how to seduce anyone. >> People who are insecure have a very hard time seducing. So the first quality in

all these form of seductions is to try and get rid of your insecurities. And the way you get rid of your insecurities

is when you're with people, you're not thinking about yourself. You're focused on them. What they want, what they need,

what their weaknesses are. You give that to people, the world will [music] open up to you. Tell me, what is the most

seductive quality somebody can possess? You have to have some skills with words and language. Women are very susceptible

to words. [music] When they hear somebody talking well, who's funny, who's witty, who's good

with [music] compliments, etc., it has a very seductive power. >> What is the difference between people

who are remembered and people who get forgotten in a day? >> The game is to make [music] people think

about you when you are not there in front of them. So, if there's a woman and you're out on a date and [music] she

goes home and she's thinking about you, you've seduced her. So, you need to create a little bit [music] of mystery

about yourself. >> Robert Green, the author of the 48 laws of power, the art of seduction and

mastery. And in this episode, we get inside his mind and uncover the rules of power, influence, and human behavior

that could make you the most powerful person in the [music] room. Human desire is very much viral. [music] We want what

other people have. You never had a girlfriend. Women really aren't interested in you. But if they see you

surrounded by [music] other people who are attractive, it makes them interested in you as well.

>> What are small [music] behaviors that people are unconsciously doing and it's making them appear weak.

>> People who talk a lot, who are always blathering about what [music] they think, about their emotion, that makes

you look weak. I noticed in meetings [music] the person who talks less but has a commanding presence to him or her

is kind of [music] emanates power and then when they do say something everyone's listening what did they

[music] say? So talking all of the time makes you feel weak. How do you become the most powerful person in the room?

>> Well um how do you not feel powerless and insecure in front of a very powerful person?

>> I tell you and I know this because I have to interact sometimes [music] with powerful people. You said we all are

attracted towards dark traits. What are these [music] dark traits? I have a small favor to ask you. I need

you to subscribe to our channel. The more subscribers we have, the better and bigger guests we can bring and provide

you more value through these conversations. And the full audio experience of this show is also

available on Spotify where you can follow us and listen to the new episodes as well. Now let's get into the episode.

One of the first things in my head comes is how do I become the most attractive

person in the room so that I start attracting opportunities. Right? And I often ask myself the same question which

you answered in your books but I want to ask you again. How to seduce anyone? [laughter]

>> Well um is it seducing a woman? Is it seducing an audience? Is it seducing the world? Is it s What is it you're What

kind of seduction are you? >> Let's go one by one. All three. [laughter]

>> Seduction is a psychological process. It's not a physical thing. It's pure psychology. And one thing we can say for

sure that people who are insecure do not have a very hard time seducing. It makes if you've ever had this

experience where you're around somebody who you can sense is very insecure. It makes you a bit insecure, it makes you

feel odd, right? But if you're around somebody who's confident, who feels secure, who feels

powerful and accomplish things, yes, you might be a little bit intimidated, but it also is very seductive to be around

that person. You could kind of catch some of their confidence. So the first quality in all these form of seductions

is to try and get rid of your insecurities. And the way you get rid of your

insecurities is when you're with people, you're not thinking about yourself. You're focused on them, right? You get

outside of yourself. People think seduction is evil. The word is evil, but it's not. It's a form of therapy and

it's actually a form of being social. You get outside of all of your problems, all of your worries, all of your

anxieties, and you focus on the other person, what they want, what they need, what their weaknesses are, what they're

not getting from life, and you give that to them. And so getting outside of yourself and all of your worries and

concerns, projecting a feeling of strength and confidence and focusing on their spirit and getting inside of that

and giving them. Think of how rare it is in your life or anybody's life that people recognize you and validate who

you are and understand what your psychology is and kind of, you know, get inside your world and are interested in

it and think that there's something great about you. It hardly ever happens. True. Because everybody's thinking about

themselves. >> You give that to people, the world will open up to you. like so be interested in

the other person and you said find out what do they need, right? How do I find out what another person needs in a

social setting? >> Well, if you're talking about individual people,

>> yes, >> um it's you can't do it like in one go. You you'd have it takes a little bit of

time. We think so much in words and it we're in our heads a lot. But there's an animal part of our nature, right? That's

very powerful. If you stop you stop your thoughts and you stop thinking about yourself and you absorb yourself in the

energy of the other person, you start picking up signs and signals that are nonverbal, that are physical, that come

from who they are. You say something and their eyes light up and they get very excited. Ah, you

know that that's something that that they're missing that they want that they need that no one's giving them, right?

But you're not going to pick up that signal if you're thinking about yourself. Do they like me? Do I look

good? Am I wearing the right clothes? You won't pick up their signals. So, but you know, Raj, it's not easy to cut off

internal chatter. That takes practice listening to people and not having all that inner chatter and focusing on them

and slowly it'll become a skill that you can develop. It's the most important skill that you'll have for success in

life for seduction or for any kind of power >> to shut down inner chatter. Is there a

practice or a trick that somebody could practice in their life on daily basis to learn that? Well, I tell people um like

[snorts] go out in the world in in something that you do every day like you go to the

supermarket every day and you buy uh whatever it is in here in the States, you go to the counter and you buy fish

or meat from somebody behind a counter, right? You see them every day, but they're not a person to you, right? And

I say, pick somebody out like they're in your life that you see often but you never pay any attention to, right? And

try to think of what their world is like as you talk to them. Like imagine their apartment and where they live and their

day-to-day life and what their family is like and what their childhood must have been like. Of course, you're not going

to figure it out. It's not going to be accurate. But it's fun. We don't do things unless

they're fun, right? >> Yeah. >> So going out in the world and thinking

it's like a movie and I'm going to figure out what these characters are like, what their world is like is

actually entertaining. And I because I've been doing it my whole life and maybe it is who I am. I'm

always doing that with other people. Tell me what is the most seductive quality somebody can possess?

>> Well, I'll tell you. Uh, I lived in Paris many years ago, well before you were born. Uh, I was like 21 years old.

>> I was working in a hotel. Uh, I was a receptionist in a hotel. And there was this man who was from Brazil, very tall,

very handsome. He was the most brilliant seducer I've ever seen. Right. And I remember once he had all these women

were attracted to him. He he was so easy for him to seduce. Um but he never was faithful, right? He was always cheating

on whatever who it was. I was walking down the street with him and this woman came up to him very angry

because she saw he was with another woman and that implying that he was cheating on her. She got she got really

angry. She started yelling and he stood there and he was so calm and he didn't get angry and he didn't get apologizing.

So, oh, I'm so sorry. He just stood there and he was he was understanding. He was listening to her and he had this

kind of calmness and this coolness about him and he he expressed regret for this etc. But he wasn't weak and muing and

apologetic, right? And she just melted. She just melted. She she couldn't resist it. So the point I'm saying is the lack

of defensiveness in a person is incredibly seductive, right? So most people that you meet are all defensive

and closed and resistant, right? They're so worried and so trying to protect themselves, right?

You meet somebody and they don't have that quality and they it's like almost like they don't have an ego, right? and

they're not defensive and they're not resisting you. It draws the same quality in you as well.

There was an actor in Hollywood named Errol Flynn who it was like the he was women just dreamed about him. He was

very handsome. He was just a very seductive male figure and he was an incredible seducer. He probably slept

with over 5,000 women and he died when he was 50 years old because he was an alcoholic. [gasps] But I found a quote

from a woman. I was trying to figure out why was he so seductive. And the quote from this woman was being around him was

like having drunk three martinis. You just felt so relaxed. He made you feel so relaxed. He had this animal

presence. He wasn't nervous. He wasn't defensive. He wasn't all tight. It just was like drinking an like a

martini. He just made you relax. It's not an easy quality. A lot of people don't have it, but it's by far the most

seductive quality you can. >> So, let's say if there are two people, right? One

becomes very memorable and seductive in one room and the other person is also let's say it's social is great but other

person becomes instantly forgettable. What is the difference between people who are remembered and people who get

forgotten in a day? >> Well um I' I'd go around this question from a different angle. So, um,

seduction is a game where you're trying to make the other person think about you when you're not there, right? So, if

there's a woman and you out on a date and she goes home and she's thinking about you, you've seduced her. If she

goes home and she's kind of thinking about you a little bit, but she's also thinking about other people, her job,

you haven't really succeeded. So the game is to make people think about you when you are not there in front of them.

Right. So I wrote a whole book about that and what you need to do.

>> Yeah. >> But you need to create a little bit of mystery about yourself.

>> Like you said something that's kind of provocative that they don't quite understand and it makes them go home.

They think about you. What did you mean? You have qualities that I had a chapter in seduction called

mixed signals. Sending mixed signals. You appear to be something very strong, but you send a sign of there's something

else going on inside of you that's quite different. Right? So, you're a man. You feel very you come across as very

masculine and strong, but you send a signal that there's something about you that's almost feminine where you're you

have you're aesthetic. you're interested in flowers or whatever. The woman goes home goes, "Hm, what an interesting

character. I've never met anybody like that. He's he's very masculine, but he has this other side to him." You know,

so she's thinking about you. >> So, if you don't if you're just trying to be yourself, if you don't understand

the game, if you don't put any effort into it, people won't remember anything about you.

They'll only remember you when you're there in front of them. But when you leave the room, when they're not there,

forget it. And that's the whole game is making them think about you when you're not there.

>> Give me one more example. I love this. This is how to make people think about you when you're not in the room.

>> Well, I mean, uh, as I said, these are all things in the art of seduction. So, um, when I first met the woman that I'm

with now, um, was a while ago, right, before I wrote The Art of Seduction, um,

I we had gone on a date, but nothing really came of it. Okay? And so, I didn't know if she was interested in me.

My birthday was coming up and I happened to have at that time I still do. I had a lot of female friends who were very

beautiful, right? And I was going to have a birthday party at this restaurant and there would be four or five of these

very beautiful women there. I very clearly invited her to come to this party afterwards, you know, when we were

having dessert and everything. So she would see me surrounded by attractive women who were interested in me, right?

So knowing that somebody that is attracted to other people is very seductive, particularly to women who can

be very competitive that way, but it works with men as well. So the sense that nobody desires you, that nobody you

you never had a girlfriend, women really aren't interested in you makes the other person wonder. But if they see you

surrounded by other people who are attractive and know that you that there are other people interested in you, it

makes them interested in you as well. And then they will go home and they will think about you because they will be

competitive. So human desire is very much viral. We want what other people have. If you pass

by a restaurant, you you want to have dinner and it looks good, but there's nobody in

the restaurant. H I don't know. But the food's good, but you don't want to go in there. You pass by this other

restaurant, which might have mediocre food, but it's 20 people are in there. They're all laughing. They're drinking.

They're having a great time. I'll go in there, right? Because other people are enjoying it. And and our desire is

viral. It's contagious. So if you make other people feel like you are desired by others, they will go

home and they will be thinking about you because they're competitive. They're going to want to be one of those people

that desire you as well. See, that's true. But somebody who's not desired at all, someone who is not in demand is

not, it doesn't look like that man or a woman is being desired by anyone. How can they manufacture this? How can they

actually do this? Because their first problem is that nobody's interested in them. How can they make other people?

>> You can't make somebody like that into a great seducer. You have to work at it. So it's not like it's not like people

are born great at this game, right? The man I mentioned in Paris, it wasn't that, okay, he was handsome. I I I grant

you that, but he had been working on it for a long time. He understood the psychology of it. So, you have to if you

understand the psychology of it, you're going to go, "All right, I have to find people have I have to get people

interested in me, right? I have to get women looking at me. What is the qualities that I can have that will do

that?" Right? You have to put some effort into. You have to work on it. >> True.

>> So, nobody is born with, you know, all these women coming to them and and looking

attractive. You work at it. You I built those friendships over years because I happen to like women and I I was a rake

back then. But it took work. It took effort. It took effort to be desired by other people, right? You have to have

some skills with words and language. Women are very susceptible to words. When they hear somebody talking well,

who's funny, who's witty, who's good with compliments, etc., it has a very seductive power.

>> True. >> Men, their weakness is the visuals, is the looks, is the physical aspect of the

woman. Right? So, you have to be aware of the psychology of what's going on and play to those things and build up those

qualities in yourself. You're not born that way. I can't take somebody who feels like they're a loser, that nobody

likes them. I can't instantly turn them around. They have to work at it, right? And I've helped people before who've

been in that situation and slowly we build up confidence. We get rid of the insecurities.

step by step. If you're that person that you mention, if you start getting rid of your insecurities, if you do things that

will make you confident and sometimes you can fake a little bit of confidence, you will start attracting interest, you

will start attracting people and then you will build some momentum and then the things that I'm talking about about

creating triangles of desire will start to be powerful and effective. Right. >> True. True. You know, you you gave an

example of this Brazilian man. You said that he was unfaithful [snorts] and yet

women would engage with him, right? Yet women would will melt in front of him and we all have seen this, right? The

kind people, the generous, the most nicest people, they don't end up getting [laughter] a lot of lot of women, right?

Why do you think like why nice people don't >> Well, it's not completely true. Some

nice people can be very seductive, but if you're too nice, it comes across as weakness and it comes across as

insecurity. So, we talked about mixed signals. You're a genuinely nice person. You

can't help it. That's who you are. But if you can mix in something that's a little bit harsh, that doesn't seem

quite so nice, that will have some seductive power. But, you know, if you're if you're so if you're so weak

and you're so nice, people will wonder about you. What's wrong with you? Right? But so like with with the rake like this

man the Brazilian man women knew that he was never faithful but it's always in the back of their mind maybe I will be

the one that will finally make this guy faithful right that competitive interest in the other person. Why? Like why the

person who's faithful you don't you're not attracted to that? Because

there's a side of people that feels that there's something weak about you. So if this man is desired by all these other

women, well, there must be something very interesting about him. There must be

something very attractive about him. There was an English poet named Lord Byron who was like Eduardo, this

Brazilian man. He was extremely unfaithful and there was a reputation that he was

kind of evil, right? Did he actually sleep with his sister? Did he actually maybe kill somebody? It made them really

really interested in him. That hard edge, they're very makes them very attracted to it. men. If the woman is so

soft and so sentimental and so nice, something feels wrong about it. But you give me a woman who's got a little bit

of an edge to it, who maybe isn't so nice to me, who feels like there is something slightly dangerous about it,

that is incredibly, incredibly seductive. that very nice woman. You may want to marry her and have children with

her, but it's not the same thing as a seduction, as a woman who's very seductive. But have you noticed that the

woman that you're describing, u woman who's nice, she is most trusted, she's genuinely a good person, often get

played the most. >> Yeah. Well, because they're they're very naive

and they're very trusting and their trustingness makes them open to the worst kind of man, you know. But also,

I'll make this point. >> People are secretly drawn to what is dark and transgressive. So, we all

pretend to be interested in virtue and being so nice and loving and caring and doing all the great things that make us

virtuous >> because that's the culture we live in. We're social animals. But at the same

time, we're attracted to the dark side, to what's transgressive, to what has a little touch of evil to it, right? And

because there's so much pressure in our world >> to be so nice all of the time that we

get kind of sick of it, right? And so the woman who is very nice and sweet and trusting secretly she is drawn to the

rake, to the rebel, to the man who's going to hurt her. She doesn't want to be hurt, don't get me wrong, but she's

secretly drawn to that man who is not like her at all. Right? >> [snorts]

>> Then is like being good or like being a good person a big disadvantage in today's

world? >> No. I mean uh it depends on how you play it. I mean

>> see because you said a good naive [clears throat] woman gets played. A good man doesn't usually end up getting

a lot of attraction. So technically a good being a good person it looks like a disadvantage to me.

No, I would never I would never say that. We're talking about seduction in the realm of seduction. But in the world

when it's like politics or it's dealing with your family or dealing with friends, I I would never say that being

a bad person or being mean to people is good. I I I I don't like that quality in people. But when it comes to love and

seduction and sex and the physicality, an edge, all I'm talking about is you have an edge,

>> right? If you're just all soft and cuddly and you have no edge, that isn't a seductive quality because we live in a

culture and a time where it's kind of woke and people are supposed to appear virtuous and good. A lot of people who

appear nice and virtuous aren't inside don't have that quality. They're actually not like that. They're covering

up something else going on inside of them. >> Yeah.

>> So, the real quality is is much different. When I worked in Hollywood, there were it's a world where everyone's

supposed to be so liberal, so nice, so wonderful, so woke. But they're not like that at all. you close the door, they're

yelling at their secretary, they're screwing people around, they're being manipulative, but nobody ever sees that.

So, there are a lot of people who are fake with their virtue, you know. Do you feel and that that's something that I

think and that's my belief based on what we just spoke about. I feel being little evil and playing these games or

manipulating is a leverage in environments where there's anonymity. And what I mean by

that is when you're in a big city, when you meet new people every day, when you're on dating apps, when you're just

like there's any number of people and you don't have to meet them again and again, probably manipulation and evil

games takes you a little further and makes people more attractive towards you. But when you're in an environment

where there's lot of social and community around you where you have to see the same person again and again and

again then their manipulation usually becomes a disadvantage because the word travels all around and people know you

and once they know that you're a liar you're manipulative your chances of succeeding in that small environment

actually reduces. >> I don't disagree with you but there's there's um it's it's a subtle game. It's

not like just black and white. So let's say you you enter an office and you have a job and there are 40 people there,

right? That's a pretty small limited community. Okay? >> And inevitably in an environment of 40

people, there will be one or two manipulators, power players, people who understand the

48 laws of power but have never read the book, right? And you are all trusting and naive and

good, right? And they use you and they manipulate you and they play games with you and you're hurt and you get

emotional and you get upset and this makes you weaker and it makes it harder to get in life and you go home and you

carry it home with you and then you quit and then and then it it has like cascading effects on you

psychologically. So, what I'm telling people in the 48 laws of power and even in the art of

seduction is don't be so damn naive. I don't want you to go out there and be manipulative.

>> I'm telling you, be aware of these games that are being played and don't be so naive. So, law number four, always say

less than necessary. It's not really manipulative or evil. It just means don't be talking so much. Control you

what you say a little bit. Be more in control of yourself, right? Be aware that other people are looking at you and

judging you. And so that kind of self-awareness will help you in the world. You spoke something about weak

like don't be weak in environments. That's something that you want people to learn.

What are small behaviors that people are unconsciously doing and it's making them appear weak, insecure

and desperate? >> Always say less than necessary. So people who talk a lot, right, who can't

control themselves, who are always blathering about what they think, about their emotions, about their feelings,

that makes you look weak. You don't think that. You think, "Wow, I'm just being honest. I'm being sincere. I'm

just talking about who I am. What's wrong with that, Robert? Man, can I just be myself? Well, but we're not. Humans

are animals, too. And we smell that if you can't control yourself. If you're always having to talk, then you can't

control other things about yourself. And that's a sign of weakness. And inevitably, if you talk and talk and

talk and talk, you're going to say something stupid. Right. >> True. If you're able to control

yourself, if you're able to talk, let the other person do more of the talking. First of all, that that'll be a

seductive quality. And also, I noticed in meetings, in business meetings, etc., the person who talks less but has a

commanding presence to him or her is kind of emanates power. Right. Right. And then when they do say something,

everyone's listening. What did they say? I mean, I had that experience with 50 Cent when I did the book with him,

right? I was in there on several meetings. People could not stop looking at 50 Cent. What's What's going on with

him? Cuz he never said anything. He never he sit in this very powerful meeting with millions of dollars at

stake. He would sit there all calm with this kind of strange smile on his face. He appeared to be listening, but he

never said anything. What's going on with 50? What's he thinking? It was so powerful, right? So talking all of the

time makes you feel weak. Makes you look weak. Trying to please too many people makes you look weak. Sometimes it can

make you look weak. The people pleaser. Sometimes you think, well, that's a great quality. You're always trying to

please people and get them to like you. Okay. But it doesn't feel like sometimes it doesn't come from a position of

actually comes from insecurity, right? you're you're defensive. You're worried that people might hurt you, so you're

always trying to please them. That makes you look weak. Some of these qualities you having demonstrating that you have

self-control, that you can kind of craft your your appearances, that you have this presence is very powerful. But the

feeling that you have somebody has no control, they're just who they are. They're just blathering and talking and

trying to please people, it makes you look weak. You said people who try to please

people, they they look weak and that makes you weak, right? And I've also noticed that

when you're trying too hard to impress, it makes you less desirable. Why is that? because you're essentially just

trying to probably do more things which makes you desirable in front of someone else

because um it doesn't really feel like it comes from a place of strength and security. So if you're if you're a

Buddha, if you're Gandhi, if you're somebody of that high level, it's genuine. You're a genuine saintly

person. It's very powerful and it reads that way. We can smell when when that desire to impress people and get them to

like you comes from a genuine love of other people, a genuine concern. We can feel it. But a lot of times it feels

desperate. >> It feels like they want you to like them so that you won't hurt them. And we

smell that kind of weakness. Now, I'll tell you something, Raj. I'm normally, I think, a fair a pretty

nice person, right? I came from the side that's more naive. I have a bit of weakness to myself.

I've learned over the years that playing up the niceness and you know going along with people

being interested in them can work if I demonstrate there are limits and there are boundaries and you do something to

me and I'm going to mess with you. You can't go that far with me. I'm nice. I'm gentle. I like what you say. I'm

interested. Then you start taking advantage of me. I'm gonna put the hammer on your head in an instant. I'm

going to show you the limits and the boundaries and then my genuinely nice nature which I do have works for me.

>> Right. But I have limits and I there are people out there who will attest to how I can be when you test those limits.

>> In middle you said we all are unconsciously attracted towards dark traits. attracted

towards evil traits. What are these dark traits that people are attracted towards?

>> Well, first of all, you have to understand the the dark side of of of everybody,

right? So, uh when you were a child, you were just a complete individual. You weren't yet

socialized. You would maybe beat up your sister. You would hit your sister. You would steal from her. You would do

things. But you would also be sweet and nice. And then slowly you become socialized. Your parents tell you,

"Don't do that, Raj. Don't hit yourself. Be nice to her." Your teachers are doing that on and on. And that kind of human

quality that we all possess, that kind of animal energy that's just explosive. It gets pressed down further and further

and further and repressed. Okay? And we suffer from that because we're not complete human beings anymore. A big

part of ourselves has been cut off from us. Something that was in our childlike nature.

Okay. So when we see people who give out some of that energy from childhood, it seems very authentic to us. It seems

very real and we're attracted to people like that. If you look at entertainment in movies and television shows, it's the

dark characters. It's the evil ones. It's the Machavelians that were interested, that we're excited in it,

that make us want to watch that movie, makes us want to know what's going to happen. The villains. If there were no

villains in this world, there'd be no drama. There'd be no entertainment. We are drawn to that secretly. We're drawn

to those types of people because it's a part of ourselves that we've had to cut off and repress. Now, I'm not telling

you to go out there and be evil and be dark and steal and rob and cheat and kill. I want you to take that dark

energy that you have that we all have and channel it into something productive and make it work. So I took all of my

dark evil Machavelian energy which I've had since I was a child and I put it into

the 48 laws of power which has had some success and has helped a lot of people. >> Tell me top three dark traits which

people are really attracted to. Well, I know for instance, um there's an athlete um that I admired very much,

Kobe Bryant, basketball player. >> Love him. >> Okay. He was my idol. He's he's the

greatest. >> Kobe had a lot of dark energy to him and he talked about it a lot.

>> And when he was young, it could get him in trouble. And I remember when he first got on the Lakers, there was something

about him that wasn't mixing well with the team. He was so competitive, so ambitious. He was just going to he would

do anything to get an edge on you, right? And Michael Jordan was a bit like that as well. Okay. So that sense of

somebody who has that kind of ambition [clears throat] but is controlling it and putting it

into the a basketball game is incredibly powerful and we're attracted to it right on the court particularly.

Another thing was um so willingness to do anything for your ambition in a professional setting that's an

attractive trait. Yes. I I mean Elon Musk is not somebody that I admire, but his quality of he'll do anything to

promote himself, anything to promote his business is what attracts a lot of energy towards him, hatred and love as

well. Right? Another quality is I talked in the art of seduction about charisma, right? And I equate

charisma. A charismatic person is like they have a light inside of them that animates them. They're so excited. You

see it in their eyes and their voice. One of the people I talked about in there was Malcolm X, a very important

figure here in America. He had a lot of anger and and righteous anger because he was a

black person in America who suffered very deeply. He was a hustler who was put in prison for many several years. He

was in prison, right? And then he came out and he saw all the racism in America and it made him so angry.

But he when he spoke he was one of the most elegant speakers and you can look at it on YouTube and watch one of his

talks. He doesn't seem angry. He doesn't come across yelling and bitter. He controls it. It's in his word. It's in

his tone. It's in what he says. It's in his gestures. It's in his body language. It's very, very powerful. Anger can be

very, we're drawn to it if it's in that chneled controlled way. Somebody who yells and screams like a Hitler, like a

Mussolini. Yeah, that could be some people are drawn to that. But the person who channels that energy, that anger

into something that's kind of controlled, right? that's in the background is very very we're attracted

to that. So, I took my own anger and I put it in the 48 Laws of Power. And when you read

it, you're not aware of an author who's angry, who's been screwed in Hollywood, but it's in the background.

>> And the kind of darkness in the 48 Laws of Power is what has made it, I'm afraid, so successful because people are

secretly drawn to that. There's so many icky, gooey, sweet, sentimental self-help books out there that say just

be kind, just be good, just be a team player, just be cooperative. Yuck. That's all we've read. We know that the

world isn't like that. But here's a book that kind of talks about, you know, act like a friend, be like a spy, crush your

enemy, totally, you know, play a sucker to catch a sucker. Yeah, man. Yeah, I'm interested in that. So, I I kind of

accomplished that in in my book itself. So first was am willingness to do anything for ambition. Second was anger.

What's the third one? [laughter] >> Jeez, I don't know. I have to think about I have to think about people who

have that quality. The other thing is you're giving me a hard time. That's all right. I deserve it. The [laughter]

other thing is that you have a past. >> What do you mean by that? >> That there's something dark in your past

>> that makes people nice. uh more attracted towards you. >> Yeah,

>> I think so too. >> Yeah. >> When you show people that you're broken

in a way which and you accept that in a way that most people will never accept and you show up out there, it makes you

instantly attractive. >> Yeah. All right. I got one. >> Yeah. [laughter]

>> Yes. Because [snorts] in fact I've seen this is to me personally people who appear to be having a great

past and they have no darkness and they it feels like they're too good to be true. I find it very difficult to trust

them. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Like I I want to be careful of them.

>> Yeah. And if somebody comes and tells me about some broken bad thing which probably is negative, I still trust them

more than the people who appear to have no past at all. >> And also if you've been hurt really

badly and you had a bad childhood or something, there's some something very we're drawn to people like that.

>> We're drawn towards broken people. >> Yes, >> that is

it's it's true. That is so true. >> Yeah. I know personally in the realm of seduction, I'm the woman that has had a

wonderful childhood, everybody treated her well, who's so happy doesn't interest me. [laughter]

So I'm particularly vulnerable to that problem. Yeah. >> So being broken, being ambition and

anger. Okay. [laughter] You know one thing which helped me a lot >> not yeah like I started purposely

following that rule in my life at in the beginning of my professional career in last

now I' don't think about these things at all it was [snorts] law of absence >> what does that mean

>> that don't be present everywhere >> what what >> don't be present everywhere like be

absent >> oh yeah yeah of like that. >> Well, you know, I talk about that a lot.

>> That's why that's what like you talked about it and that's how I got to know and I started putting that in my life

and I've seen changes. I never used to believe in that. I used to feel and this is strictly professional that if I go to

every networking event, every place, every conference, I'm there, I'm being seen everywhere, you know, it's going to

help my career. It's usually the opposite. If I'm seen at very few places, that has helped me way more than

being seen everywhere. So the law of absence became a primary rule in my life. I'm so glad to hear that.

>> Everybody in my team follows it. >> I'm so glad I'm glad glad you realize that. Well, I said before that the art

of seduction is maybe people think about you when you're not there. So if you're there at every event, every networking

thing, they take you for granted. True, right? But if you're not there, why isn't Raj here? What's going on with

him? Does he have better things to do? Better than being here? They make You're making them think about you. You're

creating a little bit of mystery so that when you do show up, it has meaning. It has import. Yeah. It's an incredibly

important law because in the age of social media, it almost seems counterintuitive. I've got to be

seen everywhere. I've got to have attention. I've got to have as many followers as possible. If a day goes by

and I haven't posted something, people aren't thinking about me. They're not talking about me. But what you don't

realize is that in playing the game that way, you're just like everybody else. >> And other people are going to come along

and they're going to attract attention and people will forget about you because they take you for granted. You're just

like everybody else. And the game is to be different, is to be not like anybody else, to be who you are. So, it's not

like Raz shows up every other time at an event. We don't know. We can't figure it out. He's got his own weird pattern.

He's got his own weird things. And so, with you, you makes you unique. And as you get older, cuz you're only 29,

you'll see more and more of possibilities to be different and be yourself and have power in that. Because

it's hard when you're in your 20s to think that way because you think I've got to be like everybody else. I've got

to fit in because that's what it means like to be young, to be hip, to be right. But as you get older and you're

confident and you know yourself, you know the game is actually to not be like anybody else out there. That's what

really draws attention. And so not showing up is is part of that game. Yeah, true. There's nothing wrong

with that kind of manipulation. I mean, you're going out on a date with a woman that you're very interested in, right?

So, you dress nicely, right? You dress nicer than you normally would. You think more deeply about what

I have to wear and you think, "I want to take her to a good restaurant." These are things you wouldn't normally do.

You're playing a game. You're manipulating her. She thinks you dress nicely. We don't normally dress that

way. So this that's part of being a human being. It's part of being a social animal. I get a little bit angry

sometimes with people who are so worried about always having to be like an angel because the people who have to pretend

that they're always an angel are actually hiding something very deep inside. You know,

>> we all play games. >> True. That is so true. Thanks for saying out loud. [laughter]

because I do sometimes have certain guilt about certain things. So, thanks for pointing out that one thing. Okay,

tell me when you you know when you practice all of these things, right? And you become this one person who is

who is this you become this person who everybody's attracted towards, right? Then a lot of people get addicted to you

and people get obsessed with you. So when someone is obsessed with someone, what are they really addicted towards?

Why like what quality is there that that is that is making this one person

so addictive that you can't leave that person? You know that this person is not right. You know that this person

shows 50% interest, 50% doesn't show interest. >> I mean um

>> you get addicted to it. Why? Well, the most powerful uh you know, in the art of seduction, I have the nine

types of seducers. The most powerful of them all is the coette.

Often traditionally associated with a woman, but men equally can play the game.

>> And a coette is someone who blows hot and cold, right? So, if this, let's just say it's a woman, but it could be a man.

If this woman were always cold and indifferent, nobody would be interested in her. If she was always hot and

exciting and sexy and coming on, but she's exciting and sexy and alluring. You go after her, then she

pulls back and she's a little bit cold and you go, "But she was interested. What's going on? What's my problem?

She's not interested in you. I've got to try even harder." It's a very addictive type of person. It makes you chase them.

So people who withdraw, who step back and make you chase them and make you go after them, it becomes a

form of addiction. It becomes a kind of a hunt. You want to conquer them. You want to get them. You want to be the

person that has them as well. So that sense of mystery, of retreat, of a little bit of absence is what can make

you very addicted to them. Right. >> True. True. You know, I was reading >> I mean like I'm sorry, but when you're

addicted, what makes you addicted >> is withdrawal. >> You don't have that drug and now you've

got to get it. That's what this person is doing. >> True. True. I was reading a little bit

of neuroscience around this. And and I found out that your dopamine neurons, they fire up not

because of the reward, it's because of the anticipation. Ah, very interesting. >> And they fire up to the maximum not at

100% but at 50%. So whenever you're chasing something and there's an anticipation that you're

going to get 50% and 50% you might not get >> that is when your dopamine neurons are

fired up to the maximum and that's why you get addicted to it. That >> she might say yes, she might say no.

that like neuro by like neurologically it's more addictive and

it's it's proven by science. So this whole anticipation game works way better. A lot of people think that the

reward makes them addictive but it's actually the anticipation insight that maybe I'll get it and maybe I'm not.

>> Yeah. Yeah. I mean um I talked in in the in the war book um about leaders who are very good at motivating people

>> and one of the greatest motivators was Napoleon Bonapart and Napoleon Bonapart's strategy was mixing harshness

with kindness. So he he was very interested in his soldiers. He was very thinking about

them and trying to protect them and making them comfortable. But when he was harsh men, he would make a show of it.

And he was the meanest person of all. And there was no leader who who who people were more addicted to who were

more in love with than Napoleon Bonapart. Even though he led millions of young men to death, literally in the

wars in Europe by mixing that harshness and kindness, they were constantly thinking about him. They were so

enraptured by him because those moments of harshness, whoa, it's like a slap in the face. That's not who Napoleon is,

but yeah, he is. And it made it made him the respect levels go way up. >> 5050% true.

>> And they were anticipating that moments of harshness as you say >> when exact. So it's like then the

obsession with the leader or with a woman or a man >> is not about the person at all. It's you

are not addicted to that person. you're actually addicted to the unanswered question

>> which you feel like only this person can answer >> and that's why you get more addicted.

>> That's >> I mean the only the the flip side of it is I'm wondering like algorithms are

designed to be incredibly addictive, >> right? >> They figured out how to kind of capture

our attention and to return over and over and over and over again to the same kinds of posts on social media

>> because it's the same rule, right? You don't know if the next next reel is going to be good or bad.

>> Yeah. >> So in your head you're anticipating next one's a little better or this little and

>> that's very interesting. You give it something. >> Yeah. Right. Like you've just gified the

whole anticipation mechanism in your head. >> Well, you know, um all that stuff like

neuroscience that you mentioned, they're all reading all about that. They know about all these studies and they're very

clever in getting us hooked and addicted. >> True. That they all they do is this. I

mean, is is it's seduction ultimately the art of discovering an unmet emotional need of someone else?

So, um in in in ancient Greek, the uh god of love was was Cupid or Aeros and he had a

bow and an arrow and what that meant was he would wound you with the bow and arrow and in that wound you would fall

in love. Now, because if we feel completely secure and happy in our lives, we can't be seduced, right?

There's nothing there's nothing to seduce. We're already so perfect and happy.

>> Yeah. >> But if we're missing something, if we have a wound from our childhood, most

often something that was hurt us, something that we never got before, then we are extremely vulnerable to being

seduced. Right? So if somebody as a child um never got enough attention, right,

their mother was was a narcissist, wasn't really attending to them very much. They're going to spend their

entire life with that emptiness, that wound in them that they never got enough attention, that they never got enough

recognition. When a person comes along who senses that weakness in them and gives them that attention, they're just

going to melt, right? >> Yeah. >> Everybody has a wound from their

childhood, something missing, right? And you're playing you you realize what that is and you're giving it to them in some

form or another. It could be wicked and manipulative or it can be very caring and and helpful to the other person. But

if someone is completely happy and has no wounds, you cannot seduce them. >> True. It's it's always like that that

your childhood voids end up becoming your adulthood things that you value the most in life,

>> right? >> And then if you can figure out that void and become a person who provides that,

you usually end up making other person fall in love with you. Well, you see the thing is, as I mentioned before,

you're not going to figure out what people are missing in life if you're thinking about yourself and your own

wounds. True. >> So, the problem that people have is when you're somebody who is wounded from

childhood, like you weren't given something, it tends to make you very self-absorbed and it makes you a bad

seducer. So the problem is you have to overcome that and you have to be outerdirected and very much looking at

the other person so that you can figure out what they are missing. Sometimes you can sense that intuitively the moment

you meet somebody and you don't have to put it into words. But most often people aren't realizing it. They're not

conscious. They're not aware because they're not paying deep attention to the signs that people give. I tell that if

you um if you get people to talk about their childhood,

right, but you're not obvious about it, you you don't make it look like you're questioning them for information, but in

the course of a conversation, you get them to talk about their child, about their parents, their early years. You're

going to figure out very quickly what that wound is. They're going to reveal it. things that excite them, things that

they tell, and then little dark secrets, little shadows and corners that they don't really want to talk about, but

kind of come out. Get people to talk about their childhood, and you'll pretty quickly figure out what it is that

they're missing. >> True. True. It's and

when you figure out something about other person's childhood and when you're interested in you're trying to know that

it somehow I don't know why it somehow gets you closer as well as two people like when the moment you start talking

about childhood the good bad and ugly things all together it just brings you so much closer to the other person.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Right. When people talk about their childhood, they become like a child.

>> Yeah. >> They're reliving experiences and they have their facially their

smiles, their laughter, uncontrollable things light up. You can see the four or 5year-old in them coming out. It's very

interesting. And people love to talk about their childhood. Even if you had a bad childhood, people love to talk about

it. You could think you get them to open up because they're dying to share their their little secrets and their and

everything that they suffered and all their pleasures that they had. It would work wonders on me as well. I I I have

that weakness too. >> Yeah. You know, that's one of the questions, one of my most go-to

questions when I meet someone for the second or the third time is this that what do you used to do the most as a

kid? And then it just starts a new segue into a conversation which can either go very deep or into so much fun or can

lead to a different adventure that hey I used to do this and I missed it. Okay, let's go do that.

>> Right. And then and then brings you out in you and you want to share your own experiences and then you can kind of

bond on some level. >> Yeah. So and then people end up telling you what they miss today,

>> what they used to get >> and what is something they continue to do. So, and then it's a great way to

realize what other person likes or dislikes. >> And when people talk about their mother

or their father, that's particularly powerful. So, for a boy, the relationship with his mother is

extremely potent. All sorts of things are constellated around that relationship.

All the things they never got, all the things that they love, what they're attracted to. I don't mean to get

Freudian on you, but your relationship to your mother is incredibly powerful. And for women, it's also the mother, but

it's also the father. And their relationship to the male figure, to that dark, shadowy father that was looming in

the background carries all sorts of power in it and reveals all sorts of weaknesses and things that they're

afraid of and things that they're attracted to. >> Yeah, I absolutely agree. That makes me

question, do you fall in love with another person or do you fall in love with the fantasy

of who you become with that person? Well, it depends. It depends on on most often we fall in love with the fantasy,

right? But sometimes it can happen. Also, what often happens is when you first

fall in love, it's the fantasy. And then if a relationship develops and it's several years down the road you start

falling in love with the person as they are the real person with all their weaknesses and all their foibless and

even the things you don't like about them and the imperfections in them become something that you cherish and

you love when you think about them what you would miss if they were gone. But originally in the first moments we're

almost always attracted to the fantasy that that they're somehow fulfilling for us. Definitely true because I often

believe that you usually don't fall in with the person right you fall in love with the

idea of you around them how they make you feel who you become how enlarged you get or how empowered you feel when

you're when they are around you because that is a different personality of you which you really get addicted to. So you

always keep asking yourself a question, who am I without you and who am I with you? And that usually is the answer to

why did you fall in love with someone? Because even if you look at when they when people break up, they usually don't

tend to miss the person. They miss the version of themselves which they were with that person. Yeah. And that's what

they moan the most because they almost feel like they've lost something a part of personality which they had in

themselves when they were with this partner who they absolutely love. >> Then they go in search of someone else

who will give that to them >> and it's very difficult to find that. >> Yeah. Yeah. So in in my new book I have

a chapter on on it's a book about the sublime and I have a chapter on love sublime

and I talk about this story from the middle ages in Europe of Abalard and Eloise one of the greatest love stories

in in western culture [snorts] and essentially Abalard was this professor um in Paris who was very logical very

could figure things out but he had never had a relationship ship with a woman. And there was this w young woman named

Eloise who was the most educated um philosophical and desired woman in all of France. It was very unusual for a

woman to be a scholar, but she knew Hebrew and Latin and Greek and she was beautiful.

And he sees her one day walking by the river and he tells himself, I'm going to I'm going to be the one that conquers

Eloise. I'm going to seduce her. I've had no uh experience with women, but I'm gonna I'm gonna seduce her somehow

because it was for his ego. He wanted to show everyone that he was the greatest person of the time. And so he becomes

her tutor. And as he starts instructing her, they start becoming physical because he was a

very handsome man. And quickly, they're having sex and they're doing all sorts of very naughty things for the time. and

he starts falling in love with her and he starts realizing that what he thought she was, the fantasy that he had

imagined, isn't the reality. She seems so sweet and innocent, but actually she's got a very dark and devilish side.

He's always afraid that they're going to be caught and will ruin his reputation. She doesn't care. She wants to be

caught. She they they sneak into churches and they have sex inside the church. She's transgressive. I didn't

understand who she was. So, he gets to ignore her more and more and more. And finally, the fantasy that drew her into

her turns into the reality that this is a person who is incredibly interesting, incredibly dimensional. And he's

completely hooked and he falls deeply deeply in love. and their story and their connection is one of the most

fascinating stories because we have the letters between them and the connection that they they develop between each

other was just insane and I'm trying to say so we say that love is like we say falling in love right so it's a

brilliant metaphor because it is like falling you're falling because you're letting go you're letting go of all of

your defenses you're letting go of all your vulnerabilities you're letting go of all that keeps you a separate from

other people. You're letting go of your ego. You fall and you fall and you fall and you fall. You let go of all that.

You reach a point where there's nothing left and you become like the other person and you have this incredible

bond. It's an ideal that is very rarely realized. But to get to your point, what happens is

for most people, they start falling and they get afraid. Oh no, I'm going to get hurt.

You know, I don't want to give up so much of myself because what if this person suddenly doesn't desire me

anymore? I fallen this far. If I fall any further, the pain will be that much greater. I'm going to stop. Right? And

then you start you start hearing from friends about, oh, there's somebody. You start thinking, oh, there must be

somebody else out there because you're addicted to that sensation of falling and letting go. But you wouldn't let go

far enough to fall really in love. So you become addicted to the sensation of falling but you won't let yourself fall

far enough for anything meaningful to happen. So you go search for other people and you never quite f you never

quite let go enough to ever have that sort of sensation that is the deepest it's almost a religious feeling that a

human can have because it's combining the physical and the spiritual. It's the physical powerful connection to

a a a woman or a man and it's the spiritual side of getting to understand what makes them a unique individual.

They become something that lives inside of you. It is a religious experience. It could be very powerful, but people are

too afraid to let go to have that happen because they're so defensive and worried about the pain that might occur. And

then [clears throat] do you feel that a lot of people they get this kind of

really aggressive love deeply love feeling and even after that then they then they

leave like they get really into the relationship. They are in love. They're addicted to it. they're enjoying

and then they leave like immediately something goes on and they try to look for that kind of feeling or maybe a

deeper feeling with someone else. It's like almost they feel like there's something which is

>> better >> better and not ful not completed here. >> Well, the thing is um humans are flawed

individuals. They have imperfections. uh they have weaknesses and the longer you're involved with someone, the more

you're going to see their flaws and their weaknesses and what makes them a human being. So, you fell in love with

the fantasy, the image, which is idealized and kind of perfect. And then you start seeing

that they're not really what you thought of. Some of what you now discover is interesting, but some of what you

discover is kind of off-putting. You didn't realize they were so needy and so insecure. you didn't realize they needed

all these things that you w aren't necessarily prepared to give them. All right, I'm going to cut off that falling

process and I'm going to find somebody else who's better, who's more perfect. And we live in a time where the

prevailing metaphor is the marketplace. So, it's Tinder, Swipe, ah, somebody better. They're going to be better.

They're they look a little better. They look a little bit younger. They're not going to have all of these flaws. But of

course, inevitably they do because they're a human being. So you have to get rid of your fantasies and think of I

mean having if you value having a relationship over time and I can tell you personally as someone who was a rake

in my 20s who had many different women that I was involved in having a relationship over time is incredibly

satisfying, incredibly enriching. It's a beautiful wonderful thing, right? But it's not going to happen unless you

accept the the very glaring imperfection in the other person and even come to love them and appreciate them and

realize that the imperfections is what makes them a human being and what makes them in some ways very attractive to

you. But you know, you're always listening. Your friends are always telling you, "Oh, there's somebody else

out there. There's something wrong with that person. She's like this. She's like that. You can find somebody better."

Right. And then you have this the swiping thing going on. So you're never going to let yourself ever have that

sensation of of falling in love with the with the complete human being that they are and the imperfections and all.

This gets me to a larger point which you also mentioned in the beginning of the conversation was something missing. Why

do young people today feel that there's something missing? This has almost become like a constant

emotion or a constant state of living. I feel there's something missing. >> You know, when you're young, it's it's

like I had that feeling as well, like something was missing. You have all of this energy, all of this excitement

inside you physically. You're so charged. You look good usually, you know, and you want things to happen and

the world isn't providing it for you because everything nowadays is so virtual that to have a real experience,

to have a real adventure, to be taken outside of yourself, to be taken onto into something so different and

exciting, it just never happens anymore. So the feeling like something is missing, a lot of it has to come from

our technology and how we're being programmed and we're not experiencing things for ourselves. And so the book

that I've just written is about how to get out of that trap and how to live your own life more intensely, more

connected to the world, and to have real concrete physical experiences and get outside of your goddamn phone. You know,

that's why I think a lot of people are feeling like they're missing. They won't admit it because they're addicted to

their phones and to their screens, but they're what they're missing is real life, life intense, life physical, life

exciting, direct, immediate, not not mediated by this thing. Tell me how how someone who's socially anxious, is

always feeling that something is missing, is trapped in this feeling, can get out of it. Tell me one interesting

framework from the book that people can implement today to get out of this whole trap of feeling something missing.

>> So first of all, give yourself moments where you put the phone away. Give yourself some moments

of silence. Take a walk and not hear anything. Just look around and be observant and get rid of this addiction.

Right? I mean, I remember I used to swim all of the time and there would be people who had earphones in their head

while they were swimming. I mean, what's wrong with you? Don't you want to be directly related to what's going on to

your environment? That's the first thing. It's the most important thing of all is putting your stupid phone away,

putting it in a drawer, taking a hike, taking a walk, going on a date, and putting your phone away and talking to

the other person. You'll see couples at restaurants and both of them are like this, right? So, you're not living your

life. You're living the life that other people are giving to you, that are programming you, that are conditioning

you. You're not even aware of it. When I meditate, I become aware of how programmed I am, right? I become aware

of these thoughts that I can't get rid of, but that were literally on my phone half hour before when I looked at them.

Then I'm aware, god damn it, I am being programmed. I am being conditioned. So the first thing you can do is experience

life around you directly. You're young. Your senses are alive and awake and aware. When you get older, your senses

become dulled and you're not so active. Okay? But you're not attuned to your body. You're not attuned to yourself.

You're not attuned to your own rhythms. Put the phone away and start opening yourself to your environment, to the

things around you, to the sounds. I do this exercise when I'm riding my bike up in the hills. I do two things. I absorb

my mind completely in the environment in the strange trees and the rock formations and to the sounds. I'm not

hearing in my head thoughts. I'm hearing the traffic in the distance. I'm hearing the bird calls. I'm hearing the wind.

It's I can't tell you how how wonderful it is. What a wonderful sensation it is. But I won't have it if I'm like like

this, you know. >> But do you think that will help people feel better?

Because what I'm talking about is this constant constant anxiety that people feel like there's something missing in

my life. I'm doing everything right and yet I'm not fulfilled. Do you think just by getting close to nature and leaving

technology is going to help them that much? >> Yes. It'll it's not going to solve all

of your problems. There's there are other things I can talk about from my book.

>> Tell me one of the other things. >> Well, I have a chapter in there about your childhood

>> and how when you were a child, the world was so much more intense, right? Um I mean nowadays, I don't know,

children with their iPads, it's changing. But for me at least, my childhood was the most intense period of

my life. Okay? And I'm telling people what you're what you're nostalgic about isn't being young. What you're nostalgic

about is the intensity of your experience. Right? So I try to analyze what made the experience so intense back

then. A lot of it was you were curious about the world. So the problem that you have

when you get in your 30s and 40s and 50s is you think you know everything. >> Yeah.

>> Uh I've read all of these books. I know what the world is. I know what reality is. I know what politically is great and

right. And your mind just closes and gets narrower and narrow and narrow on these certain small little set of ideas.

You think you know them, right? When you were a child, you had none of that. What is you're you're interested in

everything because you're so small and the world is so weird and mysterious. You want to understand

well You go back to that go back to that feeling of curiosity. Start playing the exercise. And I do

this exercise on myself as I go around and I look at things. I don't know anything. I have no ideas. I don't know

what the world is like. I don't know where why there's a sun out there. I don't know where birds come from. I

don't know what my body is. I don't know who I am. Give return to a sense of mystery and

wonder about the world like you had when you were three or four or 5 years old. You can do that by doing so each chapter

in my book ends with literally exercises that you can practice for putting this into your daily life because I don't

want this to be some boring academic book about the sublime. It's about how you can have these experiences. So I

literally give you exercises to enact each of these things. Right? So interesting. There's something similar

which I do in my life but it's accidental. Now I can just draw parallels. I do this to stay

purposely and intentionally to stay more curious. If I have to go to one place let's say every day I usually try to

take different routes. Uh-huh. >> And if I'm going to any new new place, new city or just a new area, I try to

just look around and look at houses, look at trees, look at the shapes of leaves, look at all of these things and

make theories in my head. Why is this leave round? Why is this one pointed? >> And then I make make up theories in my

head to just amuse myself. And then when I come home then I like whichever thing I'm most curious about then I start uh

googling it and try to find out that okay oh this theory no this was completely wrong this is completely

right and it just keeps me so much more curious about the world. >> Yeah.

>> It helps me >> well I would give you one wrinkle to your exercise. So you take a different

route. >> Yeah. >> Try taking the same route but making

yourself observe things you had never seen before on that same route. M >> so my bike rides there I have only like

five different versions I can go on but I take the same one and I'm always looking for something I had never

noticed before some strange tree growing out of the ground. So one thing in the book I say

is everything you do is is is languageoriented right? So you don't look at a tree you just think of the

word tree. >> Yeah. >> The general category of tree. But look

at that strange thing emerging out of the ground that doesn't have a brain but is alive. It has its own strange

consciousness cuz trees do have a consciousness. If you came from another planet where

there there might be life but there are no trees. What a fascinating weird thing. And each one is different. There

may be the same tree but no two trees are the same. Right. So I mean that's part of the exercise that I try to do

that. >> Okay. >> Tell me the most interesting chapter

from your book which you feel is interesting. Well, the chapter I I'm personally um

most drawn to is one about animals. I call it the interecies sublime. And it's

so a lot of the book I tell you that your brain is wired a certain way and it

makes you think a certain way and you take that for reality. So when I'm meditating, I be try to make

myself aware of consciousness itself and how it feels, right? And I tell myself if I came from another planet, my brain

would be wired so differently, I wouldn't have this consciousness. So this consciousness has a feeling towards

it. It's like it's not inside of my brain. It's not in the world. It's nowhere. It's like the sky. It's empty.

What is the feeling of it? But animals have a different kind of consciousness.

Their brains are wired differently. Each one has their senses are different. A dog lives in a world of smells.

They can tell more things about the world through smells than we can ever do through our intelligence. They're

brilliant. They're philosophers, right? Cats live in their own world. Bats live in a world of sound, as dolphins.

Spiders are blind, but they live in a world of vibrations. They can feel the world. They understand the world through

vibrations. The point of this chapter is you think that you understand the world, but you're just seeing a version of what

your brain is telling you because your brain is wired a certain way. Animals are like alien beings on our planet.

We're so interested in science fiction in things that don't re that don't exist that are not real, but we're surrounded

by aliens, by space aliens, by spiders, by bats, by butterflies, by dogs and cats. They're insane. They're amazing.

They evolved over millions and millions of years with their own consciousness. And I give you exercises about how to

get outside of your consciousness and enter into their world. And I have examples of people who've done this with

octopuses, with whales, with wolves, and with birds. The second chapter that I'm most excited

about is one about history. And I'm trying to tell you that [snorts] history is not about like dead facts and things

that you read about in a book. People 500,000, 10,000 years ago were alive just like

you. They had emotions. They had feelings. They had sensations. They had dreams.

They were alive. Enter their world. Enter into the past as if it's something present. And I give you exercises on

that. And I recreate the past for you. So for instance, I take you on a journey through ancient cities. Ancient

Babylonia kind of fascinated me. And I literally take you on a walk through the city of ancient Babylonia. And I make

you aware that you think New York is beautiful or San Francisco, Los Angeles. These places

were unbelievably beautiful in a way we can't even begin to comprehend. These 40ft statues, these ziggurats going up

into the sky, these buildings that were all reflecting the sunlight in the same way, these gods, the hanging gardens of

Babylon. If you were to transport yourself there now and look and look how strange it was,

my god, my world is so ugly and drab, but these cities were unbelievable. They were so beautiful, right? And then at

6:00 at night as the sun goes down in ancient Babylonia, suddenly there's this wild sexual energy where prostitutes,

male and female, are filling the streets and everyone's having sex and there these orgies going on even in temples.

I just want you to make the past come to life and not see it as something dead. And so those are the two chapters

that I love the most from the book. And there are 12 of them. 12 chapters. >> Nice. Give me an exercise. Give me one

exercise which helps me become better with the world of history specifically which you just told me.

>> Okay. Well, um, one of the exercises I have is [snorts] if you can remember the apartment or the house that you grew

up in originally, right? And the objects that were there, right? Okay. So, the exercise is to think about the house and

the furniture and the objects that were there. Some of them were there before you were born, right?

>> Yeah. >> Okay. And they come from a world that you never lived in.

>> True. the early 90s, the 80s, the 70s. Your parents probably even have things from the 60s, things that they inherited

from the 50s and 40s. Okay? There are objects in your house that were there before you were born and they have a

style to them that's alien to you because it's not the world that you lived in, right? They they inherited

they lived before you were born. Do you understand what that means? You were literally not existing. You were dead.

You were not a creature. But these objects were there before you. They carry a weird energy and a weird life to

them because they're signs of the past and it's sort of a a twilight zone. [snorts] So they're things that you can

remember that you lived with, but they come from a period before you were born. And so they have an energy to them. And

so I'm trying to show you that the past is like lives in these objects and they have a life of their own. and the life

of their own is the past and they're full of this weird energy. You can do that with movies. You can look at movies

from the 1980s and you could go, "This is when my parents were young and exciting and happening and they first

met and they were like in their 20s, right? And they had these weird fashions and these weird hairstyles and these

clothes. You can look at the movie and go, "This was the world before I was born."

It's strange yet it's familiar because there was something still like that when when I was living, right? So that I'm

trying to give you a sense of what the past was like as something alive, not dead. And it's carried in these objects.

And so then when you go to a museum or you see photographs from the past, you can go through the same exercise and see

them as something that was once very much alive. So that's one of my exercises.

>> And what happens if I do that? Well um

first of all you become aware of another world. So you the world now is something that you take for granted that um it it

it's like this is how things are right but the world was different 50 years ago was very different had a different

energy a different cultural moment a different zitgeist and so by connecting to the past you become more of a human

the problem I think that a lot of people have nowadays I read a lot of history. Okay, I'm not good at many things, Raj.

I have many weaknesses and flaws, but I read a lot of history. I understand history on a very deep level. And it

gives me a perspective on life and the world that is very different if you don't understand history. If you don't

understand it, it expands my mind. It makes me aware that there are other ways of thinking, other ways of of behaving

in the world, different customs, different cultures. Going through this exercise takes you

out of your narrow little moment in the present and makes you aware of the world before you were alive, but that still

has some spirit to it. Still has some livveness to it. So, it's opening your mind up to a different world, to a

different reality, the world of your parents. >> It's not a world that's dead. It's a

world they are alive. They they raised you. And so, you're entering into their world. And you're entering into the

world of your grandparents. I don't know if you don't find that exciting. There's nothing I can I can do

that's going to make it for to me. >> I find it exciting. >> And into the past is one of the most

immense [clears throat] experiences. >> Yeah. I love I love both of these things because

>> it gives me a perspective of what my parents or grandparents must be going through or living through.

And the second I think that's even more fascinating exercise that I live in some in some civilization which was thousands

of years ago and then I try to understand what happens when the sun rises and when the sun sets and I try

I'm trying to experience it by just expanding my imagination >> and that helps me a lot and helps me see

things today from a different perspective and not just in one perspective.

>> Well, that's what the my book is about. But look at the sun someday. Just stare up at the sun and realize

that 20,000 years ago, our ancestors back in the Paleolithic era were looking at the same thing and having strange

sensations from it because the sun is a very strange thing you take for granted. It's a star that at some point will

disappear. And in one of my chapters, I described the birth of our son. But they were having the same sensation

20,000 years ago that you can have. I don't know. For me, that's that's a very powerful thought.

>> How do you become the most powerful person in the room? >> Okay. Well, um, in the laws of human

nature, I have a chapter on nonverbal communication and I talk about the qualities

that emanate power in people. So if you read that chapter and you

study that you will understand the qualities that you should have. So first of all a powerful person is not like the

is not like looking everywhere. It's not like cuz that's a sign of nervousness like oh are people looking at me? People

noticing me. Okay. So you're you're controlling your facial expressions. You're not you're not looking

everywhere. you're you're have a focus on something in particular, a particular person, a point in the room. Okay? You

have a posture that um you're not like you feel confident. You have a particular pose. And so I say that a

powerful person is relaxed, right? So when you enter that room, you are relaxed. You're not nervous. You're

not looking for attention. You're not wondering what people think about you. You're inside your body. You're calm and

you're confident and you're relaxed. That relaxed quality is incredibly powerful, incredibly attractive because

if you enter a room and you're a stranger or people don't know you, everyone's nervous. Everyone naturally

is nervous, but you're not. You're calm. You're not looking everywhere. You're not touching yourself. You're not

talking a lot. You're relaxed. You're going to draw a lot of attention, a lot of power. Okay? And don't talk a lot.

Control your words. Have a sense of mystery. So when I when we talked about withdraw and absence,

you can be in a room but also slightly absent. How? Well, you're not trying so hard to get attention. You're almost

stepping back and letting people come to you instead of you having to go out and get them. So, you're inwardly stepping

back and people are drawn to you in that way. If you're always like in their face trying to get them to talk to you, but

you're stepping back and you're the one kind of inside your own body and commanding, they're going to come to you

and they're going to want to talk to you. So, that sense of withdrawal of retreating is very, very powerful. I

told you in that room with 50 Cent. Of course, it's a little bit skewed because he's 50 Cent.

>> Exactly. >> So, I'm sorry. But the fact that he wasn't talking at all, that he was so

quiet and had that kind of enigmatic smile on his face, being sort of mysterious and enigmatic is very

powerful. Made everybody like, "What's he thinking? What's he doing? What's he up to?" So, a little sense of mystery.

You're not obvious and you're relaxed and in control. I think that will command attention when you enter that

room. >> Let's say you're not someone who's popular and famous. You're an average

person. You're on your journey to become someone exceptional. You enter a room. You enter a social gathering and you're

confident. You're relaxed. And what do you do? You just stand in the corner and do nothing and just look at people.

That's going to make it very weird, right? You're just standing alone. Well, I mean, you can go up to somebody

if you recognize that there's a person that's like um maybe they're kind of powerful or interesting, you can go up

to them. But, uh I mean, you're asking kind of a slightly impossible question because

you can't command a room without a reputation of some sort. You have a past. People know you. If there's just

strangers, what I'm telling you will have some power, will have some effect. But yeah, if you just walk into the room

and you just relax and you don't do anything, okay, I I agree with you, right? But normally in normal life,

people have reputations. So when 50 Cent enters the room, wow, when Robert Green when he was 20 years

old enter the room, who cares about him, right? So your reputation carries a lot of power behind it.

>> How do you not feel powerless and insecure in front of a very powerful person?

>> I tell you and I know this because I have to interact sometimes with powerful people by being calm and relaxed and not

asking them a million questions and not acting like I think they're a god. I feel like they're a human being. So when

I met 50, I was very normal and natural around him. And I talked to him like I I talked to anybody. And boy was that kind

of powerful for him cuz he was expecting me to be all weird and Henry Kissinger-l like with him or Machavevelian. And

instead I was talking to him about strategy and and how he was strategizing with his record albums. that are just

just being a normal human being because they're so used to people famous celebrities are so used to people

being weird around them and being intimidated and being insecure and not knowing when someone's natural around

them and relaxed. Wow, that's that's really interesting because that mean almost makes it seem like you're equals

>> right now. could be a little bit insulting if you're not careful. So, it's not like you're equals because I'm

as powerful as 50, but it's equal as human beings and I'm not in really intimidated by you. I actually want to

talk to you about regular things. If you do that in the right way, it can be very powerful. It could also be taken the

wrong way too. So, you have to be careful. >> When did you feel the most powerless in

your life? Well, um, prior to writing the 48 laws of power,

um, I had been working in many different jobs. Like my girlfriend, my wife, and I counted it must have been 60 different

jobs. I couldn't I couldn't hold any job down because I wasn't happy. I wanted to be a writer

and I had no success. I tried journalism. I tried writing novels. I tried working in Hollywood. And so in