If You Are Alone, You Are Doing the Right Thing — Machiavelli Explains Why | Robert Greene

[00:00:00]The most important thing of all is to be okay with being alone sometimes with actually finding it, oddly enough, kind of pleasurable to not have all those annoying noises, those annoying people, all that narcissism out there, all that crap that we have to deal with. Yeah, I like being alone sometimes. I like just sitting in the bathtub and reading a book. I like just watching a movie, etc. by myself. If you can do that, if you can find pleasure in being alone, then loneliness loses a lot of its sting. how to deal with loneliness. And I think it's a very human thing. We've all dealt with it. I know I dealt with it particularly when I was younger a lot when I was in my 20s, etc. I remember once I was in Rome 20 years ago or so, I was entering a restaurant to eat and I was by myself in a crowded restaurant and the waiter asked me if I was alone and I said, "Yes, kind of shamefully, "Yeah, yeah, I'm alone." He said in Italian, "Meo solo mala."

[00:00:57]And that expression has stuck with me for many many years. It was better to be alone than to be accompanied with someone bad or to have bad company. So the idea is that you have to kind of sometimes like to be with yourself. And sometimes being with other people can be a drag, can be painful. There can be people that can inflict a lot of pain on you. And so sometimes the grass is always greener. And I would often think about and not to say that it doesn't hurt to be alone and because we're a social animal, but maybe it's better that I don't have to be around all of these annoying people and I can fill my time with other things. So reading books, watching movies, etc. I'm not alone because I'm with other people. I'm with other spirits. Of course, not saying this is the perfect answer, but you have to be able to like to be alone is a very important skill in life because you're inevitably going to be facing such moments. And so you have to be able to like your own thoughts, to be interested in your own ideas, to be reading books, to be doing things that excite you. And if you're excited in your spirit, then you're not really alone. When I'm reading a great book, I don't feel so alone. Yes, I would like to share it with somebody else, but these are ways to kind of alleviate [clears throat] that. The other thing is is to understand that you think that you're the only person like that. Everybody goes through that feeling. We're living in a culture now where loneliness is like an epidemic, you know, and the books are being written about it. You know, people are bowling by themselves.

[00:02:31]There's a whole book written about that.

[00:02:33]You know, it's a culture where we're not as social as we used to be. We're so much more virtual. So, you're not alone in that. So, you're not alone in your loneliness. It's very human. Other people are experiencing that and be aware of it. How do you overcome it? You have to become more social. You have to put yourself out in this world and not be so virtual. Loneliness and being alone has a momentum to it. And I know it. I've experienced it myself. Cuz being a writer, you're alone. Believe me, I'm alone a lot. When you're alone a lot, you get more and more afraid. You get more and more timid. Encountering people becomes difficult, painful. like it's like a skill that you've lost. It's a feel that you've lost and it's harder to get back and you don't think of it that way. You think of h I don't want to go to that party. I You've got to force yourself in the opposite direction.

[00:03:23]You've got to build that opposite momentum because the more you're out in the world, your more that you're social, the more that you're meeting people, the more that you will have chances for finding somebody that has similar interests to you. So, if online you're able to find people with similar interests to you and share that, that's great. But find a way to make it not so virtual. Meet people. Go to these places where there people who are like-minded to you. Force yourself to become more social. So, there'll be more opportunities to meet other people. But the most important thing of all is to be okay with being alone sometimes with actually finding it, oddly enough, kind of pleasurable to not have all those annoying noises, those annoying people, all that narcissism out there, all that crap that we have to deal with. Yeah, I like being alone sometimes. I like just sitting in the bathtub and reading a book. I like just watching a movie, etc. by myself. If you can do that, if you can find pleasure in being alone, then loneliness loses a lot of its sting. And then the other thing is to force yourself to develop that social muscle that we all have. It's not a bad thing necessarily to be lonely. Part of the problem of loneliness is it's got this this this taboo against it, this bad name, like it's terrible to be lonely, terrible to be alone, right?

[00:04:42]And so you feel shamed for the fact that you're lonely. But actually, it's extremely important in life to be alone sometimes and to be able to be on your own and to think about yourself and to kind of come to terms with who you are and to embrace what makes you different.

[00:05:00]And you can't do that if you feel ashamed about being lonely or if you can't ever be alone. So knowing how to be alone is very important. It's what will make you successful. will bring you skills. So don't think of it as something necessarily terribly negative in your life. But the other thing is you have to force yourself. You force yourself to go to the gym to develop muscles and become stronger. You have to force yourself to interact with people and get out of your phone and have real experiences instead of virtual experiences. And if you do that 10 times a month, just like going to the gym 10 times a month, your social skills will get better and better. Your your social muscle will get better and better and you'll feel better about interacting with people.

[00:05:51]>> On that point, you um I remember law I think it's law 18. I'm just having a look >> about isolation. Yeah.

[00:05:56]>> Do not build fortresses to protect yourself. Isolation is dangerous.

[00:06:02]>> Yeah. Solitude is not a defense because it cuts you off from valuable information, allies, and opportunities.

[00:06:10][sighs and gasps] There's a difference, isn't there, between being lonely and being alone.

[00:06:17]Because being alone is one thing, but the state of loneliness feels like it's a slightly different proposition.

[00:06:25]>> [clears throat] >> Well, it's the difference between you feel very unhappy that you you're not connecting to other people. We're a social animal, right?

[00:06:36]>> Mhm.

[00:06:37]>> And you feel like people don't like you, they don't respect you, that you can't interact with them on a level that's meaningful. Whereas the feeling of being alone for me, wow, I don't have to be around ugly, idiotic people. I can just be by myself. I can read a good book. I don't have to interact with people whose ideas I don't like. I can just be myself and be as weird as I want. Wow, what a relief. I'm so happy being alone. Now, I'm not like that all the time. It would be terrible. But sometimes I do feel that way and that's the difference. And that's a good thing. I I remember once I was on an airplane [clears throat] and I saw a a young woman who was by herself and I could sense that it was driving her crazy and she had to use her phone to never feel alone, right? Even in the middle when we're flying over the ocean, she had to like somehow connect onto the internet and be and be sending emails and texts and anything. And I got this kind of desperation in her, this this intuition, this feeling that being alone was just horrifying for her, you know, and um I I think that's not a good thing. I think it's a terrible thing.

[00:07:50]So, yes, isolation is bad. You need to be you're a social animal. You're meant to be around other people. But if you can't be alone, you can't ever figure out what makes you different and what makes you unique. So you have to be able to play both sides of the game >> to to listen to that voice.

[00:08:08]>> Yeah.

[00:08:08]>> Inside to turn inwards.

[00:08:11]>> It is hard to turn inwards when you never have moments of solitude. I guess >> when you were you said you were suicidal in your earlier years.

[00:08:18]>> Yeah.

[00:08:18]>> What lifted you out of that state?

[00:08:21]>> Well, I had a girlfriend who was very understanding who helped me a lot. So I wasn't completely alone. Um, and then a little tiny voice inside of me was saying, "You are you have interesting thoughts.

[00:08:39]You're a strange person, Robert. I've always been strange. I never was like other people. And even in high school, I was always something off about me, which could be made me lonely, which can make me be a problem. But I kept saying, there's something different and off about you, right? And you have skills as a writer. It's going to happen someday.

[00:08:59]Don't give up. Don't give up. Don't give up. Keep trying. Right? And so finally, I'm 35, 36 years old. I was in Italy at the lowest point of my life. And then I met this man there who was a book packager, Yoast Elers, and he asked me if I had an idea for a book.

[00:09:21]And suddenly just I almost get emotional just thinking about everything just shifted inside of me. It's like yeah I could write a a non-fiction book. And I just improvised what would turn into the 48 laws of power. He got so excited. He said, "I will pay you to write the the the the uh I forget what the word is to sell it, you know, and um and then I'll pay you to live while you write it." And so suddenly it went from darkness to light because I had a purpose. and all of my misery. You know, I could take all of the bad bosses I had, all of the horrible psychotic bosses who were so stupid and so political and so manipulative. And I could go, "Wow, I've got all this material to write the 48 laws of power. All my worst experiences can go into this book. It all has purpose for it." I'm not saying that's going to happen to everybody, but I was literally at that moment before it happened pretty much near rock bottom.

[00:10:30]And I asked my my wife, what would have happened if this didn't turn out? Would I have committed suicide? Would I I if id gone the same path and gotten into done some hack job, I'd probably be incredibly overweight and alcoholic and I might have already died of a heart attack. Or maybe I would have found my way to something else. But it was a really really low point in my life.

[00:10:53]>> Purpose.

[00:10:55]>> Yeah.

[00:10:56]>> It's crazy how it can lift you out of darkness. It can turn the lights on.

[00:10:59]>> Yeah.

[00:11:00]>> It's just so unbelievably hard to find for so many people. I mean, you're not going to find it in your bedroom necessarily sat there thinking, but you know, opportunities come.

[00:11:12]You just have to be ready for them. So, I had this opportunity that came to me.

[00:11:18]And you might say, "Well, that's lucky that's never going to happen to me." But it will happen to you. You're just not ready for it. You're just not recognizing it. Some person will cross your path that can lift you out of what you're doing who could connect you, but you're not paying attention. You're not ready for it. You don't think you deserve it. So, there is opportunity all all the every day of the week. You're you're it's around you is what I'm trying to say. There's so many studies and there was one on TV by I think it was Darren Brown the illusionist that show certain types of people are pessimistic towards opportunity and when you do studies where you and there's one particular study where they have a newspaper and they give it to one group of people who I think are pessimists and one group of people that are optimists and the the researchers say when you find the 100 pound voucher or $100 voucher just come back to us and what happens is they scroll through the newspaper And the pessimists never find it. But on the first page of the newspaper, it says, "Stop the stud. Stop. Go to the researchers now. You've won $100." The optimists find it.

[00:12:23]>> And Dan Brown did a similar thing, the illusionist, in the street where he put, I think it was a like a £50 or $100 note in the middle of the street as they were walking down the street. And the optimist find it, they see it, but the pessimist just walked right past it.

[00:12:35]>> Yeah.

[00:12:36]>> I think it was a winning scratch card potentially. And that really opened my mind to like my my state, my mental state, my psychology is determining whether I see these opportunities >> or totally miss them.

[00:12:46]>> And then it's almost this downward spiral because then I'll think, god, I'm such an unlucky person, >> right?

[00:12:51]>> Without realizing that I'm playing a really important role in creating my own fortune or misfortune, [clears throat] >> right? Yeah. I have a chapter in laws of human nature about the nature of your attitude creates your circumstances, which is sort of the same thing you're saying, which is There are two kinds of attitudes that I talk about. One is a clo is an attitude that's closing, that's constrictive, that's narrow, and there's one that's expansive and open. You could call that pessimistic and optimistic. But the closed um attitude is you're only seeing life through [clears throat] this narrow little spectrum where everything is bad, people don't like you, there's hostility all around you. And what that means is you're not seeing reality, you're creating reality. You're creating that reality. You're seeing it and that's what happens to you. The expansive attitude is life is amazing. All these incredible things are possible. I have hope any moment there could be an opportunity and that's not reality either. But you're going to create that reality by feeling that way and taking seizing an opportunity that the the smallest crumb of an opportunity. You're going to create those good circumstances.

[00:14:05]So by your attitude you create the bad things that happen to you in life.

[00:14:09]>> One of the um sort of adjacent points here about purposelessness, about loneliness, about the struggles and plightes of young men in the world that they face and and young women is the conversation around pornography. If you go on many of the social media apps these days, you will be exposed to pretty explicit pornography. whether you you were searching for it or not, there's certain apps in particular where even if I'm scrolling on my feed, certain things will pop up and I go, "Jesus Christ, like you know, I'm at work here." Um, [laughter] and I was thinking about this more broadly cuz the studies show that about I think it's like 80% of men and about 40% of women in the United States use pornography and I wondered if you had a view on how it robs us of the >> of the hard work it takes to form romantic relationships. Um, and if the act of consuming pornography is robbing us of the desire for the real thing, >> well, it it's it's an addiction. And you have to understand that you are being manipulated, that you are being programmed, that these people have figured out exactly the kinds of things, the kinds of images that are going to hook you, and you're being played.

[00:15:19]You're a fool. They're playing with you.

[00:15:21]Just like Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook knows all the algorithms to hook you to his to to the news feed, you're being played by by the images. They know how to create and keep you always wanting more. Just like fast food has all these tricks to constantly be eating their Doritos or whatever it is. Okay. But the other thing is um so I'm not going to preach and moralize about pornography from a a prudish aspect of it because I'm not approved. But I have a chapter in the book that I'm writing on the sublime on what I call love sublime and the act of loving not God not the universe but another human being an individual man or woman gay or straight or whatever it is and how sublime that is. And what it is is in that relationship the boundaries between the two of you are allowed to melt and your your ego can soften and you can feel their world and they can feel your world and you have a connection that for a social animal is the highest form of connection. It's superior to a religious connection. I'm sorry. Um, and what it requires is we we have the expression falling in love. And it literally is falling. It's like you fall fall.

[00:16:49]You're open and you're vulnerable and you're letting yourself fall. And when you're not, what stops you from doing that is you don't want to be hurt. You don't want to be vulnerable, right?

[00:17:02]Because if you open yourself to someone else, you're likely to get hurt. And so the moment there's a disagreement between you or there's a moment where a friend says something nasty about this person you're interested in, you stop falling. You cut it off and that romantic thing ends and dies. But if you get past that and you allow yourself to open up completely and you just keep falling, falling and falling and falling, this incredible thing can happen. And I describe it to you and I describe it the dynamics of that and examples of that and why for a social animal it's like the ultimate experience. And so pornography is completely robbing you of that because love of another human being is a sense of enchantment, right? There's like this this spark that's happening, this electricity and it's obviously sex is involved. So it's a very physical relationship as well.

[00:18:01]But it goes beyond that. It also has a kind of spiritual component, right? But it's a sense of enchantment where the world becomes alive to you. Everything is beautiful in the world in those moments, right?

[00:18:13]>> And pornography is disenchanting you from everything. It's making it all mechanical and ugly and and and it has no romance to it. It has no dimension to it. It's almost as if the two humans involved in it or however are like machine parts, right? They're not human anymore and there's no h emotion involved. There's no kind of spiritual connection. It's depressing. It's really really depressing. When I see it, I feel really sorry that I experienced this and I feel really sorry for the people who are in that industry. I find it really really ugly and alienating. Now, I'm not, as I said, a prudent I and I could watch a movie, a great movie with a love scene in it, and it's very exciting and beautiful. But the seduction element, the element of I saw a movie recently, a Japanese movie by the great director Ozu from the 50s and there was a man who was married and he was about to have an affair with this woman who was kind of seducing him and they had this kiss. I go I thought, "Wow, I was getting used turned on, but I was getting really excited. It was so full of emotion and energy and it made the sexual element so much more powerful by the element of romance, by the element of something kind of transgressive. There was no nude bodies.

[00:19:45]There was no sex you ever get to see.

[00:19:48]But the leadup to it and the nature of the emotions involved made it to me deeply deeply exciting. And if young men particular can't have that experience, if everything is so mechanical, is so computerized, it's going to be like AI, it's going to be like AI sex, you know, then you're losing your soul. You're losing your capacity for really falling in love, for really having that kind of dimensional experience, which by the way can be extremely physical and it can only last for 3 months. I'm not saying it has to be 20 years with one woman or one man. It could be for 3 months, but it enriches you. It create it makes you more human.

[00:20:32]I've invested more than a million pounds into this company, Perfect Ted, and they're also a sponsor of this podcast.

[00:20:37]I switched over to using matcha as my dominant energy source, and that's where Perfect Ted comes in. They have the matcha powders, they have the matcha drinks, they have the pods, and all of this keeps me focused throughout a very, very long recording day, no matter what's going on. and their team is obsessed with quality, which is why they source their ceremonial grade matcher from Japan. So, when people say to me that they don't like the taste of matcha, I'm guessing that they haven't tried Perfect Ted. Unlike lowquality matcha that has a bitter grassy taste, Perfect Ted is smooth and naturally sweet. And without knowing it, you're probably a Perfect Ted customer already if you're getting your matcher at places like Blank Street or Joe in the Juice.

[00:21:13]But now, you can make it yourself at home. So, give it a try and we'll see if you still don't like matcha. So, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you 40% off our matcher if you try it today. Head to perfected.com and use code steen40. Or if you're in a supermarket, you can get it at Tesco's or Holland and Barrett or in the Netherlands at Albert Hine. And those of you in the US, you can get it on Amazon.

[00:21:36]The other thing that a couple of psychologists on my podcast before have alluded to on this subject is that they told me about a study with rats where they messed with the part of the rat's brain that is responsible for causing dopamine and then when they put food in front of the rat's mouth.

[00:21:55]>> If the rat was it was like 6 in from the rat's mouth, the rat would starve to death because they had impacted the rat's dopamine. So, it no longer had motivation. And they speak of dopamine as this sort of motivation chemical.

[00:22:06]It's the thing that gets you to take action.

[00:22:08]>> So if you're frying your dopamine receptors by doing these sort of high dopamine activities, >> right? Right. I'm wondering if you're going to if we're we're sort of breeding a a culture of lower motivation individuals and because of this thesis I was kind of looking at some some studies around this and it does say that constant exposure to high dopamine activities can lead to dopamine desensitization or deregulation of dopamine receptors and then this can lead to a significant reduction in your motivation >> and there's multiple studies here that um point in this direction. So, I'm wondering how when I look at some of the stats around purposeless and people having less partners and being more sexless, if there's a throughine here that when you make dopamine easy through pornography, >> we're less likely to go in, get up out of our bedroom, and take an action.

[00:22:58]>> Yeah. But it's not just pornography.

[00:23:01]There's too much of that in in social media as well on on other levels. So um you know you have to we're we're you have to understand what it means to be a human being first of all and we're physical animals. We can't be in our heads all the time. We we think with our bodies, right? We we think with the chemicals mixing in our bodies. We're very physical and we're social animals to the core. And that social animal, what makes us superior is that we connect. I can kind of look at you and I can maybe understand what you're feeling, what you're thinking, and we can have a discussion and our ideas can go back and forth and connect and go to higher levels of understanding or lower levels of disagreement. But that's what it means to be a human being. You're not this [ __ ] AI machine. You're not a bot. You're not an algorithm. You're not a little piece of data that Mark Zuckerberg can mix with. You're you're a human being with a body with physical problems, with hormones, with emotions that are coursing through you. And you have to become a physical creature, which means doing things in the world, taking action, working, building a business, doing things with your hands, you know, exercise, meeting people, be inside of your bodies. And when you're in pornography, you're disembodied.

[00:24:29]You're not in your body. You might be wanking off, as far as I know, you know, probably are, but you're not really inside of your body in any meaningful way. And so it's like my hope if there's any hope is that and there's seeds of it in the world now where young people are going to start getting disgusted with this because the human spirit is still very powerful and it's still like I don't want to be like this. It doesn't feel natural. It doesn't feel right. And at some point, my hope is in 20, 30 years after I'm probably dead, there'll be a movement where people are going to be so against this that they're going to go in the opposite direction. They're going to be returning to what it means to be human being. There'll be rekindling of interest in our past, in the primitive past, in the pagan past, things I'm writing about in in my book right now. And I've see things like that sometimes, like in the New York Times, they had an article a few weeks ago about a group of young people in college who hate social media and absolutely refuse it and will not It's like almost like a fraternity or a sorority. They will not allow anybody into their group who ever looks at their phone. And I go, "Yay! Yay! Right on, brother. I could have, if I'm in college right now, I would join that. Not that I think everything is evil. I have my own phone, etc. But if I were young, that sense of this is a nasty [clears throat] world. I want to return to what it means to be a human being. I want to spark a movement, a revolution that goes back to that. I hope that that's going to happen. I hope that's in the cards.

[00:26:04]>> What is it about human nature that we just don't want to admit?

[00:26:09]Well um first of all we don't want to admit um where we came from our our primitive roots that we are animals you know that before we invented language you know we were living like any other animal on the in the outdoors right and um I remember one day I was I was in Sydney Australia about 10 12 years ago and they have this amazing zoo I don't I hate zoos because I I'm an animal lover and I think zoos are like prisons, but I I wanted to see the strange exotic animals there. And they had this amazing uh chimpanzee compound, right, where the chimpanzees could kind of roam around freely. And I was fascinated and I sat there for like two hours because it was like watching an office in Manhattan or something where there was the alpha male and all the other males were kind of following behind him like, you know, like the CEO of a company.

[00:27:10]And I was looking around and I noticed all the people were like giggling and they were so embarrassed and they couldn't they were making they were laughing. That was their reaction because it made them so uncomfortable to see this animal that's so much like a human being but is also still an animal.

[00:27:31]They were just so uncomfortable by it.

[00:27:32]It made me realize that we're very very uncomfortable with that aspect of ourselves, right? the part that we can't really control so much, that isn't logical, that isn't rational, that isn't clean, doesn't you know, all these civilized things. So, we're in deep denial of our animal roots. But we're also in denial of our own nature. So we want to imagine ourselves to be these kind of saintly moral rational creatures always thinking about what's good for other people you know and it's just a fairy tale that's not the world as it is you know it's the world more like I described in the 48 laws of power where people are manipulative where people are playing games not everyone but everyone has a manipulative side everyone has a dark side we actually are deeply irrational creatures. We don't want to admit it. We don't want to admit the parts of the of oursel that reflect this kind of animal nature. Our irrationality, our our aggression, our um the envy that we feel towards other people. It's always other people who are like that.

[00:28:46]So I give the example of narcissism and I try to make the point in the book in narcissism you know I make the point that everybody's self-absorbed you know when you're reading a book and you see your birthday happens to be there just a fact you're like whoa that's my birthday because it's you your astrological sign that's me we all are interested in ourselves we're all self-absorbed right and when we somebody suddenly talks about us, our ears prick up. I'm not moralizing it. It's just the truth. It's me. It's It's everyone. We don't want to admit it. It's always somebody else.

[00:29:24]It's always Donald Trump is a narcissist. It's always Elon Musk who's a narcissist. Everybody has narcissistic tendencies. That's human nature. And and we're we want to deny it.

[00:29:34]>> And should we be aspiring to not be narcissists or does one just accept their narcissistic tendencies and lean into it? because much of what I read in the book about power is how narcissism seems to get you ahead to some degree.

[00:29:51]>> That's that's that's debatable. But um >> but I mean look at some of the people that you know we've been talking about that have reached the very top of the professional pyramid in life. You know the presidents and such, they've got narcissistic traits and it seems >> Sure. Sure. And uh and some of them are are kind of what I call a deep narcissists who are very problematic and some of them are healthy narcissists. So a lot of artists are what I would call a healthy narcissist.

[00:30:20]So a lot of our nar um artists aren't necessarily the best people, right?

[00:30:26]They're not often, you know, you wouldn't maybe want to be their friend.

[00:30:30]They're maybe not the most faithful person as as far as a partner is concerned, but they put all of that narcissistic energy into their work and they create beautiful things that contribute to humanity. Steve Jobs was not a very nice person, right? He was very aggressive. He was very assertive and he was a control freak. But look what he created. Okay, that's healthy narcissism. What's the first thing they tell you in AA? I've not been in AA, but I know it. It's admitting that you're an alcoholic.

[00:31:01]>> Okay?

[00:31:01]>> If you can't [clears throat] admit you're an alcoholic, how are you ever going to stop being an alcoholic? But you first have to admit it. So, if you want to stop being a narcissist, you have to get on your hands and knees and admit that you are a narcissist. Because if you deny it, you say everybody else is, if you can't look inward, how can you ever change that? And even the most saintly person on this planet, the Mahatma Gandhis, the Martin Luther Kings, they had definite strong narcissistic tendencies. There are no saints in this world. Everybody has these have these tendencies. So get off your high horse, look inward, and see those traits that are narcissistic within you.

[00:31:41]>> What if I'm dealing with a narcissist?

[00:31:44]>> Well, who isn't >> in this world today? You're always dealing with a narcissist.

[00:31:50]What do I do about that? Do I Because I was thinking about some of the laws in your book where you say things like, "Don't outshine the master?"

[00:31:56]>> Yeah.

[00:31:56]>> If I'm dealing with a narcissist, should I hide my strengths and my weaknesses in order to sort of pander to them and not outshine them?

[00:32:05]>> Yes. But as part of law number one is [clears throat] this is the great thing about being a human being. You can do two things at once.

[00:32:15]You can be consciously playing the game of I'm not going to outshine them because he's he's or she's going to fire me because I'm going to make them feel insecure. But at the same time in my head I'm going I'm not that person isn't better than me. They don't deserve their position. They're actually kind of incompetent and stupid. And someday by being loyal and learning from them, I'm going to rise up and I'm being smart because I have to I'm a social animal.

[00:32:42]And then at that point, I can just say, "Get away from me. I don't need you anymore. I'm better than you." You can outshine them, but you play the game.

[00:32:51]But the worst thing is if you internalize it and go, "I actually am inferior. I'm not going to outshine because I'm not a good person. I don't deserve it." And then you've internalized this sense of inferiority and it's going to haunt you the rest of your life. So, you can play both sides of the game at the same time. You talk about acting in in life to get ahead. Do we have to be actors in your view?

[00:33:16]>> Well, this is where I start getting a little bit cranky, Stephen, because everybody's an actor, right? Nobody admits it, though.

[00:33:25]When you're 3 years old, you're already acting, right? You're crying because you're trying to get your parents' attention. You're you're making trouble with your siblings because you're trying to get something that you want. You're learning to be manipulative. Children are very manipulative. Children are consumate actors. They learn that they can get what they want by behaving a certain way. If I'm an angel, mommy will give me this, that, and the other thing.

[00:33:49]Even though I know I'm not an angel.

[00:33:52]We are a social animal. And we have words and we have language. And with words and language, we can say one thing and be another. We can lie. We can deceive. We can tell people, "I loved your screenplay. You were fantastic in the mo movie. Man, you're looking so great today. We don't mean any of it.

[00:34:12]But we can do that because we have words and we can lie about that. We are all actors. If everyone went around saying exactly what they felt about the other person, no one would ever get along.

[00:34:23]>> We would have killed ourselves off by now. You're always telling the boss the things that they want to hear. You're always telling your partner. You're always kind of hedging exactly what you feel. You're an actor. I don't I don't know understand what's so complicated about that. I don't understand why people can't see that they're every day of their life. And in another instance, you're never the same with two different people the way you are in front of your father as you are in front of your son or in front of a colleague. You're completely different person. Your jokes are different. Your body language is different. You're an actor. Okay? Some people are good at it, some people aren't, but you're an actor. Well, I think at the root of this is there's something ugly about being manipulation, lying, acting. So, no one would want to volunteer that they are doing that. But from what I'm inferring from what you said is that in order to get ahead in life, you're going to need to lie a little bit, manipulate, and act.

[00:35:23]>> Well, you you are. It's not like you need to be. You are doing that. Even though you may not admit it, you are doing that. You see, the thing is, it's getting back to that scene at the Sydney Zoo where people are deeply uncomfortable with these aspects of their own character and their own personality. And I don't want you to go around thinking, "God, it's great to be manipulative. It's great to just screw people over and get what I want and not care about them." No. But it's better to admit that you are capable of manipulation, that you do it often unconsciously and often in a passive aggressive manner. It's better to admit it and it's better to be able to play the game when you have to like always say less than necessary is going to save you a lot of pain. You don't have to go around all your life practicing these things. I don't think you want to.

[00:36:17]>> What was that law?

[00:36:18]>> Always say less than necessary. Law number four.

[00:36:21]>> Can you explain that one to me? In looking at powerful people, the person who talks less always gives off a greater aura of power than the people that are yabbering all the time that are talking that can't control their tongue.

[00:36:34]And the idea is if you can't control your mouth, if you just keep talking and talking, it gives an aura to other people that you can't control anything else. You have no self-control. And that is very unpowerful aura. And obvious the more you talk the more you are prone to say something kind of stupid and irrational that you're going to regret.

[00:36:54]And so powerful people know to command an audience.

[00:36:58]They sit there, they let other people talk and argue and then occasionally they utter something that's maybe a little bit ambiguous and whoa whoa that's very interesting. Robert said that. What does that mean? You look powerful, right? You give off an air of mystery. you give off an air of control.

[00:37:17]And so a lot of people have a hard time with this because they think, "Wow, shouldn't I just be able to say whatever I want and just talk?" Well, no, you don't. Not in the social world, not in the work world. It's going to get you in trouble. Learn to control what you talk and learn that there are moments that saying less is actually much more powerful than just yammering on and on.

[00:37:37]>> I was um through my years of business, running businesses and stuff, I came up with this idea, which I've shared with a few people, called your contribution score. And much like we have a credit score where if we you know we're reckless with our finances, we our credit score gets lowered. Um I think the same applies for the contributions we make in group settings, but just generally the contributions we make. And I came to learn this over time because in one of my offices many years ago in a different company, there was this one individual who in the meeting rooms would when people were brainstorming before they'd thought of what they were going to say, they they'd interject and say, "What about um if we do a we could do like a popup with maybe we'll do like t you they were thinking out loud and what was what I would observe as a CEO is the minute they spoke. It was almost like people rolled rolled their eyes and tried to cut them off >> because they developed this contribution score which says when exerson contributes it's always ill-formed um not productive and takes too long.

[00:38:41]>> Yeah. [laughter] >> But then there's this other guy who I remember from my Manchester office who when he hardly spoke >> and every time he spoke it wasn't important. [laughter] So the minute he starts speaking it's like the room shifts towards him like like with baited breath. Exactly.

[00:38:54]>> So there's an art of protecting one's contribution score.

[00:38:58]>> Yeah. I remember uh 50 I would go to meetings with him >> and 50ent.

[00:39:03]>> Yeah. And he would hardly say anything and people would be trembling. My god, he's not talking. He's not saying he's interested in my ideas. He'd just sit there with this kind of ry smile on his face and then when he'd say something, oh [gasps] they would let out of breath.

[00:39:18]Oh, he's saying something. It'd be very short and curt. But he completely commanded the room because he just sat there as if he wasn't really happy with what people were doing and it made them compete to make him happy.

[00:39:30]>> Interesting.

[00:39:32]Really interesting.

[00:39:33]>> He he's a master of the 48 laws of power.

[00:39:37]>> The other law that I was thinking a lot about if we're jumping back to the the laws of power is let others do the work but take the credit. [laughter] your face when I said that.

[00:39:51]>> Well, you know, some of the 48 laws is irony and you know, people have to be able to understand and read what's ironic. So, um, like I have a chapter in there, play on people's need to believe to create a cult-like following. And I'm not really saying go out and create a cult. I'm showing you why you might be in a cult right now because this is how cults operate. Okay? So when I worked in Hollywood, I worked at one point for a film director and we had this process where we would sit in a room and we would talk about the the story. We would discuss the dialogue stuff and I would give all of this dialogue and ideas in there and he'd be writing it down. And I'm not saying half the screenplay, but at least a third or a fourth were like my ideas, my contribution, my dialogue. I never got a single credit for any of it. It was always his name that was on there.

[00:40:50]People go, "Wow, some that was so funny.

[00:40:52]That was really brilliant. I love that line." Was my line. Okay. So, I learned this is the law of the jungle. When you're working in particularly in entertainment, in media, people take your work and they put their name on it.

[00:41:06]So, like when you're watching a television show with some uh news broadcast or whatever or an interviewer, their jokes aren't their own. They didn't write those jokes. They had a team of people writing it. All those great facts that are coming up, a team of researchers are putting there. You never hear their names. You never know who they are. They took their work and they put their name on it. That's the law of the jungle. And the law of the jungle is don't get upset about it. It's part of the game. You know, I got upset when that happened. I didn't say anything. I didn't do anything, but I got resentful.

[00:41:41]Nobody's recognizing my work. Whine, whine, whine, whine, whine. The adult, if I had been smarter, was that's just how it is, Robert. Just calm down. At some point, people will see your screenplays or your books or whatever and and you'll be fine. But just I'm trying to show you this is how the world operates. And don't be so naive. And don't think it's not like that. And if you had kicked up a fuss, you might have accidentally outshone the master >> of or been fired. It's interesting because there is an element of this where it can where like trying to take the credit can really also lead you to being fired because I'll never I remember back in previous again a previous company that I'd started had a big team of about 200 people in Manchester and there was this one kid in his early 20s who would always sulk if in our like public company channel someone just innocently forgot to include his name in credit when credit was being handed out and it would happen maybe once every six months you just like forgot that he had contributed to the project and that happens in all businesses people don't tag you sometimes and I remember hearing that he was outside on the steps bitching that's the best way I can describe it just like complaining to other younger team members that he hadn't been included in that message and it developed this horrible rel um reputation for him as someone that was always complaining and always trying to take credit cuz it's ugly to be seen as trying to take credit.

[00:43:09]>> Well, so the if you read the law carefully, it's really about how powerful people use this. So if you're an underling and you do the work, don't you don't want to take credit for because it's going to get you in trouble, right? But powerful people have used for centuries the labor of other people and put their name on it to make themselves look powerful and to make them seem like they've got endless energy. Okay. So, you you have to apply that law with intelligence. If you're an underling and you're doing some project, it's a group project, don't go out there and take credit for it because people are just going to laugh at you and you're going to make you're going to make a terrible fool of yourself. So, every law has a context, you know, but that's that's powerful people use that law. And if you don't think that's how it operates, I'm sorry, but you're you're in for a world of pain. I think there's an overarching thing here which which can be discovered in your other book, The Laws of Human Nature, about mastering your emotional self.

[00:44:12]>> Yeah.

[00:44:12]>> Because none of these things are going to be possible if you don't have mastery over your emotions. I'm not going to be able to refrain from snatching credit.

[00:44:19]I'm not going to be able to not outshine my master if I don't have this sort of foundation of emotional control. Is that true? Is emotional control really where this all begins?

[00:44:28]>> Yes, it it is self-control. Um, of course you can take it too far where you have no emotions and you're just a cold fish out there. You know, it's good.

[00:44:38]Emotions are important. You're not going to write a book. You're not going to start a business unless you're excited, unless you have that emotional energy.

[00:44:46]So, I'm not talking about stifling your emotions. That would be incredibly counterproductive and unpowerful.

[00:44:53]But there are emotions that are going to get you in trouble, particularly as a social animal. So, it's not like you stifle your emotions. You learn how to channel and control them. And you learn that certain behaviors are going to be read as unpowerful, as hysterical, as somebody who can't get things done, as ineffective, incompetent. So, as an actor, you learn to sort of present the right front, the right facade. And that requires a degree of emotional control.

[00:45:25]Yes, for sure. It's very important. And it's not easy because when you're young particularly, you're very em you're wired to to be emotional and you're going to learn this the hard way, which is how I learned it. I'm trying to teach you some lessons so maybe you won't make as many mistakes. But it's a hard thing.

[00:45:42]You learn and you learn it by the mistakes you make by saying something foolish that cost you your job. By outshine the master that cost you your job.

[00:45:51]>> You learn it from the mistakes you make.

[00:45:53]Is there any practices that you know of that would enable me to increase my self-awareness?

[00:46:00]Because you know I we're all going through experiences in life but it seems that some people are learning from those experiences and becoming more wise and more effective and then other people are kind of repeating the cycle over and over again. And I think I asked this in particular because you're a writer so you spend a ton of time thinking thinking about what's happened to you your jobs experiences your feelings.

[00:46:23]If if if you do a a foolish mistake, there are two ways to go. And the common route is that [ __ ] they they screwed me over. It's their fault. You know, right? Or I made that mistake, but you know, if circumstances been better, if I had more money, if this person supported me, it would have all would have gone well. That's what we naturally do. And that's the kind of person that never learns from life. So your first instinct must always be and not your first instinct. I correct myself. Your second instinct because your first instinct is always going to be that. There's a great book, I can't remember what the writer's name was. Mistakes Were Made But Not by Me. I recommend that book highly. It came out about 10 years ago. I think it's Elliot Arensson.

[00:47:11]>> Oh yeah, I know him.

[00:47:12]>> Uh very good book. Anyway, your first instinct always will be it was a mistake, but I it wasn't mine. I'm not to blame. All right, everybody does it.

[00:47:22]I do it. Your second instinct is to sit back and go, whoa, wait a minute. That's not right. I'm fooling myself. Actually, I played a role in that in in what happened there. And what is that role that I played? What could I have done differently? Maybe it's very subtle.

[00:47:39]Maybe it was something in my body language that turned people off that made them not like me. Or maybe it was something I said or I did that could have changed the circumstances. What is it that I did? Then you can learn from the experience. And if only 10% of it is your responsibility at least see it as 30%, so that you can learn from it and exaggerate your role in the mistake because then you can learn from it. you can understand that you can correct these mistakes, right?

[00:48:10]So, initially you're going to always blame the other person. Then you're going to step back and you're going to go through this little dance. You're going to go, "No, I think I I I've definitely played a part in what went wrong here."

[00:48:21]Things go wrong and we leap to blame.

[00:48:24]And once we leap to blame, we often leap to revenge.

[00:48:27]>> Yeah.

[00:48:28]>> We want to take revenge. We want to write the wrong that's happened to us.

[00:48:31]We want to correct the injustice. And you talk about this as part of human nature, but also give us some advice. I think it was in it was actually in the law of power book about um I think it was law 36.

[00:48:44]When we feel like we've been wronged, Robert, when we feel like there's been an injustice, what is the best course of action?

[00:48:54]>> It depends on on on the wrong and in the injustice.

[00:48:57]>> So, let me give you an example. Someone at work said I heard they said something to my boss and it's cost me my promotion and they're talking about me behind my back and and it's annoying me.

[00:49:09]>> Well, there are several um avenues that you can go. Everything depends on circumstances. So, if you're going to be a strategist in life is which is what I recommend, you have to look at the particular parameters and not just go there's one answer. There's several possibilities here. So, number one, maybe you're in an awful job with awful office politics.

[00:49:33]I have a a thing that I get talked about in one of my recent talks um of you can scale a culture of a group on a scale of 0 to 100. 100 is what I call a reality group where people are only interested in getting the job done and everything is on results. Zero is where everything is political and everything is personal and everything is about who knows who and how you brownnose your way with the boss. Okay? So if you're at a company that's at that 20% level, then get your ass out of there. Okay? You you have a colleague like that, but there probably other colleagues like that and that person is probably always causing problems. Do you need to be at this job is the main thing you have to first ask yourself. And if it you do need it, you need the job and it's only this one person.

[00:50:22]Then you have to go through a few steps.

[00:50:25]Number one, is it worth taking personally?

[00:50:29]What if I not take the high route because I hate that that phrase, but what if I say it's not really worth it for me to get upset. It's better off in the long run to just act like um you know it didn't happen and to end up getting the promotion on my own in a different way and proving myself as success is the best revenge you know and how can I get there kind of thing.

[00:50:55]Ignoring him or her and what they did and only focusing on what you can do to get back to get the promotion that you deserve. The third possibility is sticking it to this other person, which is always something that I think is is something you might have to consider doing, right? Which is playing the game back at them. So, when you're dealing with people who are unethical, like a Putin kind of type, where they're willing to do anything to get power and you're not, it's asymmetrical warfare.

[00:51:32]They have more options than you do.

[00:51:35]Okay? This person that did that to you, they're going to do anything for power and it puts you at a constant disadvantage. What do you do? You have to do what they have in warfare called a deterrent strategy. You have to show this person that you're not somebody you can mess with. That you're going to do something to hurt them, but it's controlled and it's a one-time thing.

[00:51:58]You're going to damage their reputation.

[00:52:00]you're gonna spread some nasty rumor about them, but it's you don't have to feel like you're lowering yourself. It's just I'm doing it one time to show them that from now on you better not mess with me because damn it, I've got a gun in my back pocket and I can use it. You can't be you can't just lay roll over because they're going to keep doing it to you time and again. So, you've got three options and you've got to choose what's the best one. If you hate your job and you can't get around this person, quit. If you don't feel comfortable going the low road and if you think it's a better strategy in the long term for you and your soul and your safety to simply focus on your job and and get revenge that way. That's probably the best solution of all. But sometimes you need to have a shot across their bow to say, "Look, you can't attack me because if you do, there going to be consequences to pay."

[00:52:50]>> Because these types of people, they they prey on [clears throat] those who seem weakest, right? Predators love prey.

[00:52:57]Yeah, but if you do the option number two and you show that you don't really that they didn't affect you and you kind of act like it didn't matter sort of thing, but you still work hard and you're still doing your job. They might they're going to wonder like, hm, that's pretty impressive. That's interesting. This person has self-control.

[00:53:20]And they're maybe going to be afraid of you in that sense by the fact by the composure that you show them. So everything depends on who you are, your nature and the nature of this this uh Machavelian character that you're facing, you know, but um be alive to the moment in the circumstances and play for the long game. So sometimes the long game means showing that you can mean action because then they're going to leave you alone for the next couple of years.

[00:53:52]>> When we zoom out on what's going on in the world, um, a lot has changed. A lot has changed.

[00:53:59]One of the things that's changed is our society as I think I've heard you say is less united by some of these great myths of religion and you know I've heard you say talk about democracy and all these kinds of things and as a result people no longer believe in the same ideas because every form of authority is now under question >> and you're someone who studies history.

[00:54:19]You're someone that understands the cycles of history. What cycle of history are we in at this moment in time and how does one navigate it?

[00:54:28]>> Well, um you have to take a big picture um especially if if you're someone like me who studies history a lot. So there are always these moments in history of cycles of chaos where and it could be caused in the past by a plague by some terrible war that goes on like the hundred years war in Europe where um people feel genuinely powerless and helpless and there's a crisis of meaning in the world and I could point to specific moments in the ancient ient world in Asia, in Europe, but it goes on and on. It's a cycle that happens. And when people feel powerless and helpless and there's all this chaos going around them, then they tend to be attracted to authoritarian figures, to easy solutions. They get much more irrational. They're much more likely to fall for cults and for belief systems that offer simple solutions and easy one-s sentence answers like make America great again kind of thing, you know? Wow, that sounds that's simple.

[00:55:40]That's easy. Yeah, that's the we'll vote for that, right? So, in moments of chaos and helplessness, people are going to grab for something that anchors them, that gives them a sense of per meaning, right? But it's often something very, very dangerous.

[00:55:56]So, we're in a moment like that right now, I think, around the world. It's not just the United States.

[00:56:03]Believe it or not, things can happen under the skin and and and are subtle like climate change. There are a lot of people who don't believe in climate change, but it's affecting everyone.

[00:56:15]It's making everyone a bit neurotic.

[00:56:17]This sense that we can't control our climate, right? That these disasters are going to keep happening and happening.

[00:56:24]That's a major sense of helplessness.

[00:56:27]The global economy where now your business is at the mercy of something that's going on in Indonesia or Japan or China is a tremendous sense of helplessness and a lack of control and your political figures don't seem to be responding to you in any way. Like their actions, their talk doesn't lead to the kind of results that you want. So you're very prone to following what demagogues say who offer you like easy solutions.

[00:56:58]Okay. So if you're living in a time like that and the it's more dangerous now than in the past because of social media and because of memes and because of the viral effects that are sweeping through humanity right they didn't have that during the bubanic plague during the hundred years war during the French and industrial revolution which was another period of incredible dramatic change in Europe at the turn of the 19th century right So they didn't have that which is adds to the brew and makes it much more dangerous.

[00:57:35]So having a longer view is to say well you know this is a moment a moment of chaos and I'm going to be in control of what I think and what I believe. So I'm going to have a degree of distrust of what people are telling me. I'm not going to get so emotional when people start saying this is what's evil. This is what's wrong with the world. And to be very very very wary of people with simple solutions who say if we just do this one thing everything will be great.

[00:58:09]If we just add tariffs, if we just get rid of all the immigrants, America will be fabulous. These are fairy tales that are being pedled to you. I'm not trying to be political because the other side pedals their own kinds of fairy tales.

[00:58:21]Believe me, I understand that. Can I ask you a question about this book? Um, which is kind of linked to what you're saying now, the 48 laws of power.

[00:58:29]>> What demographic emails you the most about the book?

[00:58:34]>> Young men.

[00:58:36]>> Young men voted for Trump.

[00:58:38]>> I know >> you're someone that I sense and from what I've understood from my research isn't a big fan of Trump. And so what what what do you say to those people about why you you have that position and what they're misunderstanding potentially?

[00:58:53]>> The thing I I do want to say is that you want to be able to think for yourself.

[00:59:01]Okay? So let's say you think Trump is the answer. He's going to have he's going to solve all of our problems.

[00:59:09]Well, be capable of stepping back and going, maybe some of the things he's doing I don't agree with, aren't right, you know, have some discrimination, have some self-distance, have be able to crit criticize your own side. So, I'm on on on the left on the Democratic liberal side. They are buffoons. They are fools.

[00:59:30]They are out of absolutely incompetent.

[00:59:32]And I don't I'm afraid to say it. They make terrible mistakes. They blew this election. They're stupid and it's painful to say that because it's the side that I support, but I do not believe in everything that they pro promote. There are things I disagree with them on the some of their woke policies I just find are ludicrous.

[00:59:52]Okay? So, be able to say stand back and say, "I don't agree with everything he says. Have some dignity. Have some self-worth. Say that I can think for myself and not get so emotional." Right?

[01:00:06]So, you think being masculine and being a bro is just say, "Oh, Robert, f you.

[01:00:13]You're such an idiot. You're so blah blah blah blah blah." You know, put YouTube comments because I get them all the time. You know, f you. You You can fill in the blanks, right? That's not being masculine. That's not being tough or strong. That's being an idiot because you're not able to think for yourself, right? Being emotional isn't masculinity.

[01:00:35]Masculinity is self-control. I'm afraid being masculine is being able to step back and go, "This isn't necessarily the right thing to do. I have to think about it. I have to do something that's more productive, that's positive. I have to criticize myself sometimes. Weak people can't criticize themsel." So, if you're listening to me, at least be willing to say that maybe some of my ideas are wrong. my ideas and your ideas, right?

[01:01:06]That to me is strength. That to me is a masculine virtue. Being able to criticize your own side and not get always so emotional and overheated and leaving nasty YouTube comments as as I'm sure I'm going to get right now.

[01:01:21]>> You made me reflect on something I read the other day. I think it was on X and it was a study that shows that when the more testosterone you have again which we can use as like a proxy for masculinity in studies you're more likely to think for yourself. So they had two groups of um two groups of people >> and they gave one group of um people testosterone. I think it was a group of men testosterone. They both had to do this test and the ones who had the higher testosterone levels had been given art like the artificial testosterone. They were less likely to cave in to external social expectations.

[01:01:54]>> Wow.

[01:01:54]>> Which I thought was it's a proxy for what you're saying, which is >> right on.

[01:01:58]>> Potentially real masculinity is having the the strength of your own convictions and being able to ignore >> social pressure to conform.

[01:02:06]>> You you talked about wokeness in the left and how they messed it up.

[01:02:09]>> Yeah.

[01:02:09]>> I consider myself to be >> I'd say apolitical, but it's more >> This sounds like a strange thing to say.

[01:02:15]I can just see the merits in things on both sides. So I really struggle to identify with the side.

[01:02:20]>> I I think okay that's good for the economy that's good for the different social classes and stuff and >> and so I I also just have I think a very strong negative reaction to the binary choice that you're kind of forced to make.

[01:02:36]>> Yeah. Right. Agree.

[01:02:36]>> I just you know so I just I've always kind of stayed out of it in that regard.

[01:02:39]>> But in terms of this wokeness and the the way that the left have screwed it up, what have they got wrong? Well, um, >> and what's Trump got right, I guess.

[01:02:50]>> Well, I don't know. It's it's it's too painful for me to say what Trump got right.

[01:02:54]>> Well, you've got to be able to.

[01:02:56]>> Uh, I know. Well, [laughter] he he is I'll tell you what he's he gets right and what he's really brilliant at, which is communication and messaging. So, the Democrats completely suck at that, right? They couldn't craft a message to save their life if if they were, you know, if if everything depended on it.

[01:03:14]They're just terrible at it. They don't know how to communicate. They don't know how to make a simple message. Now, I said simple messages can be deceptive.

[01:03:23]But in politics, you have to have something like that. You have to stand for a vision for something straight and you have to be strong and you have to be willing to fight for it. So, I do have the ear of some people in the Democratic party and I say what you got wrong and what Trump got right is to show the public that you are fighters, that you are strong, that you believe in something and that you're willing to upset other people, other groups [clears throat] because you believe in certain things. He a large portion of the public he doesn't care about. He he's interested in his base. He doesn't care if he's hated. Okay? Democrats don't care if you put if you upset this special interest group or that special interest group. So people have to hate you. Being hated is a good thing. Stand for something and be willing to fight.

[01:04:09]You got that all wrong. He got that right. So I can admit that. And he's much better at communicating and messaging. Okay. When it comes to policies, there's there's a pretty big gulf between us about what I think is good and bad. But I mean, wokeness is it it it's an ideology that isn't really connected to everyday life, to to to what's going on around us, right? It's it's kind of a purity test of these are certain things that we hold and you better either if you believe in them, you're on the good side and if you don't believe them, you're on the wrong side.

[01:04:53]It's a polarity. It's a black and white binary way of looking at the world. And that's not reality. That's not how things are. Things aren't black and white. Things have a gray zone. Yes, there are things that are evil. Murder is evil. you know, social injustice. We can all agree on certain social injustices. Yeah. But it's not like this purity test of if you don't believe in this, you're an evil bad person, you know? So on the Israel Palestine issue, for instance, now I happen to be Jewish, right? Um and I've never been a Zionist my whole life. I'm very happy to be Jewish. I was bar mitzvah and I have nothing against it and I'm proud I'm not a practicing religious person in Judaism. I understand because I lost a large part of my ancestry during the Holocaust was deeply part of my childhood. a very traumatic thing that my even my parents were still recovering from. So when it comes to Israel Palestine, I'm very conflicted because I've met Palestinians who had a terrible impact on me as they described the horror of what happened to them and how the loss of their land and how deeply what a beautiful country Palestine was and how traumatic it was to lose their home. But at the same time, Jews were completely homeless from the Holocaust and they did originate from this land. I can see both sides and it's very painful. And if I were to craft a solution, first of all, I I think Netanyahu is is is a horrible person, but there is a middle ground that could be had where there could be a two-state solution, but the woke people, oh, God, forget it, man. You're just you're just you're you're in favor of genocide. Get out of here. That's not life. That's not reality. That's not how the world works.

[01:06:50]It's not how things happen in this world. You're not dealing with the real world. You're just trying to act like you're morally pure. You're not really willing to sacrifice to roll up your sleeves and come up with practical solutions. You just want to yell and rant and act and look like you're you're the most virtuous person on the planet.

[01:07:08]>> But isn't this one of the laws of human nature?

[01:07:11]fitting into our tribes. And because I think being in the being in the sort of political middle or wherever I am, you get attacked from both sides because sometimes you'll have a conversation with this person, then they'll say, "Oh my god, you're you're rightwing." Then I'll have a conversation with this person, then they'll say, "Oh my god, you're a leftwing." And so you just you never fit. And actually, my my instinct is tempted. My instinct my sort of like my primitive instinct is like just [ __ ] pick a side, Steve, and then at least you'll have a you'll have a bunch of people to protect you.

[01:07:41]>> [laughter] >> You talk about that as well, how having a group of people around you and not being in isolation offers protection.

[01:07:45]>> Yeah.

[01:07:46]>> So, it's it's tempting.

[01:07:48]>> It's tempting, but you're going to lose your soul. You're going to lose your dignity in the process. So, it's fine to be part of a group. I remember uh I was a young man in 1983.

[01:08:03]I was on the left for sure. I don't deny it. I went to Nicaragua to report as a journalist on the war going on between the Contras and the Sandinistas. And I was more on the Sandinista side. And they've ended up as things have rolled out that Sandinistas are truly evil. I mean or