that but if you show them that at some point it doesn't matter to you
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It's not worth it to me to do exactly what you want.
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It's more important for me to feel like I have integrity.
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Jesus, shit, I don't want to lose this project.
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they're going, hmm, I didn't see that in you. Well, we've invested a lot. All right. Well,
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we don't want to blow this whole thing up. So maybe we'll give in on a couple of small points
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and that's all that you're after. So in these situations, you have to be clear about who has
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the power, what the dynamic is, what your leverage is, and what your goal is in the end.
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So if they are imposing on you all of the control
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you want to get them to back off a little bit, right?
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I watched this when I wrote a book with 50 Cent,
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He appears completely uninterested in some deal somebody's going to make, even though he's very
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interested, right? And the appearance of not really caring makes them, puts them on their
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heels. They go, hmm, well, maybe we have to try harder to please 50. Maybe we have to give him
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more of what he wants. That's all he's after, right? It's a negotiating ploy. So the sense that
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You're signaling to the other side that you can walk away, that it's not so important to you.
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It can give you power, even though you don't have any power.
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That's the magical thing about playing the game according to what I wrote in that book.
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You may not have any power at all in this world, but if you know how to use these small little things,
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You can take what is your weakness and you can turn it into strength.
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And just coming back to the example you gave about people within working on a particular project
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and have their different agendas, playing all these games.
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Because, like, for example, Francis and I, we run this YouTube channel.
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What we found is the best game to play is a collaborative game
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where the mission is more important than the people involved.
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Well, I mean, I want to introduce you guys to the real world, okay?
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The real world doesn't operate according to your ideal little utopia,
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which is a beautiful ideal, and I don't knock it at all.
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I worked for a company years ago before I wrote books,
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a television company, a terrible television show.
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by how many stories you actually found that got made.
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of a dozen researchers by far, but then I got fired.
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with the boss, right? I had a bit of an attitude, but the results, who the fuck cares about
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my attitude? I gave you results and yet I was fired because of people's stupid, stupid egos
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and stupid political games that they play. They don't care about results. They care about how
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they feel about themselves, about their ego, about how people think about them. That's more
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important than results. And this crosses the line in business, in warfare. General Patton,
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the great American general who had some of his own issues and problems,
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he was kind of sidelined from the war effort in World War II because he was kind of abrasive
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and difficult. He was going, but man, I marched through Sicily. I marched through Italy. I
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defeated the Nazis here and there. What difference does it make? Well, no, even in warfare, he got
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sideline because he wasn't playing the political game in entertainment, in law, in business,
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in government, in sports. I can give you examples because I deal with a lot of athletes and managers
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and coaches who come to me with their problems. This goes through sports. It goes through
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everything. It's a theme through everything. So you two, I love the fact that you collaborate,
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but I can guarantee if you bought a third person in that you were working with,
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all of a sudden sort of egos and political games will start emerging.
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Maybe not, but probably, because that is human nature.
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And I think it's also maybe a question of scale.
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but once a business gets beyond a certain number of team members,
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that's when people start caring more about their position
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which is why maybe it's good to keep things small
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Yeah, definitely, definitely. I mean, obviously, the larger the group, the more the politics
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arrive, the more egos that are involved. But even among two people, even in a couple,
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a married couple, power games are being played.
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You know, people feel like, well, you know, I'm having to do all the chores and you're not doing
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so much. I don't feel like I have as much power in this relationship. So you put two people
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together. It doesn't have to be a thousand. You're going to get these egos clashing because that's
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who we are. And it's fascinating talking about power because I love Greek myths and I love
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Shakespeare. And a lot of Shakespeare's plays are about the lust for power and how ultimately it
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destroys you, think about Macbeth, for example. At what point does the desire for power ultimately
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become self-sabotaging? Well, you know, a lot of the laws that I talked about in the book are about
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knowing your limits. Like, so Law 47, I believe, is in victory, know when to stop, right? So you
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can go too far. And when it becomes the fact, look, power is, we're a social animal. It's a
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people's game, right? If you offend too many people, if you make so many enemies, it's going
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to come back and hurt you in the end. You're not going to get very far, right? So if you have this
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attitude where I'm going to screw everybody around me, I'm just going to manipulate them, I'm going
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to control them, I'm going to push them around, you can get away with it for a while while you
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have power. But the moment that power starts to diminish, we see this in history all of the time,
00:28:09.360
you know, suddenly people turn against you. You know, it caused the French Revolution,
00:28:13.340
for God's sake. You know, when people smell that a powerful person who's been evil and pushing
00:28:19.380
people around is now in a slightly weakened position, oh my God, they all turn into lines
00:28:24.420
and they pounce on you because they hate you, right? You can go too far. So power is a game
00:28:32.800
and they don't even realize why they're on your side, right?
00:28:40.780
and we're seeing this in American politics right now, right?
00:28:46.420
I mean, Donald Trump is screwing all of these other leaders.
00:28:50.000
Look what he's doing to European leaders and NATO.
0.95
00:28:57.360
in this war with Iran and they're giving him the finger.
00:28:59.540
obviously in their own way because look you know you've offended us you've humiliated us
00:29:06.340
you want our help you're not going to get it and so power is a game of of using your allies of
00:29:12.640
creating as many allies as possible you can go just if you go so far where you alienate
00:29:18.020
everybody around you then the game will turn against you it's delicate it's a delicate game
00:29:24.640
It's a great point because you look at Trump and his greatest weapon, I think, is his sense of humor.
00:29:32.420
His sense of humor is that whenever he's in a position where it looks like he's on the back foot, he's very sharp with a quick comeback.
00:29:53.640
The problem is with humor is that, invariably, there needs to be a victim.
00:29:57.960
So whilst it can appeal to your base, it can also antagonize the victim of your punchline.
00:30:04.500
And it's really interesting to see that dynamic.
00:30:07.800
What do you make of that, the use of humor, and particularly when it comes to power and being powerful?
00:30:13.960
well um what's important so a huge motivating factor among the human animal is envy our brains
00:30:25.400
operate through comparison that's how the human brain operates we take in information and we
00:30:30.840
compare it to other pieces of information and we go this is what this means it's a machine our
00:30:36.720
minds are machines for comparing things right and we do the same with other people we're constantly
00:30:43.500
comparing ourselves to others, right? Does that person have more power? Why is she making more
00:30:49.020
money than me? Why does he have more respect than me? Constantly, I have it, everybody has it,
00:30:54.720
it's natural, right? Okay, so when you're a powerful person, people envy you, they envy your
00:31:03.060
power. Having a sense of humor, a self-deprecating sense of humor is very powerful, because it kind
00:31:11.680
of can lessen that envy that people have. And I mentioned in my power book and other books
00:31:18.520
of figures like that who had that kind of self-deprecating humor. Abraham Lincoln was
00:31:24.000
sort of a master of it. It makes you human. You can make fun of yourself. The problem is Donald
00:31:30.220
Trump never makes fun of himself. His humor is at the expense of other people, right? And that can
00:31:36.360
wear on others. It can appeal to those who have that kind of slight cruel streak to them,
00:31:43.140
to those who hate all the wokeness. And I can understand that a bit as well.
00:31:49.100
But he never makes fun of himself. And that is a different kind of humor. It's always at the
00:31:57.360
expense of other people. And I think eventually that can wear very thin.
00:32:01.120
And when you look at Trump, do you think that he's a man who uses these laws of power effectively?
00:32:08.620
Or is somebody who is ultimately setting himself up for a fall?
00:32:14.340
Well, I don't have a crystal ball. I'm not Nostradamus. I don't know what's going to happen
00:32:20.380
in the next few years. But I know that he has a very powerful character flaw. And the character
00:32:27.060
of law is going to constantly get in his way. So he's absolutely brilliant at one law of power.
00:32:35.980
It's the source of all of his power. And I can't think of anybody in history who's ever been better
00:32:41.140
at it. Court attention at all costs. Law number six, right? I remember years ago, not years ago,
00:32:50.700
eight years ago or so, I was traveling. I think I was in Singapore. Everybody was talking about
00:32:56.560
Donald Trump. Everyone around the world is obsessed with him. I'm obsessed with him. He's in my head
00:33:01.940
all of the time, right? He courts attention at all costs. He's brilliant at that. He knows how to turn
00:33:09.140
everything that looks like a negative into some kind of marketing and publicity thing. He knows
00:33:14.620
he's very, very good at the attention game, not just at getting attention, but how to use that
00:33:21.080
attention to his advantage, okay? That has brought him a lot of power. But there is a limit to that
00:33:29.800
because that isn't enough, that isn't power by itself, right? And so one of the most important
00:33:38.160
things in the power game, as I say, it's a delicate game, is the ability to think ahead,
00:33:44.520
plan all the way to the end, which is law, sorry, 28 or something like that. Plan all the way to
00:33:50.300
the head and think not just this move, this immediate move, but two, three, four, five moves
00:33:57.020
in advance like you do in chess. If you're a good chess player, you're 10 moves ahead further than
00:34:02.600
your opponent is, right? Okay. It's an extremely important part of power because it means you see
00:34:09.440
the longer vision. And when things start interrupting your vision, when all kinds of
00:34:13.800
circumstances arise that you hadn't expected, you know how to deal with it because, oh, this is my
00:34:20.480
end game. And if this occurs, well, I go, I tack a little bit in this direction, but eventually
00:34:26.080
I have to head here. It gives you strength. It gives you this kind of anchor in life, right?
00:34:32.660
This is a man, because of his character, because of his ego, because of his extreme narcissism,
00:34:39.000
I'm not trying to be political here because I think everybody sees his incredible narcissism,
00:34:45.020
right? He can't get out of the moment. He can't get out of how people are reacting against him.
00:34:51.520
He can't get out of his rage, his resentment, his anger, his bitterness, and see the bigger
00:34:57.240
picture. If he came into power in 2025 and he moderated some of the things that he ended up
00:35:04.120
doing, right? If he was more attentive to the larger picture, that his power base, he brought
00:35:12.340
in Latinos, Black people, people who weren't part of the Republican base ever before. If he moderated,
00:35:19.460
if he was smart, if he could think ahead, he would be doing really well right now. He'd be very
00:35:24.060
popular. Unfortunately, he would be, right? But he can't think that far ahead. He can only think
00:35:30.960
in immediate terms. This person insulted me. Well, I have to humiliate him. I have to try and
00:35:36.460
sue him and get him put in prison, right? He can't see the larger picture. And that is a very,
00:35:43.460
very limiting factor in power. I don't know. He's like a cat with nine lives. He keeps escaping
00:35:50.000
things and you think he's done. He's finished. He pops out of another bag and he's fine.
00:35:55.920
I think that eventually it's going to catch up with him. But as I said, I don't know.
00:36:01.920
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it's completely risk-free so check it out today i want to come back to something you said at the
00:37:34.900
beginning because i think it ties potentially with politics as well which is you mentioned
00:37:39.300
that when people feel like they have no power there is a whole swath of negative behaviors that
00:37:45.400
they can exhibit um and we see on both sides i would argue the political spectrum people who
00:37:51.680
feel like they have no power, burning things down, you know, burning things down, metaphorically
00:37:58.340
speaking, wanting to tear down the certain things about the society they live in. What happens when
00:38:04.520
people feel at the individual level, but also the collective level, that they don't have the power
00:38:09.860
that they want or should? Well, you can't deal with that feeling, right? It's unbearable. So
00:38:19.180
you're going to try and get power some way that you can. On the individual level, you'll find
00:38:25.880
people play, and I talked about this in the book, negative power games. They'll become passive
00:38:32.160
aggressive. That happens a lot in individual, in relationships, where one person doesn't feel like
00:38:40.880
they have the power, but they don't feel strong enough to directly attack or deal with the person.
00:38:46.780
they become indirect, they become passive aggressive.
00:38:49.980
We're British, you don't have to explain that to us.
00:39:18.140
and feel like they've been humiliated on the world stage.
00:39:36.500
I mean, this is maybe a horrible way to put it,
0.99
00:39:40.820
You know, they obviously don't have the power that the United States military has, but they can certainly be very passive-aggressive.
00:39:51.060
I mean, it's not really passive, but they can be very indirect.
00:39:54.360
They can very, when you're weak, this is the whole origin of guerrilla warfare and terrorism, right?
00:40:02.400
And guerrilla warfare is one of the most powerful strategies ever invented in military history.
00:40:09.120
It's one side that has no power, but they use their lack of power to torment and torture the
00:40:16.660
other side. And they don't, as the phrase goes, the weaker side doesn't have to win,
00:40:23.380
they just have to survive. And so, you know, they'll play games like that. But if you don't
00:40:28.800
have power, you're going to find it somehow, some way, in some manner. You're going to do
00:40:32.900
whatever you can to change that dynamic. Well, it's interesting you mention the
00:40:38.800
geopolitical side of it, because I would argue from direct experience in Russia and also from
00:40:46.920
history that I know, that whipping up or at least addressing, and those both can be true,
00:40:53.300
the sense of loss or resentment or grievance or envy that people have and channeling that
00:40:59.440
It's a very powerful tool. I mean, in Russia right now, the narrative is, you know, the evil Americans took advantage of us in the 90s and we have to, you know, secure our board, take control of our neighborhood, etc.
00:41:13.960
Hitler likewise whipped that up. It's a very powerful tool for political leaders to achieve their objectives, isn't it?
0.64
00:41:24.840
Yeah, yeah, very much so. I mean, it's definitely what Putin is doing with Russia right now.
00:41:32.760
And, you know, but in the end, you know, I don't know how successful that is because
00:41:42.360
you can it's kind of like you're riding a tiger. You're creating so much anger and resentment.
00:41:48.280
Can you control it? You know, where is it? Are you in control of or is it leading you around?
00:41:54.840
You know, appealing to people's basest emotions is a very, very powerful political weapon, right?
00:42:04.940
But it can hurt you and it can bite back and hurt you in the end because you can't really control it, you know?
00:42:12.040
So, but I see what you're saying and it is, and the sense of a country feeling that kind of grievance is an incredibly powerful, motivating factor.
00:42:22.000
And I see that around the world right now, you know, we're living through a very chaotic moment
00:42:29.800
in history. I read a lot of history. I don't know a lot of things about this world, but I do read a
00:42:35.260
lot of history. And it's a very strange moment. It's one of those transitional moments where the
00:42:41.800
world, the paradigms are shifting. What we used to believe in doesn't seem to work anymore, right?
00:42:52.480
I feel like sometimes I was on a bike ride the other day
00:42:57.020
sometimes I feel like I'm living in an insane asylum.
00:43:07.560
And so when people feel like they have no control,
00:43:15.320
but also a sense of the future, my values, what matters,
00:43:18.700
they go a little bit crazy and it creates incredible space for demagogues to use that
00:43:28.020
kind of confusion, to use that sense of like powerlessness to whip people up into a frenzy,
00:43:39.840
to get control of them. And it's a very dangerous times because you're seeing a steering towards
00:43:46.700
authoritarianism all around the globe. And what's going on here? Why is this happening now? It
00:43:52.880
happened in the 1920s and the 30s. It seems to be happening now. And I think there's this overall
00:43:59.320
sense that people feel like we're losing control over their own lives, over the future of their
00:44:05.480
country, their children. It's a very strange, dark moment, I think. And to your point, this is
00:44:12.520
something you see across Europe, across the political spectrum, by the way. You see populist
00:44:17.160
left parties rising very quickly and populist right parties. Where are the populist left parties?
00:44:21.880
Well, the party with the biggest momentum in the UK right now is the Green Party.
00:44:26.040
That's right. Yeah. And also, it's not just about political parties. It's also now increasingly
00:44:31.740
about influences. If you start a YouTube channel in Britain now talking about how you've been
00:44:37.740
screwed by the rich and the billionaires and tax the rich and all of this, you're going to do
00:44:42.500
extremely well, because there is ample ground for that sentiment, which is rising very quickly.
00:44:50.600
And likewise, on the right, you know, and by the way, both of these can be somewhat true.
00:44:56.380
Inequality is a problem. On the right, of course, mass immigration, the way that we've had in Britain,
0.91
00:45:02.400
bothers a hell of a lot of people, as I think it does probably in your country, although it's
00:45:06.520
different here. And those are things that are creating these, on both sides, a rising populist
00:45:12.520
tide, I think. And that speaks very much to what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, I agree.
00:45:19.360
I mean, you know, if you feel like, like, you know, I was, I was in France, I have a kind of
00:45:29.560
a long love affair with France. I'm sorry to say that. Yeah. I love England. Now we're disappointed.
00:45:34.260
I lived there and I studied the language and all that.
00:45:42.840
But I remember I was there about 12 years ago and I was going through Paris.
00:45:50.620
And I'm actually somebody who's very open to immigrants and to their plight.
00:45:54.820
But I was thinking, France is in trouble because they're losing a sense of their identity.
00:46:01.720
and a country like that has a very, very powerful sense of identity
00:46:07.420
because it's a country that's actually a feudalism
00:46:15.800
to create this kind of national unity around Joan of Arc
00:46:26.100
Very powerful myths of identity of this is who the French are.
0.84
00:46:31.340
And I could sense that there was something very dangerous going on
1.00
00:46:34.720
because they were going to lose that sense of who they were
1.00
00:46:39.020
with all of the immigrants that were pouring in at this time.
0.99
00:46:42.940
And I can empathize with that to a point where,
00:46:47.920
you know, you have this sense of what your country is
00:46:54.180
So it creates an opening for some ugly kind of politics, I'm afraid.
00:47:01.280
It's the family and friends event at Shoppers Drug Mart.
00:47:04.620
Get 20% off almost all regular priced merchandise.
00:47:18.560
And when we're talking about people who live in these countries where things aren't as good as they used to be,
00:47:26.180
things feel under the decline socially, economically,
00:47:30.700
What we're talking about, and what I feel in the UK, is demoralization.
00:47:35.080
And when people are demoralized, that's a very, very dangerous space for a populist to be in.
00:47:43.240
Yeah, I mean, what are you referring to in particular?
00:47:46.220
Particularly, for instance, in the UK, where people feel that things are getting worse and they're not going to get any better,
00:47:54.420
And if you look at the economics of the situation, that would bear it out.
00:47:57.240
if you look at it culturally societally it would bear it out again i think once you hit that that's
00:48:03.700
when people become incredibly vulnerable yeah well it speaks to your point doesn't that about
00:48:09.480
when people don't feel that they have the power and particularly in the uk um a lot of people feel
00:48:16.280
that voting a certain way and even electing parties that say they will deal with certain
00:48:22.940
problems, doesn't actually produce the results. And I imagine based on your analysis, that would
00:48:27.080
be, like Francis says, quite a dangerous place to be, right? Yeah, I mean, you know, politicians
00:48:33.640
don't really control as much as they think they control. And as much as Donald Trump rails against
00:48:41.640
globalism and wants to go back, it is an interconnected planet. And you don't have
00:48:47.180
control over forces. You know, you see in the war going on right now, how this is rippling across,
00:48:54.620
particularly across Asia. And who knows, in a few months or years, the kind of dynamic,
00:49:02.040
the kind of problems that is going to set off in countries where the populace feels so,
00:49:08.140
so diminished in their power, that all kinds of rebellions. History is weird, because what's
00:49:15.060
happening in the moment, you don't know, you don't see the seeds of the kind of ugliness or bad
00:49:20.560
things that could be happening in a year or two years from now. And a simple thing like cutting
00:49:25.760
off oil and making the price of oil go up has a rippling effect that can create a revolution in
00:49:32.280
some Eastern Asian country that then triggers, you know, a world war or something. I mean, I'm
0.63
00:49:37.660
being apocalyptic here, but you don't know these little effects. And political leaders,
00:49:44.740
as I said, it was kind of like riding a tiger. They feel like I can get to power using all of
00:49:50.780
this resentment and grievance and anger and bitterness, but I can't control it because I
00:49:57.640
can't really deliver what I'm promising I'm going to deliver, you know? So yeah, it's a very
00:50:03.680
dangerous game. Do you think that, for instance, if a politician came out and actually said,
00:50:10.680
look, there are things that I can control or that we can control. There are things that we
00:50:14.980
simply cannot control. As a result of that, this is the path that we're going to plot.
00:50:21.360
Would that be more appealing to people? Or do people, what people actually desire deep down
00:50:28.120
is a strong man to come in and go, I'm going to sort it out. This is what's going to happen.
00:50:33.680
Yeah, I mean, we've talked earlier about social media, and part of the problem that's going on is people think in very simplistic terms.
00:50:46.540
Things are delivered in a way like there's no nuance anymore.
00:50:51.120
It's just this way or it's that way kind of thing.
00:50:55.540
So if a political leader came about now who was very realistic and very honest,
00:51:08.340
But he was trying to be honest and say, this is what I can do.
00:51:13.020
I don't think people want to hear that right now.
00:51:18.400
I mean, if you look at the global stage right now, it's startling.
00:51:23.140
It's really startling because 70 years ago, you would see leaders and parties that would stay in power for decades, sometimes through corruption, I don't deny.
00:51:38.660
And now, it's like it's turning over by the month, practically.
00:51:45.320
Well, three months ago, it was Farage and I forgot the name of his party.
00:51:52.440
And in three months, it's going to be some other party.
00:51:58.280
And that's why I said there's a kind of madness going on in the world,
00:52:02.520
a kind of madness where people's opinions are shifting so quickly like that.
00:52:08.120
There's no sort of, there's nothing kind of holding it all together
00:52:11.420
where this politician, I believe, can solve my problems.
00:52:20.340
and give him or her three years, four years to figure out,
00:52:26.560
I was, I don't know if this is how relevant this is,
00:52:32.900
of a publicly traded company, American Apparel, right?
00:52:38.700
And I saw up front how the business world operates
00:52:45.240
so this is a company that was probably expanding way too fast right and of course it went public
00:52:55.260
and that's when I was brought on to the board of directors okay and um I was seeing I was
00:53:03.200
foreseeing long-term problems he had created the Dove Charney he created this brand that was all
00:53:08.420
about sexiness for young women based on the 80s, kind of the 80s aesthetic, you know, the kind of
00:53:15.420
short workout, you know, short sort of thing. And I was thinking there's a shift going on in
00:53:24.180
people's taste. This is 2009 or so. I feel like in a couple of years, it's not going to be the
00:53:30.440
aesthetic. It's not going to be the ethos anymore of young women because that's who the company was
1.00
00:53:35.300
appealing to. And I was trying to tell the director there, I was thinking, we've got to make
1.00
00:53:41.780
a shift in the brand. You've got to be more forward thinking. But the pressures of Wall
00:53:47.280
Street and the quarterly report were so powerful that you could not think long term. You could not
00:53:53.860
project six months in advance because you had to make a quarterly report that showed Wall Street
00:53:59.480
that you were making that you were growing right that was the growth right new markets
00:54:05.180
we're getting market share and if you did that then you'd get more money coming in
00:54:09.840
but you couldn't raise your head this much above the moment to think in advance
00:54:15.240
that's the business world that we live now in the united states and it's very
00:54:20.980
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It's interesting you say that because there's people who've offered to invest in our show
00:55:41.560
And it's not really ever appealed to us because we know that if that happens, we no longer
00:55:48.320
We have to have the conversations that are going to get views.
00:55:50.820
yeah and then that would ruin the whole thing that we do because it works because we it's
00:55:57.160
authentic yeah and if you try and create something fake then you make more you get more clicks but
00:56:01.900
then the people who actually watch the show in the beginning don't want to watch it anymore
00:56:04.940
and we'd hate our job as well but i can see how that would affect a business yeah to the point
00:56:11.420
where it's no longer actually fulfilling its mission it's now just trying to make money yeah
00:56:15.960
and making bad decisions and then goes out of business yeah is your point yeah yeah if i would
00:56:21.500
advise you guys i would say stay small you know when he started this business i'm talking about
00:56:27.100
american apparel he had one store here in los angeles when i first met him right and and then
00:56:34.460
it got like 10 stores and 20 stores but it was solid it had a it had you know i could see the
00:56:40.700
point of it, right? By the time he expanded to 300 stores around the world, it lost its meaning,
00:56:48.900
it lost its brand, it lost what it was. And then forget it, you're never going to get it back,
00:56:54.300
you know? It's interesting as well, something you mentioned, I just remember Desmond Morris,
00:56:59.560
who is a writer, who's, I've read a lot, Naked Ape, Human Zoo, and a bunch of others. But one
00:57:04.420
of the things he talked about is the length of women's skirts goes up, so the skirts get longer,
00:57:10.700
when economic times are bad. So 2009 would have been exactly the right time to pivot to longer
00:57:16.620
rather than shorter. Yeah, it was right after the financial crisis.
00:57:21.100
Yeah. Does it help in a society where power is shared? So for instance,
00:57:27.420
is part of the problem with our society is that it's become ever more secular. So there's a lot
00:57:34.060
of us who are not religious. There's a lot of us who don't believe in God. And as a result of that,
00:57:39.260
we instead of looking maybe to the church or to the mosque or whatever it may be we now look only
00:57:46.360
to our political leaders that's a very good point um well you're a catholic right i was raised
00:57:53.060
catholic it never leaves you the guilt is always there i'm jewish so i know this
00:57:57.600
um yeah i mean uh i'm i'm my new book that i i'm i've finished the last chapter a month ago and i'm
00:58:07.220
almost finished with the introduction, so I'm almost there to be out in November,
00:58:11.560
is kind of dealing with that because we humans have a spiritual side to us. We have a hunger
00:58:20.900
for something larger that aren't just our egos, than just making money, than just surviving.
00:58:26.260
We need to feel connected to something larger. It's part of our nature. And in my book, I explain
00:58:31.640
where that comes from um and that never goes away i don't care how sophisticated we are i don't care
00:58:39.800
if it's 3 000 years in advance and we're all like borgs we're part cyborgs etc it's still a part of
00:58:46.440
human nature it isn't going away and so organized religion was the sort of the main source of that
00:58:54.440
first for centuries right and it kind of become became dead in a way it wasn't really connected
00:59:03.780
particularly as we became technologically so sophisticated.
00:59:07.920
It seemed like something kind of superstitious,
00:59:11.400
And also, it wasn't appealing to our lived experience.
00:59:14.940
I remember as a child going to the synagogue, right?
00:59:21.980
what does this have to do with my life here in Los Angeles?
00:59:28.540
and the Vietnam War and, you know, sex and everything.
00:59:33.660
Like it had no connection to my life as a child and to my world.
00:59:37.800
So I couldn't understand organized religion, okay?
00:59:45.720
They still are looking for some kind of a meaning.
00:59:47.380
They want to connect to something bigger than just their egos, right?
00:59:51.780
And there's nothing out there that's supplying that, I think.
00:59:56.000
And you find, because of that, a lot of people are going into these sort of niche spiritual worlds that at least feel a little more direct and part of their everyday life, but aren't connected to anything larger, any kind of movement.
01:00:10.880
And so it shifts. Now it's, I'm interested in this little form of Buddhism, then in six months it'll be, you know, I'll be getting drug therapy, and then in six months it'll be something else, right?
01:00:31.380
And so the book that I wrote was trying to deal
01:00:35.960
with that kind of emptiness and how you as an individual
01:00:42.960
to finding this kind of higher meaning in our life.
01:00:48.780
I was saying, but it also speaks to a kind of...
01:00:51.100
We were having a conversation, Constantine and the rest of the team, last night, literally
01:00:59.620
Particularly in the West, that somehow we superseded religion.
01:01:03.480
We don't need it anymore because we're so smart.
01:01:08.640
I mean, I'm reading quotes from Albert Einstein, you know, probably the most brilliant scientist
1.00
01:01:17.560
and he believed in what he called cosmic religion.
01:01:21.740
And he said, mysticism is as much a part of the arts
01:01:26.700
And if you can't feel awe in front of this universe
01:01:29.700
that we have, then you might as well be dead, right?
01:01:37.900
and sophisticated thinking and 21st century thinking
01:01:46.020
But the idea that everything has to be rational, everything has to be data, algorithms, you know, program, etc., is just creating deadness in people.
01:01:58.700
It's making them insane because that's not how the human animal is.
01:02:03.600
So, yes, it is very arrogant to believe they can just get rid of religion.
0.84
01:02:12.860
Chinese communism and what Mao had was a religion.
0.63
01:02:15.480
Stalin is a religion without religion, but it was still based on that kind of form.
01:02:21.800
That's what happens when you get rid completely of things that meant so much to people.
01:02:27.580
Absolutely, because we respect science, we respect data, we respect all of those things.
01:02:36.920
If you've had a diagnosis, a terrible diagnosis, let's say you've staged four cancer,
01:02:42.680
data and science are not going to keep you warm at night.
01:02:45.480
There's going to be something else that we're going to reach towards.
01:02:48.860
And that transcends intelligence around everything.
01:02:54.980
And, you know, I had a stroke about eight years ago.
01:02:59.020
That's why my hand is like this and why I can't walk very well.
01:03:05.400
And I didn't have a near-death experience, but it was close to something like that.
01:03:11.540
And so in my book that I'm writing, the last chapter is about death and people who had near-death experiences.
01:03:20.560
And there was this theme of, I was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, as you mentioned.
01:03:29.540
I have never felt more alive than in these three months.
01:03:37.520
I don't have to think about all these other little problems.
01:03:40.340
suddenly the world opens up to me and I'm thinking about what really matters, about what really
01:03:45.320
life is about, right? Because no amount of technology is going to keep me alive. And even
01:03:50.700
if it does, I'm still going to have, the cancer will come back. And so you're forced to think
01:03:55.820
about what really matters to you. And that's what death can do for you, you know? And so,
01:04:01.040
So, you know, we're taking away things that really matter to human beings and we're paying
01:04:12.520
a price for it. And so we have to find a way back to some of these things that our ancestors
01:04:18.960
understood about the human animal and how we need an anchor in our lives.
01:04:24.660
What's interesting is you see both in this country and in many other countries now,
01:04:30.060
actually religious attendance of church, at least, is actually, or other religions, is on the rise
01:04:35.300
slowly, particularly among young people. So it may be happening voluntarily, which is how you'd
01:04:41.800
hope it happens, really, I guess. Rob, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for coming. And
01:04:45.560
what is your book called? And you mentioned it comes out in November. When will people be able
01:04:49.100
to pre-order it? I don't know when they'll be able to pre-order, probably fairly soon, like within a
01:04:54.120
month or two. I think it's been announced. It'll be out in November.
01:05:00.320
It's called The Law of the Sublime. The book is about the sublime. And the idea is,
01:05:08.520
as a human animal, as a social creature, we live with certain conventions and limits and codes that
01:05:15.120
tell us, this is how we're supposed to think, this is how we're supposed to live, this is how we're
01:05:18.880
supposed to behave. And the sublime are experiences that lie outside that circle.
01:05:27.080
And I say that there's a lot of things going on in science
01:05:36.640
like the origin of the universe and the origin of life,
01:05:43.400
that should be expanding our minds outside this circle.
01:05:56.740
But at the same time that science is expanding this
01:06:05.340
The mind is getting narrower, narrower, narrower.
01:06:09.520
You know, all these sort of trivial, banal things
01:06:23.500
We'll put the link in the description if it's available when this episode comes out.
01:06:27.360
Before we ask you questions from our supporters, the final question we ask all our guests
01:06:31.320
is what's the one thing we're not talking about that we should be?
01:06:34.760
Before Robert answers a final question at the end of the interview,
01:06:40.260
The link is in the description where you'll be able to see this.
01:06:43.940
If you had to add new or amend existing laws from the 48, what changes would you make?
01:06:49.620
Critiques of your book have suggested you're teaching people to be coldly manipulative.
01:06:55.040
What's the one thing we're not talking about that we should be?
01:07:03.260
You know, because I hate to say it, but because of my stroke, I had to, I can't type, so I
01:07:19.480
And that means handwriting it, then doing it in another
01:07:26.320
then editing it in another, then editing and editing,
01:07:28.600
and then finally dictating it right into the computer,
01:07:34.700
And then I couldn't take a walk if I needed to clear my mind,
01:07:43.900
And I'm somebody who loves exercise, loves hiking, being out in the world.
01:07:48.200
And whenever my other books, I felt blocked, I would go on an amazing hike.
01:07:54.120
I was trapped in this world and I couldn't, I had to handwrite everything.
01:08:02.200
How am I going to feel it when I'm like a bird in a cage?
01:08:05.900
I had to overcome all of these things in my head and in my body.
01:08:12.580
And so it took me seven years to write this book,
01:08:26.820
And there were difficult moments where I was like crying,
01:08:34.140
And it's a sense of achievement that I've never had before.
01:08:41.200
Yeah. That's really special. Well, thank you for coming here and talking to us about it.
01:08:46.660
Head on over to triggerpod.co.uk where we ask Robert your questions.
01:08:51.180
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01:08:58.220
It's completely risk-free, so check it out today.
01:09:03.520
Do you see parallels with historical movements such as communism in using constructed claims of victimhood
01:09:10.180
and moral arguments to gain legitimacy and consolidate power.