ROBERT_GREENE_2018_2021
EPISODE #878

How to Deal with Toxic People (Including Yourself)

Robert Greene

Learn the finer points of power, seduction, mastery, strategy, and human nature so you can change your own patterns and upgrade your relationships.

ROBERT_GREENE_2018_2021

In this Episode of The Human Upgrade™...

… my guest fits right into the podcast transition to The Human Upgrade because he gets into the grittiness of what humans can do to level themselves up. No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Robert Greene shares science-backed knowledge about human nature.

You know you want to be more powerful, more in control and excellent at what you do.

Robert’s insights help you do just that. He gives you actionable tips that help you unlock limitations you may be putting on yourself so you can move your life upward and forward. (Similar to something I like to tell my team is great momentum: “up and to the right.”)

World leaders, military generals, business executives, philosophers, and hip-hop moguls alike revere Robert’s books.

After writing about mastery and power for more than two decades, he’s now become a TikTok sensation and the universal truth for a new generation.

He’s one of my favorite authors who’s profoundly influenced my own life and been on the podcast twice before. Both episodes are must listens: The 48 Laws of Power – #380 and The Laws of Human Nature – #575. I asked him back to talk about his latest book: “The Daily Laws: 366 Meditations on Power, Seduction, Mastery, Strategy, and Human Nature.”

“We're very good at cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias. We’re invested in believing what we already want to believe in.”

Robert Greene

“In “The 48 Laws of Power,” I talk about deception and con artists,” Robert says. “But in The Laws of Human Nature, it’s almost about self-deception, how we’re con artists with ourselves, how we create an image of ourselves as being morally right, being a good person, being intelligent, being rational, being empathetic. Whereas in fact, we’re usually quite far below that ideal. … Because your default position is to always look externally and blame other people.”

In “The Daily Laws,” he distills the best of his previous books and never-before-published material in to one amazing life guide for you. He lays out themes for each month of the year: Power, seduction, persuasion, strategy, human nature, toxic people, self-control, mastery, psychology, leadership, adversity and creativity. Within these themes he features a “daily law” for you to follow.

“By not looking at ourselves in an honest way, and glossing over our own flaws and weaknesses, we become trapped in patterns of behavior that we cannot control,” Robert says in his new book. “As the years go by, and the misreadings, missteps, and unrealistic decisions pile up, we can become bitter confused, and damaged.”

“The Daily Laws” is designed to reverse [these] toxic patterns and reconnect you to reality,” Robert says. “It takes aim at the various delusions we have all absorbed and seeks to attune your mind instead to the most entrenched traits of human nature and how our brains actually operate.”

Listen on for the truth bombs.

Enjoy the show!

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  • Last time you were on the show, we talked about the fact that you’d had a stroke. How are you doing?  – 2:48
  • You take stupendous amounts of information and you distill them down into something that’s readable and actionable. – 5:09
  • I just obsess with how things are structured and I sometimes get lost in that. But it fascinates me how to construct something that is new and different that reflects my peculiar way of looking at the world.  -12:10
  • I wanted to create something that was a little simpler to handle and that took all of the most salient hard-hitting ideas scattered through six books and put them in one book.  – 14:17
  • It’s fake empathy. You can recognize it if you tune yourself to nonverbal behavior.  – 19:45
  • What is it in people that makes them believe that they did things that they didn’t do?  – 21:57
  • In The 48 Laws of Power, I talk about deception and con artists. But in The Laws of Human Nature, it’s almost about self-deception, how we’re con artists with ourselves. – 23:41
  • What I’m working on right now. It’s a book that’s temporarily titled The Law of The Sublime. – 25:17
  • Other animals are obviously aware of space and space around their environment. We’re the only animals that are conscious of time. Right? We’re aware of the passage of time in a way, because we’re aware of our own mortality.  – 33:43
  • One process that you go through when you’re meditating is you become very aware of certain things going on in your brain. You become more and more self-aware. What I become aware of is how deeply programmed I am.  – 41:54
  • How do we teach people to go do stuff instead of complain about stuff?  – 48:22
  • Could you imagine what you could do just here in Los Angeles with that $400 million? What we could do about the insane homeless situation going on here?”  – 58:39
  • If you can appeal to someone’s more spiritual side, if that exists, and say, “This is your chance to actually contribute something really important and meaningful. This will be your legacy. This is how people will remember you.”  – 1:04:45

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