“True genius, in strategy or anywhere, lies in self-control, self-mastery, presence of mind, and fluidity of thought.” – Robert Greene
When it comes to the study of human nature, power dynamics and social intelligence, there’s perhaps no one more knowledgeable than Robert Greene.
Collectively, his 7 (soon to be 8) books have sold more than 20 million copies, and along the way he’s consulted countless world leaders, athletes, politicians and celebrities.
By scouring human history to understand patterns of behavior, he’s developed the unique ability to take incredibly complex and rich subject matter and whittle it down to key learnings that are relatable, tactical and applicable.
In this interview, we ask Robert what role communication, self-awareness and social intelligence played in not only his own life but also the historical figures he has dedicated his life to studying.
We cover:
- Tips for navigating the messiness of the human condition
- Behind the scenes of his new book, The Law of The Sublime
- Applying higher level strategy in sports and business
- The critical communication skill every coach must prioritize
- How our obsession with technology impacts our communication
Connect with Robert Greene:
Via his website / buy his books: https://www.robertgreene.co/
Via his social media: https://linktr.ee/Robertgreene
In this episode, you heard Brett and Robert talk about our live 2 day communication workshop – The Apprenticeship. If you’ve ever wanted to see how you come across to others, learn how to ethically influence people, navigate power dynamics and develop a strategy or approach for solving conflict or having hard conversations- join us! You can find more information and upcoming dates/locations HERE.
Also, if you want to download a FREE personal finance guide & interview with my father (a financial advisor of 40 years), go to artofcoaching.com/money. We cover the foundations of investing, saving, debt, credit and more!
We’d also like to thank our sponsors for this episode – Dynamic Fitness and Strength & Momentous. If you’re in the market for the most customizable and affordable gym equipment- tell our guys at Dynamic we sent you. If you’d like cleanest and best tasting protein and supplements on the market, use code BRETT15 at checkout!
TRANSCRIPT
Brett Bartholomew 0:09
This episode is brought to you by Dynamic Fitness and Strength. When it comes to durability, customization and customer care, Dynamic meticulously over delivers. Listen, I know it might sound cheesy, but to us coaching and leadership is all about getting things done through meaningful interactions, the things that lasts and simmilarly Dynamic Fitness and Strength creates products that lasts and fit any budget. Learn more by going to www.mydynamicfitness.com Again www.mydynamicfitness.com And be sure to let them know that we sent you.
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Welcome to the Art of coaching podcast a show aimed at getting to the core of what it takes to change attitudes, behaviors and outcomes in the weight room, boardroom classroom and everywhere in between. I’m your host, Brett Bartholomew, I’m a performance coach, keynote speaker and the author of the book conscious coaching. But most importantly, I’m a lifelong student interested in all aspects of human behavior and communication. I want to thank you for joining me and now let’s dive into today’s episode.
Today, I’m sitting down with someone whose work and words have been extraordinarily influential in my life. Robert Greene. For those of you that are not familiar, Robert has written six internationally best selling books, including the 48 Laws of Power, the art of seduction, the 33 Strategies of War, the 50th law along with rapper 50 cent mastery, and the laws of human nature. He also has a new book coming out soon called the law of the sublime, which I’ll let him tell you more about in the episode. But to solely refer to Robert as an author would be limiting to say the least. Robert is a strategist, a mentor to many. And as this episode will show, he’s also a wonderful conversation list, which was huge for me because they say never meet your heroes, because they can let you down. And Robert definitely did not let me down if anything he over delivered in so many ways. His perspective is bolstered by a combination of successes and struggles that really are part and parcel of working more than 60 jobs throughout his life until an encounter with a book packager by the name of yourselfers, who, in a manner of speaking, served as both mentor and literary agent to Robert changed quite a bit. Now taking together everything I’ve stated so far, in addition to the fact that Roberts book, in many ways helped me make more sense of the behaviors I experienced when I was hospitalized. I couldn’t think of a more appropriate guest to speak about power dynamics, human nature, and the deeply layered inter and intrapersonal factors that impact all of us. As many of you are familiar, all of our work at art of coaching is entirely centered around changing the way people interact with others and themselves when it matters most. And it’s for this reason and more. I’m excited to bring you a master class on all of these subjects with Robert Greene. Enjoy.
Everybody welcome back to another episode of The Art of coaching podcast and I am here with somebody I have tremendous respect for his work has made a tremendous difference in my life. And I never really thought I’d get this interview to happen. Robert Greene, thank you so much for sitting down with me.
Robert Greene 4:38
Oh, my pleasure, Brett. I’m really thank you for having me. I’m honored to be here.
Brett Bartholomew 4:43
Yeah, well, listen, I want to dive right in. I know that you’re asked a lot of the same questions and you write about a tremendous amount of fascinating work. So I know that it’s easy to just jump right into this things about power dynamics and everything else you’ve accomplished, but I want to talk about what you’re doing right now with the law of the sublime, your new book, how it’s most relevant to the things that you’ve gone through with your healthcare in recent years. What brought you on to this? And, you know, I just think that you talk about so many things that are relevant, but often swept under the rug by so many authors and pop psychology type things today. And so yeah, we’ll just get right into it. Tell us about what you’re working on. Now, the why of it. And if you’re struggling with any aspect of it, because I know writing a book is a tremendous undertaking.
Robert Greene 5:37
Well, yeah, there are many parts to that. I mean, I had been interested in the concept, I think, going back to the year 2000, or so, when I read a book about it, and I’ll explain a little bit what the subject is in a minute. And then around 2006, I thought about writing this book, that was gonna be my next book after the war book. And I had planned, because as you know, the sublime kind of connotes some kind of grand, adventurous experience, my plan was, I was going to travel around the world, I was going to climb mountains, I was going to go to obscure parts of the planet. And I was gonna swim with dolphins, I was gonna have all these experiences gonna write about it. And then I kind of got sidetracked with the 50 cent project. And then that kind of out of that book that kind of turned into writing master, because I had a chapter in the 50 book that was about mastery. And then the mastery book had a chapter about social intelligence, and people got really interested in that. So then, then, oh, I should now do a book about human nature. So kept getting sidetracked. And the last chapter of the laws of human nature is how to deal with our mortality. Right, which is kind of the ultimate law of human nature sort of defines us, we’re the only animal that’s conscious of our mortality, as far as we know. And it has a huge impact on our psychology. And in that chapter I kind of discussed, I hinted at the concept of the sublime, right. And I talked about how now sort of introduced the idea. So what I mean by the sublime is being a human being, compared to like having a circle. And we’re supposed to live inside that circle. And there are codes and conventions about what we think about our behavior, the kind of govern human life, right? So the codes and conventions that existed in ancient Egypt isn’t the same as now, obviously. But they had a circle, which you are not supposed to go think this, you’re not supposed to do that. So the things inside circle change, but the circle is always there. Because if not this kind of chaos, right? But the moment you’d give human beings a limitation, they’re fascinated by what lies beyond that circle, right? But what’s transgressive? What are we not supposed to think about or do and what lies beyond that circle is what I’m calling the sublime. It’s thoughts that are so immense, that are so powerful, that are so emotional, that kind of overwhelm you. And they take you out of the banality in the day activities of your life. Right. And I maintain, we all have a hunger for being taken out of our limited circumstances, for being connected to something larger than ourselves, right. And some of us because our culture doesn’t give any outlets, we then try to find it in I call in false ways, through drugs, through online pornography through any kind of addictive type behavior, you know, or risk taking behavior. And so there’s no sort of outlets for it. But the ultimate limit on that circle is death itself. Right? We don’t know what lies beyond death. But we’re kind of fascinated by it. It’s sort of an obsessive idea. And I maintain that confronting your mortality opens up all kinds of blind thoughts, it opens you up to the fact that tomorrow you could be gone. It makes you look at the world outside, with an added intensity, you don’t take it for granted. You’re not locked in your little smartphone, you’re looking at the immensity of the world, because honestly, you could die tomorrow. Okay, so I wrote that chapter. And then three months later, I had a stroke in which I came this close to dying myself. I was driving my car. My wife was next to me. If she hadn’t been there, and I’m frequently am alone, I wouldn’t be here talking to you now. And if the ambulance hadn’t arrived as quickly as it did, I’d have brain damage. And I wouldn’t be talking to here now. So I’m extremely lucky to survive and to be alive and I had a near death experience. Not as powerful as a lot of people but it was it was a very strange, slight outer body type experience. I confronted the sublime three months after writing about it, right. So okay, somebody is sending me a signal I better write This book, right? It’s very ironic. So okay, now I’m writing it. But the stroke left the left side of my body completely weak and inactive. And I’m a very active person. I mean, I’m not an athlete in the sense of doing sports,
Brett Bartholomew 10:14
but you swim regularly, right? You do swim.
Robert Greene 10:17
Swim, I’ve mountain bike I, hi, I do all kinds of forms of exercise every single day, even if I’m sick. So that was taken away from me, I can’t really I can walk now. But I can’t hike or do anything like that. I can’t even type. So my concept, my early concept of swimming with dolphins going to Argentina flying here and there. That’s our question, right? So I have to sit here in my office here in Los Angeles. And I have to take this journey in my head, I have to constantly because I can’t write a book without feeling it. So I have to feel that sublime without having the power to experience it in these great adventures. And I think it ends up making the book more powerful in a way because some people can’t afford a lot of people can’t afford that kind of luxury of traveling doing these things. I’m trying to make it something that you experience every single day of your life, right? So I’m writing a chapter now about childhood and how child when you were two or three years old, the world was so much different than it is to now. It was this continual sublime experience. And I’m trying to go into there and give the reader a sense of what it felt like when you were three years old. And you don’t really have a memory of that. And it’s a very difficult chapter to write. So that’s sort of what I’m struggling with right now.
Brett Bartholomew 11:38
Yeah, there are a lot of touch points with that. And, and I want to build off what you’re saying, you know, first off, you know, to me, when I reflect upon a lot of your work, and I apologize, if maybe this isn’t how you view it, this is just kind of how I receive it is. So many of the themes collectively, are centered around concepts about social agility, self awareness, power literacy. And more importantly, and this speaks to the sublime part, the overall ramifications of when you choose to interact with the world as you’d like it to be, rather than interacting with it as it is, and especially like front of your mortality. And so, this is especially intriguing to me, because of my hospitalization, which we talked about off air. And, and seeing a number of people in my life paths very early. And so all of this, and this leads to a question I have for you, has always led to me living with a pretty high level of intensity and urgency of which some people that I’ve worked with in the past, you know, almost saw as off putting, right because I’ve always just felt like, Man, am I gonna die soon, I was kind of always an intense kid. And so I’ve always wondered, how do you reconcile the importance of accepting our fate and that our mortality is imminent, with also not becoming so obsessed with it, where it can make you potentially, you know, overthink? And and try to do too much and just get locked into this? Almost like they say, in Hamilton, you know, why do I write like I’m running out of time? Because at some point, you also have to take a beat. Does that make sense? How you deal with this, but like, there’s that pulse of purpose that has to be mitigated, so that you’re not always go go go all the time in anticipation of that moment?
Robert Greene 13:21
Well, that is a really good, interesting question, which I’ve never had before. So thank you very much. Well, I talked about it in my war book, but what I call the death ground strategy, right. And I say, when you have it, it comes from Sunsoo, the great writer, The Art of War, when you put an army with its back against a mountain or its back against the ocean, in other words, it can’t retreat. It’s either win or die. They fight with four or five times the normal energy, and they usually succeed. We see that in sports, when a football team is 14 points behind going into the fourth quarter. And so they leave, they’re playing like they never played those first three quarters. If the death ground strategy, your energy rises to the moment rises to the circumstance, you have to win, or it’s failure, or you might even die. Okay, so to get to your question, when you’re young, when you’re in your 20s, you don’t really have that relationship to time. You think I’ve got forever to live, I can get my act together in 10 years. I’ve got 20 years to get my career together, right? You’re not aware, you don’t have that pressure that the thought of death puts on you. And so you waste time, and it’s okay to waste time. I’m a great believer in your 20s to have fun and adventures. It’s important. But you can take that too far. You think that you’ve got limitless expanses in front of you, and you don’t, right. So when you’re young, you do want a sense of that energy, that sense of purpose, that sense of I could be gone tomorrow. You had a very powerful a wake up call, right? So it gave you that kind of intensity. But sometimes you need that to accomplish things, but then it becomes like an obsession, and you can’t get out of it. And so the idea is that you have to adjust the sense of desperation and urgency to your age that day as you get older. That’s one aspect. So I’m a very intense person myself, right. But because of the limitations, because I don’t need to have nearly as much energy, I’ve had to dial it down, I had to be kind of aware of myself aware of my body, aware of my physical limitations, because if you’re not careful, Brett, you’re going to end up back in the hospital with the same kind of issue, it won’t be weight that you lost, but it’ll be another, you’ll have high blood pressure, or a heart attack or something. So you need, we don’t have this in our culture where people don’t think of adjusting their behavior, according to their age, which is something that in ancient cultures are in the past, people that were like rituals and things in place to do that we don’t have it. So people are kind of lost, they think the I can be this kind of type A person for my whole life, and it won’t, it will kill you, right. But the other thing is, the point about this sense of urgency can’t be just about you, and your career, it can’t be so self centered, that it’s only about what you can achieve. The Sublime is the idea that aware of your mortality means you’re aware of something much larger than yourself, you understand that there was the Big Bang, the Universe started 14 billion years ago or a little bit less than that. You’re aware of the cosmos, you’re aware of how life evolved on planet Earth, these insane stories that are absolutely mind blowing, if you think about the right. So the human has the possibility of connecting to something much larger than their narrow little self interests than their personal career. I’m not saying it’s not important to think about those things. But you have to be capable of getting out of that, and connecting to something much larger than yourself. In the end it kind of cleanses you have a lot of sort of ugly thoughts and ugly behavior, these pettiness that kind of wears on you the kind of drain that social problems and we are, I’m dealing with them continually to this day, dealing with people who are just driving you absolutely crazy, right? It just wears you down, your brain has to connect to something larger, or you’re going to kill yourself, you’re going to shrink your mind. And I have a metaphor that I used in this book, I think I’ve used before is that your mind expands or contracts to the limits of what you think about every day. So if you’re in your smartphone, and you’re only looking at the algorithms that Facebook or Instagram gave you, your mind is shriveling up into a tiny little circle here. It’s all you’re thinking about your thinking is being programmed by others who are telling you but which algorithms to follow. If you open up your mind to some of these larger things that I’m talking about, like the cosmos like evolution, like human history, like childhood, your mind expands to the contours of what you think. And that expanding of your mind will end up bringing you immense benefits in your work. It will loosen up your imagination, it will make you think about things that you don’t normally think about. It will enhance your thinking process. So I’m not sure if I answered.
Brett Bartholomew 18:33
But of course it listen. And you not only did that, but you touch on something that’s relevant. And you and I are still getting to know each other. Right? So I want to share an aspect that bridges off what you said and why it’s so helpful with a little bit of our audience is, you know, our work is expanded to a lot of the broader leadership audience. It’s tired of kind of the woowoo rah rah, they like dealing in the dark and dirty and reality. But a lot of our original bass in sports performance were coaches that struggled with what you said that, you know, they can get so niche down and what’s going on with their athletes what’s going on with the teams that they serve. And they imagine themselves as the servants. That’s often a call to arms and coaching, right? Oh, I’m a servant based leader. And while you know, on the outside, it may look like they’re checking your box of you know, it’s not about them. It’s about those they serve. That the fact is, is so few of them ever explore ideas outside of their performance world. They don’t do a lot of the things that you do in your books where you know, you look at everything from the Han Dynasty to Ignaz Semmelweis to 50 cent and it’s something I know we’ve struggled with with art of coaching to try to tell coaches listen, you know, you would see it in our profession very rarely would a performance coach be healthy have a family and be financially secure they just loved this grind you they had no outlets like you talked about right in the examples you gave it was pornography, there can be work in my case it was exercise. For a lot of these people. They just get lost in trying to prove their their value by being the first in line asked out. And that keeps them from taking this broader perspective to the point, Robert, where there’s many coaches that will reach out and say, Hey, I love what I do, but I want to make a bigger impact. But I’m very scared that if I go out and share anything I’ll be looked at as a sellout. And I said, No, it’s the it’s the opposite. You’re robbing your ability to be able to engage with this sublime this higher order thinking. I mean, am I speaking to this and my on the same track as you and talking to its relevance?
Robert Greene 20:30
Yeah, very much so. So I would ask you a question. Who do you think was the most successful basketball coach? In modern times?
Brett Bartholomew 20:38
Sure. I mean, you we always talked about there’s folks that collectively think of like John Wooden, right, as is often revered
Robert Greene 20:44
In the NBA.
Brett Bartholomew 20:46
Ah, Let’s see. Well, of course, Kobe and Michael Jordan’s coach, why is it name escaping me right now?
Robert Greene 20:54
Phil Jackson?
Brett Bartholomew 20:55
Yes. Phil Jackson. Yep. And,
Robert Greene 20:57
okay. Well, that’s my point. Okay. Phil Jackson, who I know very well, because I’m a Los Angeles Laker fan. And I’ve read a lot of his books. He’s a classic example. Even when he was on Hicks, he was always interested in philosophy in larger ideas. Some of his teammates on the team were like that, like Bill Bradley, right? He got into like, history about the American Indians about history in general, Zen philosophy, which is famous for Asian ways of thinking. And when he became the coach of the bulls in the 90s. He was famous for taking his players out of the game. He would make them read a book constantly, they would bitch and complain about it, but they ended up loving it. He would take them to a movie to get their minds off basketball to something larger, he would have them meditate with the Lakers, you’d have them sit around for practice, and they would collectively meditate, right? And look at his success. It’s unbelievable. We there’s no, I don’t think there’s a modern coach that can equal that, particularly now with with the salary cap and everything. So he had a method that went beyond just the narrow little niche that we’re talking about right? Now, I’m not going to name names, but I do some consulting with some NBA coaches, one now who is a head coach of an NBA team. And he came to me because he loves my books. And he’s constantly reading. And he’s constantly. It’s not just about like the great sublime issues, which he does cover. But it’s also very interested in the overall picture of strategy itself, right? So strategy is a subject that should obsess anybody in the sports or business world. Like it obsesses me, right. But there are lots of strategy. There’s tactics as it’s just the narrow little picture of what you have to do in the game right now or in getting someone into shape right now. Then there’s kind of the strategic issue where you’re looking about how the game flows, right? Then there’s a higher order, which you’re looking at grand strategy, what’s the philosophy for the whole year? How am I to get this team back, you know, kind of how a Bill Belichick or Nick Saban might think. And there’s even a higher order, which goes into kind of the whole philosophy, the psychology behind strategy itself. If you can reach your mind to those higher levels of strategy, it’s going to make you a superior coach, a superior trainer, a superior athlete, there are plenty of athletes around who can’t think on that higher level. So the idea that the obsessive little narrow way of thinking is the best way to approach is completely counterproductive, right? It narrows your limitations. The Phil Jackson method, you know, the triangle offense was the epitome of it. Because what is it, it’s a kind of a loose structure that fits perfectly beautifully the the sport itself, where you can improvise, but you have a structure. And it was like poetry in motion, it wouldn’t really work in today’s game. But that was a higher level way of thinking about the sport itself. So he’s the classic example. And I think I’m not saying Bill Belichick things in the same way that Phil Jackson, but he has things aren’t that much higher. Strategic strategic lately. Believe me, I know people who know him, and he’s much more he reads a lot. He devours books on history, etc. is a very interesting philosophical person. So if you want to be truly successful, you have to continually be expanding your mind.
Brett Bartholomew 24:30
Yeah, no, and I’m glad you brought that up. You know, I remember one Phil Jackson quote that did stick with me as he said, You know, there’s more to life than basketball and as a matter of fact, there’s more to basketball than basketball. And, when you talked about the improvising and the chaos, right, like Pierre Bordeaux, I remember said, you know, coaching is regulated improvisation, and that you can’t improvise and problem solve if you can’t see the bigger picture. If you can’t engage with the sublime and that big picture. What seems like these disparate things that don’t connect. They’re what allow that grand strategy, you know, which kind of coincides with another question I had for you, you know, a lot of what we talked about at art of coaching. And again, so much of our work is inspired by you and the things that you’ve done through your career. We talked about, you know, just communication, not a sexy word at all. But when you think about social intelligence, which you’ve written masterfully, and in many of your books, you think about communication. I know it was always it very interesting to me, How many people think they’re already pretty skilled communicators? Right? They don’t understand that if you look at most issues in life, they’re social in nature, were the preeminent social animals you talk about in, in your work? What, you know, how much of a role do you think that plays is? Well, and people’s inability to see this big picture? And what I mean, just to get more specific is, we often struggled to take the other person’s perspective, we also struggle to think where might I be the problem? And when you can’t even think at that level? How do you ever get people to realize that their higher order issues are the result of not mastering these, you know, foundational skills that we often take for granted? Does that make sense? Or does that?
Robert Greene 26:12
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Well, I wrote a 500, and nearly 580 page book on that subject, which is the laws of human nature. And the main point of it is I’m bringing out these 18 kinds of problems that are embedded in our nature, flaws, and how our brains are wired. And the only way to correct these flaws, is to be aware that they’re inside of you, right? To have some self awareness. In the Temple at Delphi, in ancient Greece, there was an inscription on the door, which was basically Know thyself. This is the highest form of wisdom a person can have. And people delude themselves. We are masters at self deception. Everybody thinks, Well, I know who I am. I mean, if I don’t know who I am, who does? Yeah, I’m with myself every day. I know my flaws. You’re bullshitting yourself, you’re lying to yourself, you are completely concealing your own flaws, you are deceiving yourself every single day. Right? So we all know that there are narcissists out there, particularly in the sporting world, or etc, right? People who are just so wrapped up in themselves that it creates all these issues, and our minds are geared towards, yes, he’s a strategist, she’s a narcissist that person, that person, we never think I’m a narcissist, maybe it’s me, maybe I’m self obsessed, maybe I’m absorbed in myself. And every single human being by nature is you need that self awareness before you can get out of your shell, and be interested in other people and kind of develop that empathy muscle that will make you a superior coach, that will make you a superior strategies that will bring you social intelligence. Nobody thinks that I have issues with aggression with grandiosity with a dark side with envy, I’m sorry, and pushing the pause button, you have that problem. Just look in the mirror and tell yourself if these flaws are in humans, because of the way our brains wired, I’m not some exception. I’m not this one person out of the billions of humans created, who somehow stood outside in the line for all these qualities, you have them. You need to be self aware. So the thought that you begin with it, I’m actually a good communicator. I know people really well, that’s one of my strengths, is means the exact opposite. Because you’re telling you’re deceiving yourself, you’re listening, that little voice that doesn’t want to confront the truth, you’re probably a bad listener, you’re probably self absorbed, and you’re not open . So the ultimate pinnacle of social intelligence in any realm, business or sports or whatever, is being able to deal with people as individuals, right? To stop giving the kind of cookie cutter stereotypical vision that you have. This person is like that person. I need to motivate them all through this one. No. Each person you deal with is different. They come from a different cultural background. They come from a different socio economic background. Their parents are different. Their spouses, their girlfriends, their boyfriends, they’re different. Each one has their own weird psychology.
Brett Bartholomew 29:27
Pardon the interruption. We’ll get back to my conversation with Robert in a moment. Recently, we’ve welcomed a lot of new listeners to the show, and it nearly crossed the 2 million downloads milestone. So for new and old listeners alike, we want to make sure that you guys knew about some of our other resources that can help you grow. First and foremost are our live events. Our apprenticeship workshops are hosted around the world and focus much like this conversation on power dynamics and communication. We are going to be in Austin, Texas, Iowa and California coming up. But regardless of when you’re listening to this As you can see all dates and locations at artofcoaching.com/apprenticeship. We have a ton of details there videos, testimonials, examples of what the day looks like, make sure to check it out artofcoaching.com/apprenticeship. For those of you looking to perhaps build something of your own, whether it’s following in Roberts footsteps and writing a book, starting a podcast, simply putting yourself or something you build out into the world, in the name of helping others, be sure to check out our Brand Builder course, we will be hosting that in March of this year 2022 spots are unlimited. And you can sign up now by going to artofcoaching.com/brand to reserve your spot, this workshop alone and I want to emphasize this can save you tens and thousands of dollars in mistakes, and countless hours by teaching you how to navigate building your audience, mastering your message and refining the art of standing out without selling out. So get clarity now by going to artofcoaching.com/brand. I wish I would have had that when I started doing this, because it was nothing I was educated on as a coach. And finally so many coaches and leaders give their all to others, you have a really get a chance to invest in themselves the way they’d like to. This has led to countless coaches struggling professionally and really financially. Listen to get into coaching, I completed more than a year of unpaid internships, college and grad school on a $10,000 a year stipend. As many of you know, it takes what it takes. And my story is nothing compared to so many other coaches. But it’s for this reason and more, we just launched an entire financial guide that is completely free. For coaches and leaders, it doesn’t matter the field that you’re in. Just like this podcast, we talk about a wide range of issues that are most relevant. But you can consider this a free entry level masterclass on all things financial management, it is brought to you by my father, who has been a licensed financial advisor for more than 40 years. And frankly, it was an interview we did because I don’t know how much longer I’m gonna have him around. So I sat down with my dad one day and asked him a bunch of questions that I want to pass on to my son and I wanted to remember, and I thought it could help a lot of coaches as well. So go to artofcoaching.com/money. Again, that’s artofcoaching.com/money To get your free Financial Management Guide. Alright, thank you so much for letting me have this quick moment. Let’s get back to my conversation with Robert Greene.
Robert Greene 32:39
They come from a different socio economic background, their parents are different. Their spouses, their girlfriends, their boyfriends, they’re different. Each one has their own weird psychology, the pinnacle of the braids is to deal with each person, as an individual. That is a skill that takes years to develop, you’re not born with that comes with a certain kind of fine grain thinking a sensitivity to people’s nature. And if you’re out there thinking, I know people, you’re going to be one of those those types that is constantly putting people into categories that you’ve already assumed you’re not dealing with individuals. So that’s how I
Brett Bartholomew 33:18
know It’s spot on. And within this and this is going to come to a personal question for you. Little bit of context leading into it. One very, glad that you mentioned that one thing that always drove me crazy as a performance coach is when we started talking more about communication in our work, there were some coaches. Well, I got 150 people to coach and there’s college football team, I don’t have time for that. And we’d have to remind them, nobody’s saying you sit them down individually. You have all these micro interactions daily. It’s it’s taking little pieces here and listening and making sure that you’re actually in that moment, and plus, what are you saying here, you can’t build that relationship, and you shouldn’t be a damn coach, you know, but you know, another thing that your work inspired, and that goes with this self awareness is, I believe it was in mastery, you talk a lot about the importance of an apprenticeship. And we realized that much like I remember there was an interview that 50 cent had, where they asked him one of the things that he learned from you one of the best pieces of advice. And he had said, you know, Robert had told me that you can give people all this information. And this is something we know intuitively, but it’s got tremendous impact, but many of them are still not going to apply it. And so I realized that you know, you look at your collective works. And you know, I wrote a book on the subject, though I’m nowhere you’re an author, right? Like, I’m not you in any facet. But the point is, is we realize that if coaches were gonna get better at this and coaches can be synonymous with a leader, they needed to serve an apprenticeship and train it. So we looked all around and there were all these things for coaches to learn tactics and tools about their trade, but nothing that helped them socially. Nothing that helped them engage in the perceptual gap of how they They thought they communicated and others. So this tied into my doctorate and we had certain coaches that were ready for that self exploration and that hard stuff. And then there were others that you’ve seen it in your career, they want to fight it, like you said, they already think they’re good. And I remember looking at my wife, and my colleague, and I go, you know, the people that really need to come to this will never come, they’ll never come because they’re intimidated about facing themselves. So this goes to my question for you, you have had over 60 jobs in your life, you are the preeminent master of all things, power dynamics, social interaction, I know you may not consider that because you’re very humble. But you know yourself pretty damn well, that said, What have you learned about yourself as a communicator, just in these past three to five years alone, or especially after this life changing event of this stroke as well?
Robert Greene 35:47
Well, it’s my nature for good or, for better, for worse, to be very self aware. And the bad side of it is I can be very self critical, right? So I’m never really happy with myself. And when you have a stroke, which was a little over almost three and a half years ago, you’re suddenly confronted with things you can’t do. So literally, the right side of my brain suffered this particular damage. And so the bad part of the brain isn’t communicating with the left side of the body. So you have memories of walking and biking and swimming, and you can’t do them. No matter how much you train, no matter how hard you try to push past it. Your brain won’t communicate with your body. It’s insuperable it’s like a barrier. And it can drive you crazy. Like if you’ve got an alpha personality like I do, I guess I’m almost like, I’ve got Tourette syndrome of like, you know, I’m not gonna do that here now. But I had to deal with my frustration, I had to deal with my impatience, I had to deal with my own limitations with someone that wants it. Now, I’m used to, if I can’t exercise, if I can do a backstroke fast, but I’m going to practice every single day, until I’m the fastest backstroke in that pool. You can’t do that with a stroke, right? So I’ve had I’ve had to force myself, to be humble, to be patient, to be kind of loving with myself, and it doesn’t, come naturally. But to go a little bit into into your question, it kind of backtracking into it. You know, the problem you’re mentioning, with coaches, et cetera, is pervasive in our culture. Because it’s a kind of a mechanical culture that believes in algorithms in science. And you cannot reduce human behavior to a simple algorithm. We are incredibly complicated people. If you step back and do the kind of heuristics of one single inner interaction you have during the day, you will begin to realize the incredible complexity of the human brain, and how you have to be so sensitive to other people, how they misread you, and on and on and on. Right. So it’s a cultural problem. People are not psychologically aware as they used to be in the past. We’re spending so much time interacting with technology, that we’re losing basic people skills, right. So I deal with that because as a consultant, I deal with business people, the highest, most powerful CEOs in the world, tech people, etc, are brilliant at their jobs, like a coach who is brilliant at the tactics, but they can’t for the life of them figure out the people element, the political element, the psychology, they come to me because I hired this business partner, I thought was fantastic. Now they’re trying to take my business away from them. What do I do? Yeah. Well, if you had developed some people skills beforehand, when you interview them, you would have picked up the signs of trouble before you ever hired them, but you’re not paying attention. So let’s go back to saying your coach with 150 players. As I said, this is part of the self delusionary process. How could I possibly pay attention to 150 people? All right, no, you can’t. You’re right. But you have other coaches below you. You have assistant coaches, you have offensive and defensive coaches, you’ve trained them. They’re the ones like Napoleon had begun to pay attention to these individuals psychologies, and they’re gonna report back to you, this player, he’s got this problem. You can find ways to get your finger your mind inside of every single player, what you was having is you don’t want to because it represents the kind of work that you’re not good at, and that you don’t want to do that you don’t think will pay immediate dividends. Because quite frankly, your million dollar salary or $5 million salary depends on Winning the season, and you don’t think you’re gonna win this season, if you pay attention to that third string Offensive Tackles psychology, but you better believe it will. Because misreading one person can spread throughout the group. So this is not just a problem in sports. It’s a cultural problem that I deal with all the time. And it’s why I wrote the laws of human nature.
Brett Bartholomew 40:22
Yeah, no deep appreciation. And and I remember one time we were going through, because, you know, imagine if you were there, what we would do is everybody role plays a certain scenario, they come in with a scenario that they’re really struggling with. We roleplay it. And then there’s a peer evaluation and a self evaluation, right? Because we have to account for egocentric bias and peer bias. And then we have the group rate them as well. And we give them very specific kind of scoring, education, whatever. And then we watch it on film, because we’ll just record it via phone. And of course, then people have to kind of confront Oh, wow. Yeah, I thought maybe I was a two in tonality. But that didn’t come across the way that I thought. And I remember one gentleman, and this was not a coach, this was somebody in another profession goes, Yeah, but there’s just so much this evaluation is subjective. And I remember telling him, as you alluded to, what in life is not. And all of a sudden, we start getting down this rabbit hole where he keeps saying, he wants to question the science and the science. And I say, what’s the real issue here? And eventually, he says, Listen, I’m not trying to contest this. I just, I’m tired of proving my worth and my profession, you know, I can hit my KPIs. And sometimes you can still lose your job. And I just wish I could take this sheet of paper, and then say, look, right, I am skilled at this. I am skilled at people and I said, what your misunderstanding is, even if that was purely objective, it’s still subjective in the mind of that individual. I go, you can you can be wrongfully incarcerated, and then evidence can come out that show you didn’t do it. But you were still according to the narrative that the jury of your peers believed in, you’re, sadly wrongfully incarcerated. And so yeah, it is interesting, like you said, we are, we’re obsessed with the literal. And in my mind, that would take us farther away from getting to achieve what your current book your next book focuses on. But the law of the sublime of the more you just focus on those little pieces, the less you understand yourself, the less you’re going to accept mortality, the less you’re going to look at these big picture things. So let me ask you this, within that, given that you’re writing the book on this, and you’ve confronted these things, what are issues you still face in that regard? Outside of your, you know, anger, and I appreciate you mentioning that, by the way, because I know you talk about meditation, and it’s so refreshing to hear somebody that, you know, you do these mindfulness strategies and what have you, but you still struggle with the anger. Thank you for just being honest. But where do you still struggle with just acceptance of these things in your life, if at all?
Robert Greene 42:50
Well, you know, being a human being you have to deal with others, no matter. You know, how but are you living in a cabin in Kentucky isolated, you’re constantly having to deal with people, right to succeed. And I don’t have to deal with too many people. Because I’m an entrepreneur, I’m a writer. And I do and I’m constantly butting up against what I find to be people’s pettiness, their inability to see the larger picture, right. And I get frustrated, even though I wrote the book. And even though I have that quote from Schopenhauer, which is, if you meet somebody that’s like difficult or impossible, just think of them as like a rock that you comes upon in a path and just kick it to the side. Don’t pay any more attention to that rock, don’t take it personally, than you would with the person. I know that, but I still struggle with it. I get frustrated with it. Like, why can’t you see the larger picture. And then I find myself my kind of larger picture thinking getting dragged down into their rabbit hole, where I’m having to think of their behavior day in and day out. You know, I hired you to like, leave me alone, and do the job. And you kind of enmeshed me daily in these dramas. And it’s consuming my day to day thinking. And I meditate every single day, 45 minutes every morning. Not have that happen. That still happens. It still happens. And the difference between me and someone else, if there’s any salvation for me, is that I’m aware of my limitations. I’m aware of my stupidity. I’m aware of my vulnerability to being sucked into drama. And my awareness is eventually what saves me. Because two weeks later, I go dammit, that person is infecting you with their drama queen bullshit. Stop it, Robert. Stop it. It’s happening to you. You’re a fool. Okay, but that ability to say it’s not just them. It’s me. That’s the problem. Is the big difference.
Brett Bartholomew 44:59
Yeah, well and I don’t know, people are very much used to listen to this podcast, they know it’s not contrived. So if you don’t want to go here, just tell me right? Within that, right, given the and I know you’ve touched on this in a previous interview, so hopefully I come at it with a different angle, it becomes even more frustrating and hard to do what you alluded to in today’s culture, and whether we want to call it gotcha culture cancel, whatever. The point is, is everybody fancies themselves so enlightened now, right? There’s no, benefit of the doubt. I mean, heaven forbid, you’re I say one thing that’s taken out of context, and it’s a soundbite, right. And now you’re the worst person imaginable. You know, and I just remember even just hearing from my publisher saying, Hey, you’re gonna have to change this part of your book, because you use the term Nazi. And we’re certainly not talking about it in any kind of good way. We’re trying to give a historical representation. And he said, No, people will just shut it down. In today’s culture, no publisher will want to talk about it. And I go, Well, why would I work? Like the minute we can’t have difficult conversations? The minute we can’t give each other the benefit of the doubt, heaven forbid, you don’t speak perfectly. Robert, the minute these things like, how are we at all becoming more evolved? Or more enlightened? When we don’t give anybody any social grace? Are there any thoughts that you, the master of power? Now we’ve got to navigate this. It’s obscene. There’s no playbook for the irrationality? How do you reconcile some of this?
Robert Greene 46:34
Well, you’ve got to do two things. Because first of all, if you are a power player in this world, and I maintain the 48 Laws of Power, that once you’re born, you enter into the game, and there’s no escaping it. So we’re all embedded in, you have to be aware of the times and the conventions, right? So I get very angry with people I consult with, who make these incredible gross missteps in public, they say something that gets them in trouble, and I go, don’t you have a little voice inside of you that can censor yourself at some time? What’s the point of being brutally honest, within social media, they’re going to gobble you up like a million little Puranas. And you’re never going to recover? Is it worth it? So first, you have to understand the times that we live in, that we have this basic kind of triggers, mentality that people that are continually triggered by the slightest little perception. They want to feel enraged. Don’t give that don’t feed the trolls. Don’t feed them, don’t give them material. It’s your fault. If you do, and believe me, I’m dealing with that all the time. With people who told me the best offense there is defense, you don’t ever step into those waters. The second thing is why is that happening? What’s going on in our world? I mean, that’s a larger philosophical question. But my idea is that, to some degree, social media is feeding this right. Now, of course, there are other reasons why what were their antecedents? So that was that happening in the 80s? And 90s? Yes, there is an evolution of this happening. And I don’t want to bore your audience with going back a century. Yeah, you’re good? Well, there’s a great book out there written and I just tell people to read a call the fall of public man, by a very philosopher and political scientist named Richard Sennett, that kind of discusses the evolution of narcissism in Western culture, and how it’s kind of reached a peak in the 20th and 21st century. As people become more narcissistic, and more self absorbed, they have this little identity, this ego, that if you puncture it a little bit, they get very upset, right. So they’re more sensitive ever than before. And that book explains why. But social media is just like putting all of these human traits on a burner, and turning that burner up higher and higher and higher, and heating it to a point where everyone’s boiling, right. So we humans naturally feel envy. We’re continually comparing ourselves to other people. I do it every day. I don’t like it, but I can’t help it, you know, person just selling more books than me, damn it, why are they selling more books than me? You know, et cetera, et cetera. Okay? Social media is just this insane mechanism for increasing envy in the world, right? It’s hitting us all up, because we’re becoming hyper aware of what everybody else is thinking and feeling. And it becomes harder and harder to divorce yourself from the kind of like emotional cauldron that is being heated up on social media. So a skill that you have to have in the world today is the ability to distance yourself from that cauldron. That thing heated up to step back and go and be philosophical. Alright, people are intolerant. Alright, there’s social justice warriors out there. I’m not gonna lie. Don’t get me down, I’m not going to obsess about it. These are the times that we live in. And I’m not going to get implicated in all of that rage and stuff. I’m not going to feel rage. I’m going to be a calm, and we’re going to understand the moment I’m enraged, I’m losing a part of who I am. Something is wrong. Although it’s good to be enraged. I take that back. It’s good to be enraged when there are injustice is going on in the world. So I misspoke there that there are moments
Brett Bartholomew 50:28
here, we’ll make sure that people don’t misconstrue that.
Robert Greene 50:30
Yeah. So there are moments where your anger is justified, right. But it has to be over large issues. It has to be over some large, you know, issue about race about discrimination, but some injustice. But when these all these little, small, little petty little things that people are getting enraged, and you feel yourself have to come into that it’s your problem, it’s your fault. So you need to see, you need to have some self to distance and the ability to go. I don’t need to think I don’t need to feel this way. Where are those emotions coming from? Is it coming from me? Or is it coming from the culture and the environment?
Brett Bartholomew 51:10
Yeah, no, you’re spot on. I mean, when you have a lack of self awareness, you have the context of the world right now, which has always been chaotic, but now it’s more fast paced than ever before. You know, and then the medium that you’re using to communicate is poor, right? Like context, poor social media, you that there’s no media richness, there’s no conveyance of it, right? I, there’s no way that I could ever write an email to you, that would have the same richness of conveyance as this conversation via this, and then that’s even richer in person, but we don’t do that anymore. And then you have legions of decency out there that just, you know, to them, everything is worth fighting over. And it’s literally just because they’re not okay with themselves, or they’re experiencing this great want this desire, this lack of fulfillment, and this thing that will never come? I mean, think about your best selling author, how many collective books have you sold in feel free just to give a general estimate?
Robert Greene 52:09
You mean, worldwide or
Brett Bartholomew 52:11
worldwide, just general estimate.
Robert Greene 52:14
It’d be very hard for me, but he likes 20 million over 20 million, something like that, more than that. And like
Brett Bartholomew 52:21
you said, you’re not satisfied. And you know what, you sell a million more 20 million more and this and there’s always going to be this want this hangry. And that’s the essence of who we are, you know, but yeah, it just drives me nuts. When it’s, you think of all the work that people like you have poured into it. And because people don’t want to do the dirty work. They don’t want to be introspective. They don’t do it. And then not to mention, how the hell are we ever going to have like, who wants to be president or a political leader today? When if you have one skeleton in your closet, you’re hung out to dry, you have one bad interview, you’re hung out to dry? So what message do we send? Like, we don’t want leaders that navigate the gray area, we wouldn’t tolerate it. We want we want somebody that is the order, okay, you have to be JFK, you have to have moral purity. Well, what world is all of that going to succeed in? I mean, am I off base? Or do you ever wonder these things privately to yourself, too?
Robert Greene 53:15
Yeah, I mean, it’s very counterproductive. And I know, you know, I’ve studied a lot of history, as you can tell from my books. And leadership is a very important issue and theme in my books. And I’ve read about some of the greatest leaders that I think, you know, you may not respect him as how he dealt with people. But Napoleon Bonaparte was a very interesting leader worth studying. Franklin Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, Charles de Gaulle. Okay, they had to deal with complicated, difficult issues. But there’s no way– they were playing like chess, a leader now has to play like three dimensional chess. I don’t know if you’re too young, but there was a television show Star Trek, the original Star Trek. And Spock, you know, the Vulcans large years, he would play a game of three dimensional chess, which I don’t know if it’s a real game or something. And the humans couldn’t play it because he was thinking in another dimension, right? Well, leaders today now have to be like Spock, they have to play three dimensional chess. Because you’re not only dealing with this kind of monolithic media culture, you have to deal with media that’s coming at 18 different directions on social media, etc, right? You’re having to deal with World Wide opinion, the moment you open your mouth, somebody in China is going to be upset. Somebody in Russia is going to be upset, the Japanese are going to be all up in arms. You have to think on this order. I don’t know how any of them do it, quite frankly. And right now, I’ve dealt with a few people who are currently running for office who have run for office. And man, I have tremendous sympathy for them because I talked about that little sensor in your brain But sometimes you are censored and you say something innocuous, and it gets you in hot water. So we’re creating the problem that we will wish to solve. We wish people would be more sensitive cetera, and we’re making so they can’t possibly function. We’re creating a world where it’s impossible to be a good leader. So all we’re going to get are the demagogues and the people who aren’t good leaders, because they’re the only ones willing to play the ugly game and the best way possible.
Brett Bartholomew 55:30
Yeah, yeah. So people want the three things that this world will not inherently afford them predictability, control, and respect immediately. To honor your time. I have two more questions. Okay. So when I, one, you enjoy reading a tremendous amount of biographies. I love going down all the rabbit holes and everything that you’ve introduced into my life. So I appreciate that. What are the core constructs? If somebody was writing a biography? On you writing about the life of Robert Greene? What are some of the core things that you wish or you would like to see catalogued? I know, this is a very meta question. I’m not expecting a perfect answer. But if somebody decided, man, this is this fascinating person throughout history, I want to write about them. What do you hope they really get about your life or your work? If that was a biography?
Robert Greene 56:18
Are you talking about me personally?
Brett Bartholomew 56:19
You personally, so like, you mentioned, Napoleon Bonaparte, I have, you know, his massive volume of the strategies and the campaign’s of him. If this was the campaign’s of Robert Greene, if this was somebody is looking at you, and just have fun with this, take it wherever you want. But I’d love to know what you really hope somebody gets right about, your life retrospectively, given all the efforts you’ve put into this meaningful work.
Robert Greene 56:43
Well, that I am very much a human being that I have flaws, you know, and I like to bring them out in the open, you know, and that I’m not this insane Machiavellian character that some people assume that I am before they even meet me. You know, I’m five minutes late for an interview. Oh, he’s applying some Machiavellian energy. No, there just happened to be traffic. So I’m not this evil, maniacal Machiavellian manipulator type of person, I’m a human being that had a lot of failure early on in life that reached an age where most people, if they don’t have success, it’s probably too late. I was basically late 30s, coming, brushing up on my age 40 with no success in this world. So I know what it’s like to go through life failing, and getting down and being depressed because I went through it very deeply. So I may give an image now of being this person who’s together and powerful and has this influence. But deep down inside, I still carry within me, that person that struggled for so long, you know, and that had a lot of flaws and weaknesses that I had to overcome. And I’m still overcoming to this day. So many biographies, paint a picture, that’s not, they make everything kind of, it’s like airbrush, the face. So it makes looks really great. Even if even if they think that they’re showing the flaws, right. And I don’t want that I wouldn’t want that kind of airbrushing going on. I’ve had, you know, a lot of things that will never get into this biography, because people will never know about it. Very strange experiences when I was 2122, to have discussed on other interviews, you know, so I’m weirder, and more flawed and more troubling person than most people think. And I’ve had to deal with that. And try and overcome some of this. So I can have success. So I can be functional. And so I could not have another stroke like I had. So that would be the main thing, you know, bringing out the humanity of the person. And one of the best biographies. I love Abraham Lincoln. He’s one of my personal heroes. I think he was one of the greatest leaders that ever lived. He’s certainly our greatest president. And I read a biography. I can’t remember the name of it. So excuse me here fine, which brought out the human being Abraham Lincoln that showed his flaws that showed he had a very masculine aggressive side. And he had a very kind of sensitive feminine side to him. And he had a hard time bringing these two together. I also great biography of Martin Luther King, also one of our great icons that brought us his humanity. These people were flawed. They had issues, they had problems. They weren’t these pillars of strength, these perfect little creatures that we make them out to be. That’s the kind of biography I admire. And you know, if there will never be one of me, but if there were that it would be like that.
Brett Bartholomew 59:53
Yeah, no, I wouldn’t be so sure. No, and I thank you for that response. Because you’re right. I remember reading a book to your point that time talked about Abraham Lincoln and even Martin Luther King Jr. That talked about a lot of well and Abraham Lincoln’s case, somebody, even the mental illness issues that he had dealt with, right. Like, I mean, tremendous darkness. And then Martin Luther King, right, the alleged indiscretions in his marriage. And, and that’s the thing, people look at that as like, Oh, these are weaknesses, these are the things that people need to go through or like representations of what they need to go through to be that and to quit romanticizing what we think leadership is. So yeah, I value that final one. And this goes into, you know, just overall concern and thoughtfulness of your health, right, you’re somebody that I hope is around for a very long time. You know, you obviously read and write prolifically, you’re very active, as you said, you’re married, you know, and I want to think about how to frame this. So just give me a moment. There’s this reality that your kind of work requires this intense focus and research. There’s also the reality that you don’t shy away from, in that, you know, you need to maintain a social presence, you do a tremendous amount of interviews. I know we waited about a year for this one, and it’s well,
Robert Greene 1:01:08
I’m sorry,
Brett Bartholomew 1:01:09
no, you don’t need to be sorry, listen, I can’t imagine the we’re a nobody podcasts, and I get many odd requests per week, I can’t imagine what you get, and there’s no way to really decipher them. Because people can be eloquent in the writing of their tagline or in it. So it’s fine. But how do you balance? You know, the tremendous focus your work takes with also saying, hey, there’s I do need to let down my boundaries enough to do the Breakfast Club was Charlamagne, tha God and envy, but also some of the smaller podcasts? And also some of the other media interviews? And also this, how do you reconcile that because that code switching alone? I know, at least for me, can be stressful, and I’m nowhere near where you are at in your career. How do you reconcile that and, and have boundaries, while also still just dealing with the reality that you got to promote your work?
Robert Greene 1:01:58
Well, it’s not easy. It’s, you know, I said, I don’t have the energy that I used to have. And I’m writing a book right now. And I can’t type. Right? I can’t type on a computer.
Brett Bartholomew 1:02:12
I didn’t know that.
Robert Greene 1:02:13
And yeah, because of my left hand,
Brett Bartholomew 1:02:15
So it’s all dictated now?
Robert Greene 1:02:16
Yeah, you don’t want to know It’s like this medieval 13th century process of handwriting, dictating hand writing. And then I can’t like, take a walk, main thing I used to do to decompress from the stress was take a hike, or go swimming can’t do that. Right. So I have to be very careful with how much I take on. And yet, I honestly like helping people now it might sound like bullshit, but I’m afraid I’m being sincere. That the main thing I love about, my work, the sad main satisfaction I get is hearing from people that it’s helped them in their daily life, right? It’s what I live for. And so I’d like to be able to respond to everybody’s interview request, but I can’t, I can’t do it. I’m trying to write a book now. And believe it or not, if I do an interview that takes an hour or so it drains me of a lot of energy, you know, it’s hard for me to retain my focus afterwards, go back to writing, it’s more exhausting than you think. So I have had to learn 10 years ago, I took anybody’s podcast, and I’m very happy to get the publicity, etcetera. And, you know, I have a new book that came out in October the daily laws.
Brett Bartholomew 1:03:38
It’s right by my side.
Robert Greene 1:03:41
Okay. You know, and I had to promote that. And so I, you know, I gave myself a month of heavy promoting. And of course, it doesn’t sound very nice, but I had to choose, the platform’s with the largest audience, you know, but I wish I could help those people who have 2000 followers, or, you know, or 2000 subscribers on YouTube, which is actually, you know, maybe I should say, like, 500 Because I used to do that, but I can’t do it anymore. I can’t physically do it anymore. So I feel bad. Because a lot of people need a leg up, they need help, that, you know, an interview with someone like Sal for someone like Ryan Holiday, could really kind of boost their, their presence. And I tell my assistant, Jackson, well, maybe in a year, I can do it and let’s wait on that. But I’ve had to cut it down, you know, and it’s, I don’t feel good about it. I’d like to be able to respond to everybody, but I simply can’t because I have physical limitations, you know, and the writing process, which used to be fairly easy, has now become really difficult for For me with not being able to type and cetera, so,
Brett Bartholomew 1:05:04
yeah, no, I appreciate that. Well, listen, you know, I don’t want this to sound performative or insincere, because I know people he preys upon you. And you don’t know me from Adam. But I don’t. When I say things like this, I mean it. And you know, what? You, focus on helping people with things whose importance and relevance don’t change over time. And if anything, they become more relevant. And you have been tremendously impactful in my life. And at a time where I just felt like, there were moments, all right, I don’t meet the classic definition of this, I don’t meet the classic definition of that, am I crazy, for moving out of sports performance, and now speaking more on communication, and collectively, what we call the art of coaching is navigating the complexities of leadership, you have just brought tremendous meaning and inspiration in my life through pragmatism. And I want you to know, I value it, I appreciate it. And I wish there was a way that I could give back to you in the way that you’ve given to me. And hopefully, this podcast helps with that in some small way. And rest assured, I’ll always give you credit for anything that inspires me from you. But I just want to thank you, because you didn’t have to do this. And please let our audience know. And we’ll put it all over the show notes, all of our social media, I’ll put it on my newsletter. Let them know where they can support your upcoming book, all your previous work, and no need to spell it out. We’ll put it everywhere. But let us support you and let us get back to you.
Robert Greene 1:06:33
Well, I have one website that kind of combines all the other previous websites. That would be robertgreeneofficial.com Green as an ESPN. All one word, robertgreeneofficial.com. There you’ll find the links to Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, tick tock, yes, I have tiktok
Brett Bartholomew 1:06:53
you’re on tiktok? Oh my god.
Robert Greene 1:06:55
I am I am. You know, you have people that handle it for me. So I’m not there doing that. But I am on Tik Tok, growing that, and to some of my very old blogs, I haven’t read like 10, 12 years, but they’re there. And links to all seven of my books, I had a book that came out in October called the daily laws, which is kind of a companion to every day of the year, kind of a meditation that’s going to help you sort of deal with certain issues in your life on a day to day basis. So that’s my lab, there are links to that. And to all of my books, that would be the main place to go.
Brett Bartholomew 1:07:34
Tremendous. Well, we’ll make sure it’s there. Well, Robert, thank you again for your time. I hope to meet you in person sometime and shake your hand. Yeah, I would love that. Yeah. And take care of yourself. Okay, I’ll be first in line to get your next book when it comes out. We’ll share it with our audience.
Robert Greene 1:07:47
Okay, well, thank you very much, but I really enjoyed the interview. Thank you.
Brett Bartholomew 1:07:50
Thank you guys. For myself and Robert Greene. This has been the art of coaching podcast, signing off
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