12 Raw Truths About Gaining Power & Respect - Robert Greene - #839

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello, friends, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Robert Greene. He's an author and a historian. Robert is one of the most legendary writers in the world on human nature. And today, we get to go through some of my favorite lessons from him on seduction, confidence, happiness, masculinity, and Niccolò Machiavelli. Expect to learn the biggest problems with modern philosophy, why acquiring knowledge and skills are always the most important thing, why you must protect your reputation at all costs, why you are so often your own worst enemy, which lessons from Machiavelli most people miss, advice for young men wanting to make it in the world, and much more. This was an awful long time coming. This episode we were supposed to do last year, and then we couldn't and we rearranged, it took an entire 12 months to get Robert back on, and the guy's a hero. He has this real no-nonsense approach, which I very much respect, and yeah, he's one of the greats. He's one of the all-time greats. This is so much fun. I really, really hope that you enjoy it. But now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Robert Greene.
Robert Greene, welcome to the show.

**Robert Greene** (1:31)
Thank you for having me, Chris, my pleasure. We finally get to meet after all these years.

**Chris Williamson** (1:35)
The first time that you came on the show was episode 78

**Robert Greene** (1:40)
Where are you at now?

**Chris Williamson** (1:41)
Five years ago, I'm on 820 The show is 400 times bigger than it was when you first came on, so I wanted to say thank you.

**Robert Greene** (1:49)
Only 400? Come on, Chris.

**Chris Williamson** (1:50)
I know, I know.

**Robert Greene** (1:51)
I'm disappointed.

**Chris Williamson** (1:52)
I know, I really did try to impress you. I wanted to hit that 500 number before we got to meet. But I wanted to say thank you for coming on very early.

**Robert Greene** (1:59)
You're very welcome.

**Chris Williamson** (2:01)
I also wanted to say thank you for sending me the special edition of 48 Laws of Power, which is the coolest book for the people that haven't seen it. It's leather-bound, gold-embossed 48 on the front. And then as you look at the side, it's gold, just like a gold boundary on the outside of the paper. But as you splay the pages out in one direction, it's your face, as you splay the pages out in the other, it's that famous portrait of Machiavelli. So cool, so cool.

**Robert Greene** (2:32)
I can't really totally take credit for it. My partner on the first three books, he did it. He's a brilliant designer. He consulted me on it, but he's really the genius behind that.

**Chris Williamson** (2:44)
It's the sort of thing you can't not take a photo of.

**Robert Greene** (2:47)
Yeah.

**Chris Williamson** (2:47)
It's so, I mean, it's the most basic technology as well. In stuff that's been around, you used to get it in serial boxes to look at things from different angles to be able to make it work, but no one's ever applied it to a book before.

**Robert Greene** (3:00)
Well, he's a very strange guy. He's Dutch. He's very interesting. We had a good kind of rapport, and he researched it and he found in the 18th century, this was the techniques that they would use on the edging of books, where you would flip through it and you would see an image.
He studied how they did it, and then he was able to replicate it through digital technology. But that's pretty genius. That's pretty interesting.

**Chris Williamson** (3:31)
Who is that guy?

**Robert Greene** (3:32)
His name is Joost Elfers. You'll see his name on my books, the Joost Elfers book, my first three books. He's the one that, if it weren't for him, I wouldn't be here. I'd either be dead or I'd be still working in Hollywood and probably be dead anyway. He discovered me, I've told the story many times, but he basically gave me my first break and he subsidized me while I wrote the 48 Laws of Power. He produced it, he designed it. Together we designed it, but so I have a lot to owe him.

**Chris Williamson** (4:05)
And he's still involved?

**Robert Greene** (4:07)
Yes. He designed the cover of The Daily Laws and I'm hoping he'll, yeah, sure, we're still together, yeah.

**Chris Williamson** (4:16)
What do you think is the problem with modern philosophy? Where did we go wrong?

**Robert Greene** (4:24)
Well, I mean, it's a huge subject and there are lots of different aspects of philosophy. But like everything, it's so much in our culture, it's kind of lost its soul.